For the longest time, I wasn’t a fan of Superman. Of course, I was a kid when I began feeling this way, so a big part of it was that Supes just wasn’t cool. Over the years that preconceived notion warped and bent into the view that there was no way a goody two-shoes like Clark Kent with the powers of a near-god could be a compelling character — an opinion that I didn’t have any actual experience to support. Of all the writers that could have changed my mind, it ended up being Mark Millar and his miniseries Superman: Red Son with artist Dave Johnson. I picked it up on a whim, justifying the purchase to myself with a “well, I don’t like Superman, but the concept sounds neat, and it’s the same guy who wrote The Ultimates, so it must be good” (I was new to comics at the time, so I wasn’t aware that Millar had also written comics like, say, The Unfunnies). When I finished it, my views on Superman were changed forever.
If you haven’t heard of the Eisner-nominated miniseries, the basic concept is “What if Kal-El’s spaceship landed in the Soviet Union instead of Kansas?” Taken under the wing of the Soviet government, Superman becomes the nation’s greatest hero and leads them into an age of prosperity unlike anything the world has ever seen… until it all inevitably begins to fall apart. The ending is one of those things that you’ll either love or hate, but until then it’s an exciting read that will make you think about… well, a lot of things. Communism versus capitalism, totalitarianism versus anarchy, the limits of responsibility, and the cost of good intentions.
More importantly, though, it’s about the concept of Superman. At a casual glance, Superman looks like your cardboard cutout do-gooder, righting wrongs more as a reflex than anything else. Unlike your standard cliche character, though, he’s more or less invulnerable, making things seem even more flat and uninteresting. The thing is, what Superman really “is” blends in with the reactionary, bland heroes of lesser stories, but is really something else entirely. Doing good isn’t something passive for Superman; he doesn’t “just do it.” No, Superman is all about consciously trying to make the world a better place. That’s something else entirely, and Red Son demonstrates that. Sure, Superman may be invulnerable, but he’s still fallible. Superman makes mistakes — and apparently big ones, as you find out near the end of Red Son — but those mistakes are born out of the best of intentions. As mentioned before, though, Superman is nearly a deity, and the repercussions of any mistakes he makes are far larger and more dangerous than any your average man might make. He’s your average guy trying to do the best he can for the world, but his responsibilities are enough to make the average guy weep in despair. This has been true for decades, but it took reading Red Son
for me to realize that. Thankfully, it did an incredible job of illustrating that responsibility. Not an interesting character my ass.
There are plenty of other great things about this comic. The artwork is incredibly solid all around. Millar’s Luthor is pretty much perfect. Batman is a fuzzy hat-wearing anarchist. But that’s my main reason for loving Red Son.Since then, Clark has become one of my favorite characters, and I’ve been on the hunt for whatever great Superman stories that I can find ever since. I’ve read a few (keyword: few) that are better than Red Son, but Millar’s acclaimed miniseries will always hold a place in my heart for making me realize “Wait a minute, Superman is awesome after all!” Sorry, Bat-fans: real men (and women!) like Superman.
