LUDIC LOG

There's something I really, really love about "Bizarro, Private Detective!" (Adventure Comics #286, July 1961).

No, it's not that Bizarro Superman No. 1 is saying "Awp!" on the cover.

No, it's not that a Bizarro policeman wears his hat sideways, but for some reason the brim of the cap is still facing forward.

No, it's not that on page 1, Bizarro says "Alarm clock him go off!".

No, it's not that the mayor of Bizarro Metropolis wears a top hat.

No, it's not that Bizarro has a big collection of crime novels for some reason.

It's not even how Bizarro Mr. Mxyzptlk (a.k.a. Bizarro-Kltpzyxm) says "Three cheers for law! Hooray!...Hooray! ...Hooray!"

It's this: the most perfunctory, ham-fisted, "who gives a fuck, it's just kids" expositionary dialogue in the history of the written word.

BIZARRO SUPERMAN NO. 1: Awp! Me know what happened! When Bizarro Junior was fooling around with duplicator ray machine, ray shot up through fortress' cieling opening and focused on Mr. Mxyzptlk, who was flying past Bizarro World while him was visiting this dimension! Imperfect ray created imperfect Mxyzptlk duplicate...Bizarro Kltpzyxm!

BIZARRO MR. MXYZPTLK: Yes, that happened!

What's that? You want more recaps of retarded 40-year-old comics featuring a hideously deformed, developmentally disabled creature who can rip your face off with his thumbnail? You got it, Tex! From Adventure Comics #294, March 1962: "The Halloween Pranks of the Bizarro Supermen".

SPLASH PAGE: Bizarro Supermen in celebrity masks are showering some freakishly hydrocephalic Bizarro Jrs. with gifts like broken tennis rackets, oddly colored candy canes and crooked baseball bats. An introductory blurb promises that since Earth Halloween is "one of the gayest, wackiest and fun-filled of all holidays" (begging the question of what the gayest holiday is, and why Halloween isn't good enough to rate the H in "whacky"), then naturally Bizarro Halloween must be "utterly crazy", "goofed-up", "madcap", and "howlarious". I'm guessing that at this point the DC editorial staff had forsaken the mescaline and gone straight for the blotter acid.

PAGE 1: Typical intro to Bizarro World. Bizarro hillbillies do a circle dance. A race car with square wheels wins by coming in last. A Bizarro takes a bath in dirt, a huge and unexplained hole in the wall of his bathroom. A Bizarro pitchman hawks "Croaka Cola" by saying "It am awful!". A Bizarro out on a date pulls the chair out from under his Bizarro Lois girlfriend, showing the lighter side of domestic abuse.

PAGE 2: Bizarro Halloween is on May 24, which I guess is the opposite of October 31 for some reason. Bizarro Superman #1 and his "funsters" (who, we are told, are "crazily scrambled") decide to "scare" everyone by donning plastic masks of JFK, Marilyn Monroe, Jerry Lewis and Mickey Mantle. I don't know if the other Bizarros were scared, but it creeps the fuck out of me.

PAGE 3: The Bizarros pull some more "pranks", like fixing a woman's roof and watering a guy's lawn. Then, they hatch a completely insane plan to...make Bizarro Krypto eat hot dogs. They tie "cold dogs" to his tail; then Bizarro Lois/Marilyn (no, I can't keep track either) threatens to kill him with blue kryptonite if he doesn't use his heat vision to make them into hot dogs and eat them. Bizarro Superman No. 1 roars with laughter. In case you missed the sublety here: Bizarro Lois threatens to kill a dog. Then Bizarro Krypto gets sad and flies away because his master was mean, which doesn't make much sense, since Bizarros like it when people are mean to them (as we'll see), but asking for consistency in a Bizarro story is like asking for a high level of customer service at a KFC. Also, for no reason whatsoever, Bizarro Lois is seen on the last panel of this page holding a plate, upon which is either a dead chipmunk or a pile of hair. My brain is starting to seize up and we're not even halfway done.

