On Bizarro Logic

In July 1961, Adventure Comics #285 premiered a character which remains as perhaps the most unusual comic book character to date. The adventures of Bizarro Superman, who we are told is an "imperfect duplicate" of Superman, rely on one running joke: Bizarro Superman does everything the opposite of normal Superman, entering through doors marked "exit," eating dinner first thing in the morning, driving a car with square wheels. Bizarro #1 (the first Bizarro to be created with the Bizarro ray) lives on a cube-shaped planet, which is inhabited entirely by duplicates of the original Bizarro family, all of whom abide by the Bizarro code, which molds their behavior to be as dissimilar to the behavior of earth-dwellers as possible. The Bizarro story lines (which ran for fifteen issues) never really followed a coherent plot, primarily serving as the means by which the writers may showcase the whacky, mixed-up lives that the Bizarros lead. For example, a typical story might find Bizarro #1 becoming a Boy Scout leader, reciting the Scout Law (which simple prefaces the twelve points of the normal Scout Law with "un"), leading Scouts on a hike in which their primary objective is to get lost, etc. The endings of these stories are always unsatisfying, bringing the action to an abrupt and confusing close, and often concluding with the Bizarros making some offhand remark about how strange Earth customs are. As if we, not they, are the strange ones!
While it is expected that Bizarro behavior might be confusing to an Earthly observer, the logic employed in the Bizarro chronicles is clearly flawed on many points. These discrepancies can generally be classified in one of three ways, which are here outlined:
1. Since not every custom on Earth has an "opposite," the Bizarros are assigned some seemingly arbitrary action to contradict our behaviors. To illustrate with two of seemingly innumerable examples, green kryptonite has no effect on Bizarros, while blue kryptonite emits a radiation which, to Bizarro creatures, is quite destructive (the same effect that green kryptonite has on Superman). Why blue is the opposite of green is anyone's guess, especially when considering that red, not blue, lies opposite green on the color spectrum. Holidays are haphazardly switched around; Bizarro New Year falls on February 14, and Valentine's Day is celebrated on the first of January. I sincerely doubt that if asked to designate a holiday to be the opposite of New Year's Day, any earth-dweller would respond with Valentine's Day.
2. Bizarros react differently to the same stimuli (behave in a different manner in two or more identical situations). This is seen with somewhat regular frequency throughout the Bizarro series. For example, Superboy plays Bizarro baseball when the weather is completely sunny and clear. No one comments on the weather, and the game continues unhindered. Later, we witness a baseball game being called on account of "good weather," which, we can assume, is unsuitable for the sport. Why, then, was Superboy's game not also called? Ordinary lead does, at first, block the harmful rays from blue kryptonite, then, in a later issue, does not, when Bizarros are injured in spite of their lead armor, and are required to make Bizarro lead as a result. The word "dull" is used with both positive and negative connotations. A Bizarro safe is established in one issue to be without a lock. This safe clearly has a back, but we later see a Bizarro safe with a lock, but no back. Only once in the entire series do we see an instance of windows being located on the floor, and in every other occurrence, we see windows affixed to the walls. Probably the most frequent inconsistency on the Bizarro planet is the manner in which money is viewed. Earth money, of course, is meaningless, but coal is extremely valuable. The attitudes towards money change often, sometimes in the same issue. We see a man who is thrilled at having lost money in the stock market, but also behold the search for a misplaced lump of coal (misplacing the coal should be desirable, applying the stock market logic). When he runs out of money, Bizarro #1 is forced to get a job, but Bizarro Perry Mason reacts favorably to a pay cut.
3. This is the most infrequently occurring quirk in Bizarro logic, but perhaps the most interesting. What the Bizarro writers failed to take into account is that a double negative statement is equivalent to the converse statement. This creates confusion in the Bizarro comics when a situation is reversed, and the Bizarros' reactions to it are reversed as well. In earth schools, a student is commended for giving correct answers. In the Bizarro world, it's just the opposite; students are encouraged to get questions wrong. On earth, the dunce cap is given to poor students as a punishment; to the Bizarros, it's a reward. Since a dunce cap is given to the "best" Bizarro student (the one that gets the most questions wrong), the dunce cap is still given to students for incorrect answers (exactly as it is on earth). This quirk figures largely in the final issue of the Bizarro series. Lois #1 decides to pursue a career as a professional wrestler. In Bizarro wrestling, when one is knocked out, he or she is declared the winner, which is sensible enough. Though the rules are twisted, they contradict earth's custom, consistent with typical Bizarro behavior. However, Bizarros also view the titles given to the participants of the match in different ways, which is to say that the "loser" is regarded much as a winner is here on earth, showered with praise and viewed as a hero, while the "winner" is jeered and held in disgrace. In trying to create a situation that was the reverse of earthly wrestling customs, the writers for the Bizarro series merely emulated earth customs, in that the object of wrestling is still to pin one's opponent.
Though the Bizarro comic books are riddled with irregularities and slip-ups, one must truly appreciate the sheer ingenuity that went into creating the Bizarro Superman universe. In spite of their blunders, the writers were true visionaries in their ability to create such a strange subplot. Perhaps we should be surprised, not that there were so many errors, but that there were relatively few. The Bizarro Universe, in my book, at least, still ranks as one of the greatest comic book innovations to ever grace the printed page.

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