One of the core staples of comics is an opposite number or evil twin. In the late 1950's DC Comics hit upon this theme and developed an entire planet of these type of creatures with a catch, they were the imperfect duplicates of established characters. Only this wasn't a new concept, it was already explored previously and would be once more years later, as we shall see.
On Earth-One, Professor Dalton experimented on a duplicator ray which created a distorted doppleganger of Superboy, soon after destroyed. Years later, Lex Luthor recreated this device and spawned the pale jagged-skinned Bizarro, and from this template derived a whole civilization. Originally mirrored after this Bizarro Superman #1 and his mate Bizarro Lois Lane #1, after creating several of their own duplicates the original decided to build his own copies of some of Superman's closest friends like Jimmy Olsen and Perry White, and bitterest foes to add spice to life on Htrae. Htrae was a square shaped world otherwise resembling Earth which Superman created as an act of penance on one occasion. He even went so far as to create a Bizarro Justice League with a Batman, Hawkman, Aquaman, Flash aka "Hero", and Yellow Lantern... as well as some of Superman's greatest enemies including Lex Luthor, the Joker, Kltpzym and Amazo. These beings were not carbon-based life forms yet had sentience based on perverse reverse logic, deriving their matter from another reality. Earth-Two analogues would be Flying Tiger, a Fairy Tale Batman, Secret City Flash clones, Grundy Lantern, and various others.
On Earth-Two, a criminal known only as Funny Face replicated a bio-ray projector original created by Professor Anderson which Batman encountered previously, a projector which was capable of creating pseudo three-dimensional life to imaginary characters illustrated by others Utilizing this to create a gang consisting of fictional felons Torgo, Machine-Gun Mike, the Black Rider, Goola and the Viper who all plundered Metropolis. Each was confronted by Superman, and each time the malevolent mastermind's gigantic Funny Face clones appeared to torment the hero. Meanwhile, reporter Lois Lane tracked down the culprit behind these creatures, a disgruntled failure of a cartoonist who nevertheless had exceptional genius in devising the device behind these deviants. Eventually tipping Superman off as to Funny Faces' location, and that of his captured girlfriend, the Man of Steel was confronted by all five menaces. Helping her hero once more, Lois turned the projector on the same newspaper pages to bring to life these criminals' arch-enemies in Prince Peril, Detective Craig, Solitary Rider, Streak Dugan and Happy Daze which defeated their foes. While Lane was transformed by Face into an image on a page, she was revived much as Bizarro-Lois came to "life" decades later a universe away.
A decade later, Funny Face returned with an animated illustrated depiction of Superman's criminal alter ego, Flying Tiger. This was an alias used by the Metropolis Marvel to discover the source of the underworld's Kryptonite, and as such several staged thefts over the new few weeks until he earned the trust of the mysterious kingpin known as Mister K. After the disguised Clark and Lois Kent turned the tables on the crimelord, the pair thought that Flying Tiger's crooked career had concluded. However, when shortly thereafter the faux-Tiger continued in his predecessor's steps, the Bizarro of Earth-Two was born! As before, Funny Face was defeated as was his Superman-clone, who was susceptible to green Kryptonite, and like its "brothers" was returned to the newspaper from whence it came. Although, as before, Lois was transformed into a two-dimensional creature before being revived.Similarly, not to many years after the Bizarros were created, Mr. Mxyzptlk returned to Earth-One's universe and merged with an entity known as Aethyr. These two proceeded to devastate Htrae while destroying all Bizarros as well. However, there was apparently a pre-Crisis Earth-Zero that replicated Htrae with the same Bizarro inhabitants residing on it. It is quite possible and most probable that Mxyzptlk/Aethyr used its inter-dimensional abilities of the Phantom Zone to recreate these creatures in this pocket reality, in much the same way Earth-Two's Thunderbolt spawned the Lawless League of Earth-A. This Lawless team was a twisted mirror image of Earth-One's Justice league, whom the Justice Society battled. And both Bizarro and Lawless Leagues would be counterparts to Earth-Three's criminal Crime Syndicate, as well, wherein good was replaced with evil and evil with good.
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