A. Bizarro was a four-issue series DC published in 1999. That sentence comprises a full 50% of what I can tell you about this series. (The other 50% comprises of me telling you who wrote and drew the series; I’ll get to that shortly.) Beyond that there’s not much I can relate to you from a personal note. I do remember that I was living in Clifton NJ at the time I bought the comic, the first place I lived on my own. (Well, on my own with two roommates—and then one roommate and one girlfriend and while I’m sure that would make for a much more interesting blog entry, I’m afraid I’m not going there. Yet. But I digress.)
Anyway, I bought A. Bizarro in 1999, when I was living in Clifton. And aside from the fact that I used the cover of the first issue to play with my newly acquired scanner, and subsequently used said scanned image as a means of learning/experimenting with Adobe Photoshop . . . well, all that’s left is the other 50%.
So let’s get that out of the way shall we? A. Bizarro. Four issues written by Steve Geber, drawn by Mark Bright and inked by Greg Adams. Steve Gerber, for you trivia fans, has the dubious honor being the person responsible for bringing Howard the Duck into the world; which wouldn’t have been too dubious if it wasn’t for George Lucas, but that’s show business. More to the point: Steve Gerber is well-known for satirical stories, so anybody who bought A. Bizarro knew they were getting something with its tongue planted firmly in cheek.
A. Bizarro takes the conceit of Bizarro—the everything-is-opposite creature who battles/annoys Superman--and brings it down to a mortal plane. The story is: “What happens if Bizarro was just a normal, everyday schlub instead of a super-hero?” Of course, this being set in the DC Universe, our hapless Bizarro everyman still ends up meeting Superman, fights off attempts at being stolen by Lex Luthor, visits Apokolips, and, oh yeah: becomes a punk rock sensation and helps lead a revolution in a third world country.
Which is all well and good, and let me be clear that this was an enjoyable story with some genuinely funny moments: Al rocking out to a song about Mother Box, and said Mother Box’s hilarious multiple-meaning translation of the revolutionary’s Spanish are two particular favorites. But for me, what was interesting was the existential dilemma Al posed: after all, if your imperfect doppelganger turns out to be a better person than you are, what does that say about you? That’s the aspect of the story that I found most intriguing, but it doesn’t get as much focus as Al’s wacky adventures. Though those adventures are fun, they’re not exactly breaking new ground.
Really, what you have here is a perfect example of what you do about a story that is “good” but not “great”. There’s certainly nothing wrong with “good”. Trust me, out of the 6,500-plus comics I have, I can guarantee you there’ll be far more “good” than “great” to talk about (though the occasional “spectacularly crappy” will be a hoot). I got into comics because I liked G.I. Joe and Transformers; I was never looking for a new medium’s version of James Joyce. Looking back over this entry, perhaps it’s actually entirely fitting that it’s about something that was “only” fun but not memorable.
I think that last paragraph is full of potential topics to explore, but I’m certain those ideas will come up again as this project continues, so I’ll resist the urge to delve deeper for now. Instead, I think I’ll end things here and see where the next issue takes me. This project has only gotten started.
That said, I do want to point out, if you haven’t noticed yourself, that in reviewing A. Bizarro, I barely mentioned the artwork. This was not entirely accidental. You see, I wrote fiction when I was younger. In college I majored in Enligh Lit and minored in Creative Writing. If someone held as gun to my head and said “Draw a straight line or I’ll shoot.” then this entry would be posted posthumously. Which is my way of saying: my reviews will tend to favor discussing the writing over the art because I’m more interested in writing than drawing. This may be an odd way to discuss comics, which rely as heavily on illustration as they do prose, but that, too, can be a topic to discuss another time.
Next entry: dirty, filthy, indie black-and-white trash. As if there was any other kind.
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