Superman on Television
Superman: The Animated Series - Episode Reviews
Season 2 - Episode 6: "Identity Crisis"
Original Air Date: September 15, 1997Reviewed by: Jeffrey Taylor
"Me am here."
"Rocketed to Earth from the doomed planet Krypton, the baby Kal-El was found and raised by Jonathon and Martha Kent in Smallville, Kansas. Now an adult, Clark Kent fights for truth, Justice and the American way as ... Superman."
... Oh ... and then a certain hairless supervillain tried to clone him.
Bizarro Superman first appeared in Action Comic #254 in 1959. He has a VERY long and strange history. Early on he was described as unliving tissue, like rock, but only a few issues later as consisting of nuclear matter. In his first comic book appearance, he was created when Lex Luthor fired a duplicating ray at Superman. So he was essentially a clone in the beginning, then a creature from the cube-shaped planet "Htrae" (which is "Earth" backwards). Most of his early appearances described him one way and then another so many times that it just isn't possible to explain where he came from unless pointed to a specific story.
In the mid-1980's, John Byrne featured Bizarro in Superman: Man of Steel #5 during his retelling of Superman's origin, reminding readers of Bizarro's importance in the Superman universe. In that story, Lex Luthor cloned Superman so that he could have his own Man of Steel to control. Due to an X-factor in Krytonian DNA that human cloning couldn't account for, the copy's skin turned white and chalky and his behavior was erratic, emotional and unstable until Superman defeated him.
Almost a decade later in the comics, Luthor repeated the experiment to find a cure for his own clone-related disease. What made these later stories powerful was how Bizarro was a creature the reader could identify with and in the end, feel sorry for.
He appeared in most incarnations of televised Superman after his first appearance in the comics, including Superman: The Animated Series, Lois & Clark (in an episode called Vatman), Superboy, Smallville and Super Friends.
Bizarro was obviously meant to be a joke as opposed to a serious villain, living on a cube-shaped planet and being the opposite of Superman in every way. In some versions, Bizarro's pentagonal "S" symbol is backwards as well. His enduring appeal after the punchline went stale was mostly because of his innocence. He never knew any better. It's why we can still love a dog after it has chewed up an expensive pair of shoes or why you still love a baby after it has spit up on your favorite outfit. Bizarro can knock over a few Metropolis buildings, but readers and viewers don't feel the disdain toward him that we might for Brainiac or Darkseid who are calculating villains.
Rating - 5 (out of 5): If you remove certain details, this episode is almost a facsimile of Superman: Man of Steel #5, except for the drawbridge sequence taken directly from Action Comics #697. Not all Bizarro stories are instant gold, but the execution of this episode stood tall as one of the top-five installments of the entire series. The issue in question featured a Dr. Teng who was responsible for the scientific part of the cloning process. He was also in this episode, voiced by Robert Ito (TV's Highlander, X-Files).
This Bizarro developed his skin condition several minutes into the episode, but began looking and acting just like Superman. The first scene was a pricelessly hokey public service announcement about not giving into peer presure, only the Superman who gave the speech wasn't the real deal.
The first hint that the Superman who was out saving people wasn't really Superman was when he saved the life of Clark Kent who appeared to be falling to his death. The irony being that the episode was run-of-the-mill until that moment, just two minutes in, where we as the audience have a double take and suddenly want desperately to know where this is going. That's the sort of unique opportunity that a only a character like a Bizarro can offer.
The heartbreaking part of the fight between Superman and Bizarro as he transformed into a monster was that Bizarro was completely convinced that he was the real Superman. It made him far more dangerous in that moment, but also brought tremendous sympathy for him. Much like a young child needs certain degrees of leverage for behavioral issues in public, Bizarro would need the same consideration, except that with Superman's abilities he is far too dangerous to roam free.
Bizarro has always tended to cause the most damage while attempting to "save" lives. For instance the drawbridge sequence when the bridge was lifting for a boat to pass through and Bizarro held the bridge in place to make it "stop breaking." What makes Bizarro scary besides having Superman's powers is his unpredictability. He might even knock a building over just so he can save the people it's about to fall on.
Any story that features a villain with the same powers and abilities as Superman ought to have some serious action sequences. There was a lot of fist to fist fighting, but also a good deal of collateral damage.
When Lex explained how he obtained Superman's DNA, he referenced back to an earlier episode, "A Little Piece of Home" where Superman fought a robotic dinosaur while being slowly weakened by his first exposure to Kryptonite. Continuity is a wonderful thing when it works.
There could have been a better transition between Bizarro as a near-perfect clone of Superman, to his skin flaking off and becoming the monster we know and love. Instead, he appeared somewhat normal one moment, then crouched down in a dark corner for about three seconds and emerged deformed.
Luthor fired a high-powered electric gun at Bizarro that could actually take him down. Why have these never been used on Superman?
This episode also featured the return of Lex Luthor's bodyguard, Mercy, played by Lisa Edelstein, a popular character from the series who hadn't been seen for quite some time.
Tim Daly who voiced Superman throughout the series also played Bizarro, which makes sense because he's a clone. Daly went all out with these performances and brought something delightfully different from his deadpan Superman/Clark Kent voice.
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