Okay, let us have a little honesty and perspective on Villains Month. Standing knee-deep in this week’s issues, it has become clear that these are shill properties, books designed to push readers into something else. Sometimes they’re pushing the event book Forever Evil, sometimes it is directing readers towards an individual book. Bizarro #1, aka Superman 23.1, is all about Forever Evil.
First, this is not really a book having anything to do with Bizarro. Don’t let the cover fool you, Bizarro #1 is showing us how different the Bizarro idea will be from the original DCU. No more backwards planet. When Bizarro finally does spring forth, he will come from the mind of Lex Luthor. Huh? How is that? Well, that’s what Bizarro #1 is all about.
Luthor hates Superman. We all know that. In the New 52, it’s manifested itself in a few different ways, one being a showdown where a bloodied young Superman is obsessed with getting his cape back from Luthor. Annoyed at this insipid request, Luthor becomes overjoyed when he discovers some of Superman’s blood on his coat. Jump ahead a few years, and Luthor is busy trying to replicate the DNA of Superman, plus add it to human strands of DNA. Luthor wants to create his own man of steel, one that is subservient to him and will kill the real Superman.
So Luthor studies the blood, creates DNA, hires a patsy, and injects him with the DNA. Things go horribly wrong. The human mutates, continuously, and the first glimpse of Bizarro is born. He chases Luthor down, attempting to kill his maker. Luthor throws everything, including kryptonite, at this mutating beast but to no avail. Luthor finally escapes by forcing the mutation to mutate into an explosion. Now, with all Bizarro’s DNA bleeding from the walls, Luthor decides to clone Superman and build an entire army.
Writer Sholly Fisch tells a decent story here. It’s not spectacular, and I have to admit some level of disappointment with Bizarro being a science experiment, but overall the story is entertaining. At the end of Forever Evil, it looks as if Lex Luthor might not jive with the Crime Syndicate. I’m curious if he uses this new DNA to build an army that can take on the CS. Even if Bizarro is only an experiment, at least he’s here.
Jeff Johnson’s art is a little too goofy for this issue. Johnson has an obvious love for ’80s comic book art. The lack of shading, the broad backgrounds and his use of overly thick lines are well executed, but wrong for this Bizarro story. With so much death and pain involved, there is an inherent need for something dark, shaded, and a bit less cut and dried. Johnson’s work isn’t bad, it just fails to meet the dramatic requirements of Bizarro #1.
(2.5 Story, 2 Art)
