This coming week sees the re-release of
one of Mark Millar's best works. While it's not my 'Pick of the
Month' (that'll be next week and there's some great books out in
April), it is one of my favourite titles, and probably Millar's best
work after Ultimate X-Men. As
a way of getting new readers into comics, it's a superb choice, so
let's delve into Superman: Red Son.
Superman
– icon of the United States, defender of truth, justice and the
American way! But what if he wasn't? What if, instead of landing in a
corn field in Kansas, baby Kal-El's spaceship had crashed near a
commune in the Soviet Union? Raised believing the Soviet ideologies
and loathing the capitalist dictatorship of the United States, this
Kal-El is taken under the wing of Josef Stalin and groomed to become
the next leader of the USSR. Every attempt made by the US to
neutralise the Super-man is ineffective, and his alliance with Wonder
Woman and the Amazons slowly spells the end of the Cold War with the
US beginning to devolve into anarchy. There's only one guiding light
left for democracy and capitalism – a genius by the name of Lex
Luthor.
I've
mentioned this book a few times before, usually as a recommendation
for new readers. It's excellent for that purpose because it
re-imagines basically everything about Superman (and Batman, Wonder
and Green Lantern – but not Aquaman, sad) and gives you everything
you need to know about the characters. The most enjoyable part was
the conflict between Superman and Luthor - they're equals with
extremely different viewpoints, but still the same types of
characters that you'd see in the regular stories. Superman is still
someone who is trying to bring about peace and happiness for the
world, and Luthor is prepared to hurt whoever he needs to in order to
achieve his goals – it's just that this time, Luthor's the hero and
Superman's the villain. That's really the strength of an Elseworld's
tale such as this – getting to re-imagine the character but keeping
everything that makes them so iconic.
Of
course, it's not all glowing happy fun times. The stories are set
through a very specific time period – that of the Cold War, so a
lot of the Superman aspects are drawn from that as well. Classic
villains such as Braniac and Bizarro make appearances and there are
parts showing that yes, this is a horrible dystopic world for
everyone, not just America. Surprisingly, it still has a happy
ending. The whole story is very clearly Millar's work (which should
be obvious from the moment he introduces Lex and the standard 'this
person is incredibly smart because of chess/Rubik's cubes' monologue
begins). Don't hold that against it though – the story makes an
incredible argument about who Superman is, as well as the pitfalls of
capitalism relying on people like Luthor. That's really the extent of
the political discourse in the book – at three issues, there's not
a lot of space for in-depth analysis and people are more interested
in seeing Russian Batman swing away from a Hind gunship than reading
about the free market.
Even
as the Cold War falls further and further behind us, this book will
stay a classic as a highlights who Superman is, by showing us what he
could have been. A strong book that is always worth a read, even if
Superman isn't your favourite character.
Superman:
Red Son – 9781401247119 – Mark Millar - $29.99 – 168 pages
No comments:
Post a Comment