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4.03 AVERAGE
4.03 AVERAGE
I don't really like Superman as a character all that much. Something about him just doesn't do it for me. But I was greatly intrigued to give this a read since Superman and America basically go hand in hand. So how would Superman work as the hero of the U.S.S.R.?
This is definitely one of the better comics I've read lately and probably my favorite Superman comic. Mark Millar works the original Superman lore and characters into the Russian setting and it works so well. I really enjoyed the moral issues Superman faces and it was definitely interesting to see how he works to justify and spread the communist ideal across the world but also has to confront what to do with people who disagree. The art in this was fantastic, it had a kind of retro vibe to it that I loved a lot. This was very well done and executed wonderfully and I appreciated that this Elseworld didn't feel unbelievable or corny. All around just a great comic.
This is definitely one of the better comics I've read lately and probably my favorite Superman comic. Mark Millar works the original Superman lore and characters into the Russian setting and it works so well. I really enjoyed the moral issues Superman faces and it was definitely interesting to see how he works to justify and spread the communist ideal across the world but also has to confront what to do with people who disagree. The art in this was fantastic, it had a kind of retro vibe to it that I loved a lot. This was very well done and executed wonderfully and I appreciated that this Elseworld didn't feel unbelievable or corny. All around just a great comic.
Je m’attendais à bcp plus. Le meilleur moment est la dernière scène
As a graphic novel, this is probably worth 5 stars. The art and design add to the story and make this a top notch effort. The story itself is good, certainly innovative, but maybe not different enough? I guess ultimately it is difficult to separate Superman from his original origin story. So one spends this story just contrasting one origin story from another, and deciding if it makes sense for Superman to act in the new way. Ultimately alternate histories are more fun for me when based on real history as opposed to just a different made up history.
A particularly good story for a comic book - it has all the elements of the Man vs. God, in a twisted story in which Superman lands 12 hours too late on Earth, into Ukraine.
There are some things I did not like, and did not find very believable. Ukrainian love of communism is suspect and there are times when Superman doesn't make sense in this incarnation. At times he is comically simple, especially if you think about the episode in which a single phrase turns against his willpower.
Lex Luthor becomes a very negative positive character, and Lois Luthor is a character that could've missed entirely. Other than that it was a splendid, interesting, condensed story.
There are some things I did not like, and did not find very believable. Ukrainian love of communism is suspect and there are times when Superman doesn't make sense in this incarnation. At times he is comically simple, especially if you think about the episode in which a single phrase turns against his willpower.
Lex Luthor becomes a very negative positive character, and Lois Luthor is a character that could've missed entirely. Other than that it was a splendid, interesting, condensed story.
Red Son is an elseworlds story positing what might have happened if the pod carrying the infant Superman would have crash landed on a farm in the Soviet Union under Stalin's rule. It's a pretty awesome idea for an elseworlds story, but I thought it could have been much better than it was. I suppose I can cut some slack for the fact that it was only three issues long.
The idea behind the overarching plot, though it comes at it from an entirely different setup, is that superheroes have the ability to change the world and help humanity - but should they? It’s sort of another riff on the "With great power comes great responsibility" idea - or maybe more along the lines of "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The questions of this nature explored in Red Son are very similar to the questions asked in Kingdom Come. But where Kingdom Come posits that Superman is ultimately sort of more human than human, and would never forget his roots even if he got a little distracted in a quest to make the world a better place, Red Son seems to be saying that just being born and raised in Communist Russia would take things to an entirely different and necessarily bad end, that his desire to help humanity would inadvertently lead to his becoming a dictator.
In a way this makes sense; Clark Kent is so inherent to Superman's character, and the very concept of him. It's interesting to think about what Superman would be like if Clark Kent were not the really good guy we know and love, but someone else entirely - 'born' somewhere else, and raised by different people in a different environment. But I think it's a little insulting to say that, even without changing much else in his upbringing - still growing up among hard working farm folk, even if they aren't gone into in any detail - just growing up in Communist Russia would take away all the goodness in Superman that would keep him from becoming the controlling leader of a totalitarian regime. It also portrays the perfect society Superman builds as being inherently flawed, while the virtually identical one Luther replaces it with is somehow happier and more stable, which just seems like rhetoric to me.
That being said, the book is in many ways equally as critical of both anarchist martyrs and capitalist demi-gods. It seems to highlight the goods and ills of all three main political dogmas. And truthfully, it is only all the people opposed to Superman in the book who seem to think he is power mad and selfish. Superman is actually portrayed more as being caught up in the whirlwind and just wanting to help, which seems more natural to me.
I suppose in a way, because he is so perfect, and because of his unfailing black and white morals, Superman always leans toward the line of Fascism - like Captain America, perhaps. That's something that gets to be explored more in this book, and I appreciate that.
As far as form goes, the story is a bit rushed. A lot happens very fast, and for all the major player cameos that are given space (there's even an elseworlds communist Batman origin story and an unresolved revenge plot going along with that) there are other things not gone into enough or completely left out. Superman's childhood is pretty much glossed over - if the book is supposedly positing that a different origin/upbringing would change who Superman is (something I agree with and find fascinating) it would be nice if they focused on all aspects of that. I don't know very many (or any!) people whose entire personalities are formed more by their national climate and surrounding political dogma than by their parents and childhood experiences. I also think other books set around the cold war have given a better feel of what that time was like. Red Son, for all its emphasis on the Soviet Union and the competition with the United States, doesn't portray that period with any weight or realistic feeling. I also think the tone and voice of Superman are all wrong; he doesn't read like Superman at all - which is maybe to be understood, given the changes made to his character - but he doesn't seem much like a Stalinist either. He doesn't even sound Russian, in tone or mannerism. (I'm glad they avoided giving him some kind of dialect accent, though.) And finally, the book has an interesting looping effect in the story that I'm not sure I like... I think it's a bit cheesy. I also thought that the way Luthor finally 'defeats' Superman was a bit lame.
