Spinner Rack: The Superman Bizarro! Part Two

After discovering Bizarro World, Superman did the unthinkable and tried to fix some houses, thereby getting himself arrested for doing something perfect. Bizarros hate perfect. His sentence? To be turned into a Bizarro himself. And that's where Superman has a multi-page dream sequence outlining what life would be like for him were he to become a Bizarro. Suffice it to say it doesn't turn out well.

The next day the prison inmates are led into an arena. It's quite a sight seeing a bunch of guys who sort of look like Superman all hanging out together with a whole stadium full of people looking like Superman and Lois Lane… Bizarro World is strange. (Really? It's strange? Me think Joanna strange! Great, now I have Bizarro Joanna #1 and real Joanna battling it out in my brain. Must… resist… bad… grammar…)

The Coliseum looks a lot like the Coliseum in Rome, in disrepair but at least this one does have a floor. The combatants are to be like gladiators of old. They are fighting for special privileges. Superman is pitted against four Bizarro Supermans. The rules are as wacky as the contestants. “Obey rules!” says a Bizarro guard in an ancient Athenian helmet. “Superman may use his superpowers, but each one only once! He must destroy weapons of Bizarros without any harm to his own sword.”

There's only one problem — his weapon is made of soft lead and the others are using weapons of hard steel. This is going to be a tricky one. Luckily, they all attack him one at a time instead of in a group. The first attacker approaches and Superman simply melts his opponent's sword with his “x-ray vision” (this is before he started calling it his heat vision). The next attacker comes armed with a gigantic club with spikes on it. Superman swallows his sword to protect the blade and just lets the guy bust his club on Supes' invulnerable body. Superman's strategy causes the Bizarros to retreat for a moment and Supes happily thinks, “I've got them worried! I'll withdraw my sword now and trick them into using their other weapons! I must destroy their weapons to win this contest!” I love how Superman always thinks in exposition. I never think to do that when I'm in the middle of something like a gladiator contest.

The third Bizarro has a spear and he throws it at Superman. To combat this weapon, Superman freezes his leaden sword because “anything super frozen becomes hard, past the point of being brittle!” That's why he's able to chop a spear in half with his sword. The last Bizarro steps up and has a gigantic bow and arrow. Superman is a little thrown by this and then decides to unfreeze his sword and bend it into a boomerang shape. He throws this and slices through the bowstring. However, final Bizarro is a little smarter than the rest and simply hurls his own super-strong body at Superman's lead sword, bending it.

Superman's in trouble now. He didn't have time to bend his sword back into the proper shape. His sword is a rack. And the entire Coliseum gives him a thumbs down. What Superman doesn't quite understand is why they are cheering. His guard tells him thumbs up would mean he's a loser, while thumbs down means he won. It is, after all, Bizarro World. Everything is opposite. When Superman questions the rule that his weapon was to remain unharmed, the guard explains, “Yes, but your sword had perfect shape before! You made it imperfect like us!” And that made Superman a hero to the crowds. His reward? His punishment is moved up from next week to sunset. Superman is never going to master Bizarro logic.

Lois Bizarro #1 comes visiting Superman in his jail cell before sundown. In perfect English she explains that she's not the original Lois Bizarro from Earth. She just donned that medallion so she could talk to Superman. Poor Bizarro Lois number whatever, she thinks and speaks like an earther. She wants to help Superman escape so she goes up to distract the watchtower guard. Unfortunately, the real Bizarro Lois #1 shows up and they capture the fake one.

The fake Lois Bizarro #1 will be executed as soon as Superman is turned into a Bizarro. This really bothers Superman because, of course, Zara Lois Lanes don't have superpowers. Sunset comes and the kryptonite handcuffs go back on Superman. Traitor Lois is next to him, and as Superman stands against the wall waiting to be turned into a Bizarro, he has an idea!

“Judge!” shouts Superman. “Stop the executioner! I can present evidence that will make you free me!”

“Don't use ray, executioner!” responds the judge. “Me not an unfair judge! Me grant prisoner right to have new hearing in court! Remove his handcuffs!”

Oooh! This ought to the good. Superman's argument is a simple one. Everything in Bizarro World is imperfect, but there is one perfect thing. The judge is appalled that there might be something perfect in Bizarro World. Superman quickly builds a satellite with television equipment in it, shoots it into space, and lets everybody look at Bizarro World as seen from space. It is perfectly round, just like Earth.

The Bizarros are appalled. And since they are not imperfect, they let Superman go for not being imperfect. They even free the Lois who tried to help him, so Superman takes a giant scoop and makes their world into a cube. I'm not really sure how the logistics of this worked. If you fly around the world and scoop off enough earth to make it square, wouldn't you be scraping off the cities and the people while destroying the mantle and basically doing things to that world that will make it one giant catastrophe? And what's the difference if it's a perfect circle or a perfect square? Granted, it's fascinating to see that it was Superman who made Bizarro World square. I just don't quite get how he did it.

At least he is happy with himself. He comes back to Earth and, unlike his nightmare, everybody likes him. Well, everyone but Lois Lane. When Clark tells her to turn down her radio, she says, “Shame on you! Aren't you hip to the latest rock 'n roll, Clark? I suppose you want something soft and dreamy like this! You're a… a square!” With a wink, Clark thinks, “Hmm… Maybe I am! But the only thing that squared this square with the Bizarros was remembering that their world was round!” That's really reaching to get another square reference in. Well, at least he winked at us.

Be sure to come back next month for DC adventures in the silver age here in The Spinner Rack!

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