5 Best Bizarro Superman Stories, Ranked

There are a lot of great characters that make up the overall supporting cast for DC’s Superman. From heroic allies to challenging villains, to even deeply important loved ones and trusted friends, there is no shortage of characters to populate Superman stories and thrill readers in the process. However, while there are a lot of interesting and unique figures, there are none quite like Bizarro. A “mirror” version of Superman, Bizarro first appeared in Superboy #68 in 1958. While the character hasn’t necessarily had a huge footprint in DC Comics, every time he does appear it’s an interesting story, with the character becoming an antagonistic, but often tragic fan favorite.

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While Bizarro has undergone some shifts and changes over the years, he’s always a great character and one we wish we could see more of. Until then, we’ll just have to be satisfied with the great Bizarro moments in comics we already have — and here are the best ones, ranked.

5) “The Battle With Bizarro” and “The Bride of Bizarro” (Action Comics #254-255)

Some of the best Bizarro stories come from the Silver Age of comics and that includes what is essentially a two-part tale, “The Battle With Bizarro” and “The Bride of Bizarro” from Action Comics #254 and #255 from 1959. In the story, Lex Luthor hears about Bizarro Superboy created by Professor Dalton and decides he wants to create a Bizarro Superman to mess with the hero. After some trickery to get Superman to be duplicated, Lex succeeds, but Bizarro isn’t the evil his creator hoped he would be. In fact, Bizarro ends up helping Superman deal with Lex but being a hero doesn’t work out for Bizarro due to his appearance and things take a turn when a sad and defeated Bizarro misunderstands Lois’ praise.

Believing Lois is in love with him, he kidnaps her with the intent to marry her. When she rebuffs him, Bizarro (who is actually pretty intelligent) concocts a wild plan to get her to marry him. Things end up with Lois ultimately coming up with the idea to create a Bizarro Lois for Bizarro and when the two meet, it’s love. It’s happily ever after for everyone — except the real Lois who asks Superman when he’ll propose to her and he sort of just dodges the question.

4) “The Mirror, Crack’d” (Man of Steel #5)

Crisis on Infinite Earths changed everything for a lot of DC characters, including Bizarro, who got a new origin, though not terribly off from his first one. In Man of Steel #5, Lex has a clone of Superman created, but it doesn’t work the way he had hoped, leading to a “bizarre” version that Lex demands be destroyed. The copy survives, however, though he’s not particularly intelligent and mute and has vague memories of Clark Kent and Superman’s life. Bizarro tries to mimic Superman, even going so far as to kidnap Lois.

What’s interesting about this story is that it also suggests that Bizarro has a heroic nature. Each time Bizarro exerted himself in the story, he started to crumble apart and is ultimate destroyed when he and Superman collide, with Bizarro turning into a cloud of dust. That dust comes into contact with a blinded Lucy Lane and cures her — something that is suggested that Bizarro knew would happen so he allowed himself to die to cure her.

3) “The Kookie Super-Ape” (Adventure Comics #295)

While Bizarro and Bizarro Lois left Earth to be together, that doesn’t mean we’ve seen the last of them. Adventure Comics #295 introduces the cube-shaped planet Htrae, the world where the Bizarros live and they are not alone. Bizarro has created a whole world of Bizarros for Bizarro World and the story “The Kookie Super-Ape” sees Bizarro Lois as the world’s women’s wrestling champion after a loss to Bizarro Lana. If she can’t lose her title to someone else in 30 days’ time, she’ll be exiled to Earth so Bizarro goes looking for someone to fight her and creates Bizarro Titano, aka “Big Ape”.

This is an absolutely bonkers story that maybe isn’t as dramatic as some of the others, but there’s just something delightful about Bizarro making a duplicate Titano that always gives a chuckle — and how Bizarro Lois ends up winning is an absolute hoot.

2) “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow” (Superman #423)

This story is actually a little sad when it comes to Bizarro. In “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow”, Superman comes back from space and finds Metropolis has been badly damaged by Bizarro. Superman confronts Bizarro, who tells Superman that he has realized he hasn’t been a “perfect imperfect duplicate” so he went about rectifying it in a misguided way — including destroying Bizarro World to duplicate the destruction of Krypton.

Bizarro ultimately comes to the realization that with Superman needing to live, he needs to die so Bizarro kills himself with blue kryptonite after saying goodbye to Superman. It’s very strange, but also very sad and while it’s an event that to an extent seems like a way to just easily get rid of Bizarro, the story is well-written and a true classic, even if it is the demise (for now) of Bizarro.

1) “Bizarro Meets Frankenstein” (Superman #143)

Considering that Frankenstein was an inspiration for Bizarro, it only makes sense that the number one story on our list be Superman #143, “Bizarro Meets Frankenstein”. On Bizarro World, Bizarro and his family watches some Earth television and they really like horror movies (they think they’re funny.) Bizarro boasts that he’s the greatest monster but is humbled when a movie about Frankenstein’s Monster is advertised. Not to be shown up, Bizarro heads to Earth to fight him.

Considering that Frankenstein’s Monster is a fictional character and the advertisement was for a movie, things go off the rails pretty fast. Bizarro attacks the actor playing the monster, Bizarro tries to prove how fearsome he is but only gets laughs, Bizarro gets mad about it trashes a movie set. Superman ultimately tricks Bizarro into believing he’s scared everyone by using a static electricity generator and a happy Bizarro goes home, taking a puppet of the scariest thing on Earth to his kids (that being a puppet of Superman.) It’s another bonkers Bizarro story, but the tie in with his inspiration is brilliant which earns it the top spot on our list.

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