Overall Red Son has a really cool concept, and despite all the little things that I found to be disappointing in the execution of story, it is interesting and entertaining this is probably one of the better Superman stories around. It can be hard to relate to the ever perfect man of steel, and sometimes his character is about as interesting or accessible as a cement wall. He seems to flourish in elseworlds stories, though, and Red Son is an excellent example of that.
The idea behind the overarching plot, though it comes at it from an entirely different setup, is that superheroes have the ability to change the world and help humanity - but should they? It’s sort of another riff on the "With great power comes great responsibility" idea - or maybe more along the lines of "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." The questions of this nature explored in Red Son are very similar to the questions asked in Kingdom Come. But where Kingdom Come posits that Superman is ultimately sort of more human than human, and would never forget his roots even if he got a little distracted in a quest to make the world a better place, Red Son seems to be saying that just being born and raised in Communist Russia would take things to an entirely different and necessarily bad end, that his desire to help humanity would inadvertently lead to his becoming a dictator.
In a way this makes sense; Clark Kent is so inherent to Superman's character, and the very concept of him. It's interesting to think about what Superman would be like if Clark Kent were not the really good guy we know and love, but someone else entirely - 'born' somewhere else, and raised by different people in a different environment. But I think it's a little insulting to say that, even without changing much else in his upbringing - still growing up among hard working farm folk, even if they aren't gone into in any detail - just growing up in Communist Russia would take away all the goodness in Superman that would keep him from becoming the controlling leader of a totalitarian regime. It also portrays the perfect society Superman builds as being inherently flawed, while the virtually identical one Luther replaces it with is somehow happier and more stable, which just seems like rhetoric to me.
That being said, the book is in many ways equally as critical of both anarchist martyrs and capitalist demi-gods. It seems to highlight the goods and ills of all three main political dogmas. And truthfully, it is only all the people opposed to Superman in the book who seem to think he is power mad and selfish. Superman is actually portrayed more as being caught up in the whirlwind and just wanting to help, which seems more natural to me.
I suppose in a way, because he is so perfect, and because of his unfailing black and white morals, Superman always leans toward the line of Fascism - like Captain America, perhaps. That's something that gets to be explored more in this book, and I appreciate that.
As far as form goes, the story is a bit rushed. A lot happens very fast, and for all the major player cameos that are given space (there's even an elseworlds communist Batman origin story and an unresolved revenge plot going along with that) there are other things not gone into enough or completely left out. Superman's childhood is pretty much glossed over - if the book is supposedly positing that a different origin/upbringing would change who Superman is (something I agree with and find fascinating) it would be nice if they focused on all aspects of that. I don't know very many (or any!) people whose entire personalities are formed more by their national climate and surrounding political dogma than by their parents and childhood experiences. I also think other books set around the cold war have given a better feel of what that time was like. Red Son, for all its emphasis on the Soviet Union and the competition with the United States, doesn't portray that period with any weight or realistic feeling. I also think the tone and voice of Superman are all wrong; he doesn't read like Superman at all - which is maybe to be understood, given the changes made to his character - but he doesn't seem much like a Stalinist either. He doesn't even sound Russian, in tone or mannerism. (I'm glad they avoided giving him some kind of dialect accent, though.) And finally, the book has an interesting looping effect in the story that I'm not sure I like... I think it's a bit cheesy. I also thought that the way Luthor finally 'defeats' Superman was a bit lame.
Overall Red Son has a really cool concept, and despite all the little things that I found to be disappointing in the execution of story, it is interesting and entertaining this is probably one of the better Superman stories around. It can be hard to relate to the ever perfect man of steel, and sometimes his character is about as interesting or accessible as a cement wall. He seems to flourish in elseworlds stories, though, and Red Son is an excellent example of that.
adventurous
medium-paced
The first half of this comic is good. Millar writes a new perspective on Superman and the effect of nurture vs. nature and his starting out as a tool of politics and the state, rather than the vigilante we know. I wish we saw more of the culture Kal-El was raised in: the origin story of Ukrainian Clark Kent would be so cool!
Millar beats the cliché "Evil Dictator Superman" plot to death in this comic, rehashing the Red Scare without any sort of interesting commentary to wash it down. Then it kind of goes completely off the rails in the final fourth. The ending almost made me regret picking this up, but it was such an example the kind of insane twists self-obsessed writers put in their work I couldn't help but to find it hilarious. Don't take the ending seriously.
Several of Lex Luthor's lines made me laugh out loud, so there's that.
Millar beats the cliché "Evil Dictator Superman" plot to death in this comic, rehashing the Red Scare without any sort of interesting commentary to wash it down. Then it kind of goes completely off the rails in the final fourth. The ending almost made me regret picking this up, but it was such an example the kind of insane twists self-obsessed writers put in their work I couldn't help but to find it hilarious. Don't take the ending seriously.
Several of Lex Luthor's lines made me laugh out loud, so there's that.
I really, really wanted to like this. Having heard good things from several friends. But much like most of the ideas that Mark Millar has, they fall flat in the execution. This should have been something wonderful but it just wasn't.
Absolutely brilliant, I don't know why it took me so long to find it and read it/devour it.