Bizarro: Year None #3 // Review
Bizarro arrives at an apartment fire. He’s bringing-along Jimmy Olsen, He’s looking to get advice on what Superman would do. And while it’s pretty obvious what Superman would do in the event of a building on fire, things are going to have a tendency to get a bit confusing in Bizarro: Year None #3. The writing team of Kevin Smith and Eric Carrasco reaches the penultimate chapter into an enjoyably philosophical look at Bizarro with artist Nick Pitarra and colorist Michael Garland. Smith and Carrasco continue to explore some of the strangely untapped thematic potential of a deeply appealing and relatable character.
Bizarro has no difficulty pulling people out of the burning building. In a normal world, that might be grateful for having their lives spared. This isn’t a normal world, though. The moment everyone is safely out of the burning building, they run straight back into it again. He used to save the people in question every day. Now they don’t want to be saved. Now they’re more interested in the fire than being saved from it. Jimmy Olsen can explain the Bizarro what’s happened, but he’s going to have to really listen if he’s going to be able to understand why...
There are some really deep themes being explored by Smith and Carrasco. The writers climb through the strange machinery of a world that is fundamentally unsettled. It’s trying to live-up to some kind of ideal, but that ideal is an abstract. Somewhee in the midst of it all, there’s this aspiring journalist who is trying to help the world understand itself just a little bit better so that it can possibly achieve a greater stabiliy. There’s something deeply moving about that. It’s filled with a kind of longing that seems to be heading towards a rather powerful conclusion.
Piarra’s art looks quite unlike anything else on the comics rack today. His scratchy, sketchy linework and strange sense of proportion really amplifies the overall immersive sense of surrealism and imperfection that anchors the story. It would all run the risk of looking like uneappealing messiness and nervous tension were it not for Michael Garland’s rich and varied colors. The world feels deeply engaging on a warm emotional level that celebrates impefection in a way that matches the script...perfectly. There’s such a strong sense of intensity about it all that reaches a level of emotional authenticity not often found in anything featring Bizarro.
It’s kind of difficult to talk about missed potential in a mini-series that is SO deeply-rooted in a celebration of imperfection. The basic elements of the story that Smith and Carrasco are working with feel like they could be more or less at home with just about any artist so long as they fully embraced their own sense of imperfection. That being said...there are endless possibilities for how a script like this could look on the page...all of which would be amplifying different things. There are simply so many possibilities with a script like this.
