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Rating:  -
"Superman: Red Son" features the most brilliant premise I've seen in the Elseworlds series: the boy of Krypton lands not on a rural American farm, but instead on a rural Soviet collective during the same time. Naturally as he grows up he acculturates into the Soviet Union and finds its values natural and right.
What a wonderful opportunity to explore the origins of right and wrong, of our conceptions of justice, and how our ideas about morality are largely products of a place and time we were born into without being consulted about the matter.
At least, this is what I thought this graphic novel was going to be as I eagerly awaited it in the mail. (It seems to be in the process of going out of print.)
Alas! When it arrived, it was a comprehensive disappointment. Sure, I didn't have the setup wrong, but what could have been an immortal exploration of the tyranny of culture and the genealogy of morals got quickly bogged down in explaining how the new milieu dovetailed with the doings of the other DC heroes, and what was going on back stateside. The remainder of the book involved a hackneyed plot to wreak destruction by -- you guessed it -- Lex Luthor.
What a lost opportunity. Needs to be redone.
Rating:  -
A self contained Superman story that was absolutely incredible. I'm not even a big Superman fan, but if I had to shove one Superman book into a friends face to read, it would be this one. Actually if a friend asked me to borrow my top favorite graphic novels, this would be one of them in the stack along with books like Dark Knight Returns, Watchmen, Sandman and Hellboy.
But let me tell you how I really feel... :)
The artwork is very nice all the way through the book. I have no complaints here. Does a beautiful job bringing the story to life.
The story in case you haven't figured it out yet, is sort of a "What if" Superman landed as a child in the Soviet Union instead of America. It seemed so simple and so well done that I just couldn't believe it had not been written until now.
Luthor, Green Lantern Rings, Wonder Woman, Batman...All play more than exciting roles in this book.
It ends very well, with a full circle of events that I found brilliant. .
Highly recommended
Rating:  -
This is a 5-star concept with some 3-star execution. Had DC published this more along the lines of it's Vertigo imprint, we would have really seen Millar shine. As it is, it seems he is holding back a bit to make this more palatable to a DC/Superman audience.
Don't get me wrong - I'm a huge Millar fan and the concept of the book is brilliant. However, there's a campy atmosphere throughout the book that holds it back. The premise seemed to deserve something just a little... weightier.
The artists also seemed to not know whether to pay tribute to the simpler days of Superman or to something more edgy, and visually the book seems caught in the middle, achieving neither that Curt Swan chipperness nor that Frank Miller (or even John Cassady) weight.
Then again, Supes has always seemed like a campy character and perhaps giving him the weight of something like 'Old Man Logan' or even 'Watchmen' would not be in keeping with his history - or with the primary Superman audience.
A lot of the brilliant ideas in here are a pastiche of other revisionist superhero stories and "superheroes in the real world" storylines.
Millar borrows from Alan Moore's 'Miracleman.' The ultra-powerful human narrating his conversion of the world to a utopia from a future perspective is right out of Miracleman. He even gives a tip of his hat with a cameo of Dr. Sivana, the character from Captain "Shazam" Marvel who inspired a similar character in Miracleman (formerly Marvelman.)
Millar borrows a little bit from Frank Miller's Dark Knight. Batman finds a weakness of Superman's and exploits it to physically kick Supes' butt. Also, Batman has a legion of followers (the Batmen) that remind one of Miller's S.O.B.'s (Sons of the Batman.)
Published in 2004, this story also gives a nod to Millar's friend Warren Ellis and the Ellis/Cassady collaboration 'Planetary.' Lex Luthor's usurping the Green Lantern technology from a crashed alien ship echoes Ellis' 'Planetary' treatment of the evil "4" capturing the alien Green Lantern and using his technology to further their own evil plans. Ellis penned that story circa 2001.
Bizarro's brief appearance culminating in his heroic self-destruction brings to mind John Byrne's similar treatment of Bizarro in his 'Man of Steel' revamp in the 1980's.
Finally, at the end, the time travel sequence is not entirely original. My favorite version of this convention is in John Byrne's 'Next Men,' where the villian Satanas travels back in time to begin the time line that created him in the first place - a closed historical loop.
Lex Luthor's creating supervillians is another variation on one of Millar's favorites: the idea of superheroes/villians as super-soldiers. (He takes it on in the 'Authority,' 'War Heroes,' and the 'Ultimates.')
Mark Millar also tackled the "all powerful being attempts to create utopia" scenario in the 'Authority,' picking up where Warren Ellis left the series and taking it into the same moral shades of gray we see in 'Red Son.' Not everyone is happy having utopia forced on them!
All of which only proves that Millar loves comic books as much as any of his readers, and he has his thumb on the pulse of relevant ideas. Maybe he felt that no one had ever applied these concepts to the most powerful and iconic hero of our times, and this was his turn.
I don't mean to knock the book. It was a good read, if only slightly disappointing after reading all the rave reviews here on Amazon. I've seen Millar's 5-star work, though - and when he is paired with the right artist team, the execution is delivered with more power and grace than Red Son achieves. If you really dug this book, track down some of these other titles mentioned in this review and give them a shot.
Millar totally doing away with Superman's need for a 'secret identity' is a great idea. I never understood why anyone as powerful as Superman would pretend to be some regular doorknob. Then again, I can't buy that anyone as powerful as the son of an all powerful god would let a bunch of losers nail him to a couple of boards. I just don't buy the concept, and apparently neither does Mark Millar. Superman doesn't waste his time changing in phone booths - he is too busy changing the world.
Also a thumbs up for keeping out of ridiculous love triangles with human beings. He's godlike. I never could see him frittering around in some teenage love triangle with Lois and Lana (as much as I like the characters, please. The guy's like a god.)
All in all, great concepts, just not a home-run like I had hoped for after Ultimates, Ultimate X-Men, Old Man Logan, Civil War, and the Authority.
Rating: -
I have never been a die-hard Superman fan, although I enjoyed a few of the movies and the Lois and Clark TV series when I was younger. My stepfather is a lifelong comics fan and got me into The Teen Titans--from there I expanded out into Batman and Nightwing. Those got me interested in Superman, so I began looking for a good Supes book. I was intrigued with the premise of this one and the reviews for it were all very good, so I decided to give it a try. That was an excellent decision! I like the idea behind the story, and it made me wonder what other characters would be like in other situations/time periods.
Now, if you are not totally up on the historical details/facts of the 20th century, then you might be more than a little lost at some points in the book. I had to look up a great deal of information to totally understand what was going on, but that is my only pet peeve. And really, there is no way this story could have worked without the historical events. Look at it as a fun way to learn history.
The art was very well done; the dialogue seemed a little off in places though. And as I mentioned, you might need help following some of the plot if you are not up to date on events. Still, it was a great book and I think every comics fan should read it, Superman fan or not.
Rating: -
Read it you won't be disappointed. So much grey area between good and evil. really loved the blurred lines. Superman as a commie has so much more depth of character than his 1950s Americana counterpart.
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