PAGE 4: Bizarro Krypto hangs out with Bizarro Lana Lang. She has a date with another Bizarro. He gives her stinkweeds. She gives him blue K. He throws it away, because it can kill him. Bizarro Lana: "Me only wanted to destroy you to prove my love!" Bizarro Krypto: "Good riddance!". You're pretty fucking fickle there, Bizarro Krypto.

PAGE 5: Bizarro Krypto chills out with Bizarro-Kltpzyxm, who shows up out of nowhere. He creates a bunch of giant spiders who attack Bizarro Krypto, who then whales on their asses for several panels in a low point in the history of obligatory fight scenes.

PAGE 6: After destroying a huge monster that looks like a bull made of golden Kingsford charcoal briquettes, Bizarro Krypto has no one to play with anymore. The wild-mood-swing-having superdog is on the verge of bugging out on his third master in as many pages. So Bizarro-Kltpzyxm kidnaps the REAL Krypto from Earth (random Earth jerk who happens to be looking at the sky at that very moment: "*Gasp* Look! Krypto is...vanishing!!") so Bizarro Krypto will have someone to play with.

PAGE 7: Bizarro Krypto and Krypto fight. Go figure. Krypto: "Cheap, rotten imitation!" Bizarro Krypto: "Me fix you, Earth freak!" Witty Bizarro passerby: "Ha, ha! Bizarro World am going to the dogs!" High-on-drugs Bizarro passerby: "Am them buzzards? Am them choo-choo trains? No, them am...! Oh, who cares?!" Them am dogs, you fucking retards. They fight and then land in the middle of the desert, right next to the 'gift box' of blue K that Bizarro Lana's boyfriend hucked earlier. Way to tie together those loose ends, Siegel. Krypto kicks it off into space so that Bizarro Krypto doesn't die. Then he flies back to Earth. Did this make sense even to five-year-olds?

PAGE 8: The loyal-as-Iago Bizarro Krypto dumps Bizarro-Kltpzyxm and goes to hang out with Bizarro Luthor. Luthor is building a "Bizarro-Unsubmarine", which flies through the air. Why he is doing this is left unexplained. Bizarro Krypto: "Him sure am smart goof!"

PAGE 9: Bizarro Unsubmarine: "Klonk! Plonk Squeeonk!" Bizarro Luthor: "You caught periscope in teeth and am safely lowering Unsubmarine!" Bizarro Krypto: "Why not?" Sure. Why not? Bizarro Luthor foils a bank robbery by using his "Snoopy Monitor". Information on the resulting lawsuit by Charles Schultz is not immediately available.

PAGE 10: Bizarro Luthor hatches a moronic plan to use robots with claw hands to make Bizarro World round, like other planets, instead of square. Bizarro Krypto thinks Bizarro Luthor will get in trouble for this, so he decides to defeat the "scoop-happy robots". My head hurts.

PAGE 11: Bizarro Krypto defeats the robots by forcing them to play pattycake. Words cannot do justice to this incredible display.

PAGE 12: Bizarro Luthor is happy that Bizarro Krypto beat his robots, because he just "found copy of Bizarro Code which explain everything". Apparently he hasn't seen this code, which is posted everywhere on the whole planet, over the course of his entire life until this very moment. The two are having a grand old time until the SPKA (Society for Prevention of Kindness to Animals) shows up and takes Bizarro Krypto away. They return him to Bizarro Superman No. 1, who kicks the shit out of him and smashes his doghouse. Bizarro Krypto is happy about this horrific animal cruelty, because it proves his master loves him ("Him lov-vvve me! Yahoo!!"). Of course, the fickle sack of shit ran off in the first place because Bizarro was mean to him, but who's counting the contradictions at this point?

And on that touching note of animal abuse, we take our leave, because the story is over, and because if I type the word "Bizarro" one more time tonight I'm going to kill myself.