Superman TAS S02E20 Review: Me No Am Stoopid

Superman: The Animated Series, Season 2, Episode 20: Bizarro's World

I've always found Bizarro to be an interesting character in both the comics and the cartoon. He's a clone of Superman, yet his twisted logic means that he acts opposite to how Superman would. He's created to be a destroyer, to be the anti-Superman, yet thrust into a world where his logic doesn't work right, it's a very interesting situation indeed. Without trying to have any obvious parallels to real-life autism or mental diseases, Bizarro's an interesting character in his own right. 

So while Lois is still trying to follow up on finding out if Bizarro truly perished at the end of "Identity Crisis", the man in question ends up running around, scaring everyone in his path, until by happenstance he ends up finding his way to the Fortress of Solitude, where the Brainiac Orb shows Bizarro the life on Krypton that Kal-El had, causing Bizarro to go on a rampage as he wrecks Metropolis in an attempt to rebuild Krypton and, later, as we find out, re-enact Krypton's destruction. It's a bit light-hearted as the long-suffering SCU officers Dan Turpin and Maggie Sawyer completely fail at containing the situation, as Lois tries to hang around with Bizarro to pacify him... and, well, Bizarro's remodelling efforts are quite funny, complete with stealing a random usher or whatever that he thinks is "da-da" Jor-El.

Superman's lighter side is shown here, where I've criticized him in some previous episodes (notably the second Metallo episode) for being written as a callous hero, and he tries his best to talk to Bizarro, to understand him while at the same time subduing him before he can hurt people. Hence, the kryptonite and the lead suit. Things go south, however, but Superman still gives Bizarro a chance to redeem himself -- if he 'destroys' Krypton... of which this is not, he will kill Lois as well, something that Bizarro refuses to let happen.

Superman saves the day, and yet Bizarro is a bit too much of a menace to keep around considering his destructiveness. Perhaps it is slightly uneasy that Superman just kicks Bizarro into his own world with Krypto to protect, but at the same time there's really not much in lieu of options considering rehabilitating Bizarro would probably end badly for Earth. 

DC Easter Egg Corner:

• Bizarro last appeared earlier this season in "Identity Crisis".
• Bizarro World (a.k.a. thraE) in the comics is introduced around the 1960's, a cube-shaped world that hosted Bizarro-versions of Earth's superheroes, and was subsequently destroyed by Mxyzptlk prior to the Crisis of Infinite Earths maxi-event. Various versions of Bizarro World would appear later on.
• As with the comics, Bizarro is immune to normal green Kryptonite. Instead, he possesses a weakness to the blue variant of kryptonite, though we don't get to see that here. 
• Krypto, in the comics, is the name of Superman's pet dog, otherwise known as Super-Dog. While the traditional Krypto had a brief cameo in the pilot, Bizarro's alien Krypto is the main owner of the name in the DCAU.