Superboy #68
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeSuperboy #68 (cover-dated October 1958, on sale August 21, 1958) is the first comic book appearance of Bizarro — one of the most philosophically distinctive characters DC would ever introduce — a grotesque, imperfect duplicate of Superboy born from a malfunctioning duplicator ray. Writer Otto Binder framed the character as a Frankenstein's monster pastiche, equal in raw power to Superboy but shunned by Smallville's residents and befriended only by a blind girl, Melissa — a genuinely tragic figure whose self-sacrifice to cure her sight gave the debut story emotional weight rare in Silver Age superhero comics. The character proved so resonant that Binder brought an adult version back less than a year later in Action Comics #254 (July 1959), and Bizarro went on to headline his own backup feature, inspire a dedicated 80-Page Giant, and become a permanent fixture of the Superman mythos through every subsequent publishing era. The issue also established Professor Dalton's duplicator ray — the narrative device that would be rebuilt by Lex Luthor to spawn the adult Bizarro — making this single story the conceptual seedbed for decades of Superman continuity.
In "The Boy of Steel versus the Thing of Steel, Chapter I: The Amazing Bizarro," a malfunctioning duplicator ray creates an imperfect clone of Superboy—Bizarro—whose odd behavior draws the attention of Melissa, a kind-hearted girl who can't see. As Bizarro stumbles through his strange new existence, he finds an unlikely ally in Melissa, while the inventor Hiram and his daughter Hilda watch from the sidelines, unsure whether the flawed creation is a threat or something more.
In "[The Boy of Steel versus the Thing of Steel] Chapter II: The Runaway Super-Creature," Superboy faces off against Bizarro, who proves immune to green kryptonite—leaving the young hero to think fast. With Melissa’s safety at stake, Superboy devises a risky plan, using a dummy of her to draw Bizarro into a military ambush.
In "[The Boy of Steel versus the Thing of Steel] Chapter III: The Battle with Bizarro," Superboy faces off against his distorted mirror image, a Bizarro driven by loneliness and longing. When the monstrous duplicate is confronted with the truth—that Melissa, the girl he adores, only sees him as kind because she cannot see his face—his resolve crumbles. As the battle ends in quiet surrender, a sudden explosion restores Melissa’s sight, leaving Superboy to wonder if Bizarro, in his final moment, understood the cost of his own existence.
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The lead story, titled 'The Boy of Steel vs. the Thing of Steel,' was written by Otto Binder and drawn by George Papp, who had just transitioned to drawing the Superboy feature in Adventure Comics that same year; the cover was rendered by Curt Swan and Stan Kaye. The indicia credits Whitney Ellsworth as editor, but the Grand Comics Database notes that Mort Weisinger was the actual editorial supervisor — a common arrangement at DC in this period where Ellsworth held the nominal credit. A concurrent creative dispute has shadowed the issue's history: newspaper strip writer Alvin Schwartz maintained, according to comics historian Mark Evanier, that he originated the Bizarro concept for the Superman syndicated strip before Binder wrote the Superboy story, with one account holding that Weisinger showed Schwartz's unpublished strips to Binder, who then produced the comic book version first simply because of faster print deadlines — Superboy #68 hit newsstands on August 21, 1958, just four days before Schwartz's strip sequence began on August 25. Neither Binder nor Weisinger, both of whom died in the 1970s, publicly addressed the dispute, and DC's official credit has always been Binder and Papp.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First comic book appearance and origin of Bizarro, created by writer Otto Binder and artist George Papp; cover by Curt Swan and Stan Kaye.
- On sale August 21, 1958; cover-dated October 1958; published by National Comics Publications (DC Comics) at a cover price of ten cents, 36 pages.
- The lead story title is 'The Boy of Steel vs. the Thing of Steel'; Bizarro gets his name when Superboy calls the creature 'bizarre' and it mishears this as a proper name.
- The Bizarro of this issue — sometimes called 'Bizarro Superboy' — is a distinct character from Bizarro No. 1, the adult duplicate of Superman who debuted in Action Comics #254 (July 1959); the two are separate figures, not different ages of the same being.
- First and only appearance of Professor Dalton and his duplicator ray in this specific form; later versions of the ray are built by the Brain (Superboy #82) and by Lex Luthor (Action Comics #254).
- Bizarro is immune to Green Kryptonite in this debut, but is destroyed by physical contact with the wreckage of the duplicator ray — the conceptual precursor to Blue Kryptonite as his weakness.
- The issue's lead story was reprinted in Superman Annual #2 (January 1961), DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest #15, and the trade collection The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told (1987).
- The credited editor was Whitney Ellsworth; Mort Weisinger is identified by the Grand Comics Database as the actual supervising editor — a standard DC editorial practice of the era.
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Reprints
↩ Reprints Superboy #6 (1950), Adventure Comics #160 (1951), Detective Comics #195 (1953)
Reprinted in Superman Annual #2 (1960), DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest #15 (1981), The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told #[nn] (1988), The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told #[nn] (1989), Superman Mannen av stål [Alle Tiders Superhelter] #[nn] (2005)
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