After taking a week of from comics as a whole, I decided to jump back into DC by picking up a book that wasn’t on my radar. Bizarro was the title of choice, thanks in part the the fantastic looking cover. Darwyn Cooke serves as guest artist on this issue and for that alone I can recommend this book to anyone looking for something special. The book is silly, fun, lighthearted, and begs to be enjoyed over and over again.
Cigam! Look out Zatanna—you’re about to meet your match in backwards magic spells when Bizarro and Jimmy break up your act in Branson, Missouri!
Bizarro and his pal Jimmy Olsen are bumming about the country, with Bizarro getting into all sorts of trouble, thanks mostly in part to his backwards interpretation of everything. Bizarro is an interesting character to begin with, and a serious threat to the god-like Superman, but I really think he’s best suited for these lighthearted stories. It allows him to be a vessel to a grander moral story that people of all ages can understand.
“Branson, Machu Picchu and Euro Disney. All sacred spots.”
Jimmy this time around is no Boy Scout. He is essentially “friends” with Bizarro only because he is hoping to use the pictures taken on this little adventure to score a best-selling coffee-table book about Bizarro. The Superman world has always been pretty boring in my opinion, so seeing Jimmy as the sort of villain in this book was pretty refreshing.
Along the way the pair end up catching a performance being put on by Zatanna, because as we all know Bizarro hates a magic show. I can’t really blame him as I’m a fan of magic as well, especially if Zatanna is the one putting it on. It’s always nice to jump into a random book and see one of your favorite characters pop up within the pages to liven things up.
Zatanna of course needs a volunteer during her performance and Bizarro is more than happy to partake in her show. With her of course being a real magician, she ends up zapping Bizarro into various worlds within the DC universe to wait while she finishes her trick after realizing who he is. This leads to a number of fun pages that sees Bizarro being dropped into places like The Rock of Eternity, Gemworld, Hades, The House of Mystery, Skartaris, and even The Parliament of Trees.
While on his adventures he manages to pick up a few tricks of his own and uses Zattana’s own magic against her when he reappears. It’s all really well handled with the artwork knocking it out of the park. The humor in the writing is excellent and flows very smoothly, never allowing the book to lose its pacing. And while all that would already make for a dense story, it keeps it going by pulling a body-swap between Bizarro and Jimmy Olsen.
It’s really nice to see Bizarro basically turn into a powered down Man of Steel. Bizarro is always the one that is misunderstood and never understands why this world doesn’t see him the may he wants. In his new position he finally gets the opportunity to see life from our point of view, and the results are themselves rewarding to him and the reader.
We tie this little adventure up with a cameo from Argus agents that bear a striking resemblance to Agents Mulder and Scully from the X-Files. Bizaro #4 was already an amazingly fun read, but now I’m even more excited about seeing where the story goes from here.
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