In 1942, a failed cartoonist invented a bio-ray, which he used to bring cartoons of his competitors to life. Calling himself Funny Face, this man sought vengeance for not being recognized as a talented artist, and sought ill-gotten wealth which his animated creations had stolen for him. Despite this, the golden age Superman was able to defeat he and his manufactured minions. The technology behind his bio-ray would be used soon after with the goal of exposing the Earth-Two hero's secret identity of Clark Kent!
Something similar happened on Earth-One, when Lex Luthor rebuilt a duplication projector, which created an imperfect non-living version of Superman. Known as Bizarro, this creature repeatedly pestered his “twin” Kal-El… while using the duplicator to create Bizarro versions of Lois Lane, Perry White, Luthor and others. They ended up migrating to the squire world of Htrae. Eighteen of their Tales of Bizarro World would be told.
A series of seventeen (actually eighteen, including a published tale in Superman #19 that also saw the debut of Funny Face) animated shorts regarding fictional tales of a cartoon version of Superman were brought to life*. This character had the same backstory as Kal-L, and because the projector which brought him to “life” was similar to the bio-ray, he imitated aspects of Superman’s history. The creator of this medium, writer Jerry Siegel, was also the mastermind behind Funny Face. In these shorts, besides Kal-L, there was a Lois Lane, Perry White, a recurring Mad Scientist foe and others. Why Siegel sought to reveal Superman’s secret identity as Clark Kent to fellow reporter Lois, and the world, is unknown. But then, he tended to do that in stories.
It had been theorized that the mystery man behind the mask of Funny Face was Siegel himself, and Superman admitted that the man who conceived the animated tales was also Siegel. This pseudo-Superman was similar to the “handsome” Bizarro which the original created as an “imperfect” version** of himself to date Lois. Just as this second Bizarro had a short lifespan, so too had Funny Face’s later duplicate of Superman, the Flying Tiger (who a now married Clark and Lois created as a cover alias for Superman to help him versus a foe).
* This animated Superman was seen interacting with his real life template, Clark Kent, at the end of his second theatrical tale.
** As film reels are duplicated and distributed to multiple movie theaters across America and later the world, the synthetic sentient Supermen and Lois Lanes in each of these mirrored the additional Bizarro Supermen and Lois Lane clones on Htrae.
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