10/20/06
Superman - Red Son
Hello. My name is Ryan, and I'm a D.C. Elseworlds addict. I can't get enough of tales that have established superhero icons being reimagined to suit the climate of the setting they are placed in. For me it started as a kid, through a combination of old Marvel What If? Comics and a Superman imaginary tale I read that had baby Kal-El (no, not Nick Cage's kid) landing on multiple worlds other than Earth, including a planet without dry land which really just made him a poor man's Aquaman. The tales back then weren't that well-written, but just the fact that they were doing something new and uncharted with old superheroes was fascinating to me.
This fascination was jump-started by what many consider to be the very first official Elseworlds tale, Batman: Gotham by Gaslight. It placed the beginnings of the Batman mythos just before the end of the 19th century, and had him going head to head with Jack the Ripper, who had moved from England to Gotham City to continue his killing spree. It came out around the same time as the first Batman movie with Michael Keaton, so it's not like there was a shortage of Batman-themed comics coming out, but the fresh new take on the character combined with the fact that it had a well-crafted story and pre-Hellboy artwork by Mike Mignola made it stand out from the pack.
Gotham by Gaslight was pretty well-received, so it wasn't long until other Elseworlds tales were made. They mainly featured the "World's Finest" heroes (that's Superman and Batman, for the uninitiated), and included switch-up tales like Superman: Speeding Bullets, which had Kal-El landing near Wayne Manor instead of Smallville and being adopted by the Waynes, and Batman: In Darkest Knight, which had the Guardians of Oa select Bruce Wayne to be the Green Lantern of sector 2814 instead of Hal Jordan. These were soon followed up by a series of Elseworlds-themed annuals, which tweaked the origins of all the major DC Icons. Most of these were fairly average, but there were a couple of diamonds in the rough, which included a Batman annual that set up Batman as a pirate-king named Captain Leatherwing and a Superman annual that had Kal-El's great great grandfather land on earth at the start of the Revolutionary War and helped England win against the American colonists.
The Elseworlds franchise really got a shot in the arm when Kingdom Come was released, but they hadn't really capitalized on its success with any new tales after that. Then Mark Millar asked a question that D.C. Comics probably would not have dared to answer had it been asked 20 years ago: What if Superman's rocket ship landed in the Soviet Union, instead of the United States? This is the controversial premise that fuels the Elseworlds epic Superman: Red Son. The hook on the top of the trade paperback sums it up nicely: "The great American icon…reimagined as a Soviet hero". Thanks to a mere 12 hour difference in arrival time, Kal-El's rocketship lands near a collective farm in the Ukraine as opposed to Smallville, Kansas. And what a difference those 12 hours make!
Red Son features Superman making his debut in the mid-1950's and bringing the ever escalating Cold War between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. into uncharted territory. At the start of this Soviet Superman's career he is not at all unlike the Superman we have come to know, being more interested in helping all mankind than toeing any political lines set for him by mentor Josef Stalin. The U.S., however, sees this Superman as a weapon that trumps any amount of nuclear missiles they could build, so they turn to Lex Luthor for help, which culminates in a battle between Superman and…well, me want to spoil it for you, so me tell you everything [;)].
The next chapter flashes forward to the 1970's. Thanks to Superman, all the world's nations with the exception of the U.S. and Chile are affiliated with the Soviet Union. However, that doesn't mean there isn't trouble on the home front, when a Russian, fuzzy-hat-wearing Batman (or "Batmankoff" as he is jokingly referred to) gums up the works in Moscow. And of course, Lex Luthor continues his quest to conquer Superman, even teaming up with Brainiac at one point. Oh well, at least he has a doting Wonder Woman to keep him company. The final chapter jumps to present-day, and the inevitable final confrontation between President Superman and newly-elected U.S. President Lex Luthor takes place.
This story was written well enough for casual comic book readers to follow and enjoy the plot. However, longtime fans of the Man of Steel are constantly rewarded with numerous references to classic Superman characters and premises, like Martha Kent showing up at one point to voice her fear of this new Commie menace and Lex inquiring after Loomis and Schott, references to old school Supes villains Toyman and Prankster.
The artwork by Dave Johnson in the first two chapters and Killian Plunkett in the final chapter capture the tone of entire story perfectly. Johnson's artwork evokes an optimistic tone which complements the first and most of the second chapter perfectly, while Plunkett's art gives off a harsher, more paranoid vibe, which jibes with the more confrontational nature of the final chapter.
The thing that Red Son really has going for it in spades are the well-executed tweaks that were made with world history both real and imagined with Superman working for the Soviets. One historical nugget that really stands out is Nixon winning the election in 1959 instead of JFK and getting assassinated in 1963, and JFK becoming president around what would have been Nixon's time in the 1970's. The oft-romanticized theory of what things would have been like had JFK lived is challenged when it is revealed he divorced Jackie Kennedy and married Marilyn Monroe. Comic-book continuity changes are even more well-conceived. For example, the Green Lantern Corps is re-imagined as the Green Lantern Marine Corps, a group of military men led by Hal Jordan using rings backward-engineered by the U.S. Government from the power ring of Abin Sur, whose ship and corpse are stashed away at Area 51 in Nevada. Certain character tweaks needed to be made to stay relevant to a story featuring a Soviet-bred Superman. Old friend Lana Lazarenko and KGB chief Pyotr Roslov are obvious references to Lana Lang and Pete Ross. The changes are, for the most part, made with very good judgement.
I only had two problems with this story. The first one is fairly minor, the fact that other than geographic location, Superman's beginnings are very much the same, with the rocket ship landing near a farm and him being raised by farmers. With the rest of the story being so innovative, the origin stands out in its blandness. The other problem I had is the ending, which I refuse to spoil. I will say that was an attempt to link Superman's end to his beginning, which comes off as rather contrived (at least in my opinion).
The Bottom Line
This is one of the most imaginative Elseworlds, no, one of the most imaginative comic book stories ever written, period. Buy this book no matter what!
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