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A review by tobin_elliott
Superman: Red Son by Mark Millar
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Ah, Mark Millar...one of those comic book writers who, along with Brian Michael Bendis, Alan Moore, Dave Sim, and Donny Cates, used to be really good, but then...I don't know...maybe started believing their own press? But somehow, some way, they just started pumping out less than stellar product.
I cannot and will not read anything Millar puts out now, but I thought going back a couple of decades might be a safe bet. Turns out I was wrong. Maybe this is where the problems started.
I know most people absolutely love this graphic novel and, to be fair, there's a lot to love. It's Millar's What If...? take and there's some cool stuff here, including the actual underlying idea. The art is fantastic.
But my biggest problem with Millar is that he writes like a hyperactive child with no attention span, and this book reads like a horribly hacked up abridged version of a much longer and much better story.
Millar, it seems, has given up on stories with any sort of build up, or nuance, and instead writes a series of set pieces that look cool. He introduces and throws away characters in the span of a couple of pages. Instead of a narrative, there's just a few familiar faces that go through their motions to get to the big build up and pay off at the end.
And Lex Luthor? While Millar takes liberties (as he should, in this what if scenario he's sketching—and it's all sketch, not painting) with all the pre-existing characters, it's Lex that's so stupidly over the top. Millar's basically mashed Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen, and Tony Stark from Iron Man into this frenetic, stupidly obsessed anti-hero.
If only Millar had a fraction of his obsessiveness to detail, this graphic novel would have been longer, paced better, and would have been far more satisfying.
As it is, it feels like it was a quickly babbled out joke just to get to his three-or-four page punchline at the very end.
I cannot and will not read anything Millar puts out now, but I thought going back a couple of decades might be a safe bet. Turns out I was wrong. Maybe this is where the problems started.
I know most people absolutely love this graphic novel and, to be fair, there's a lot to love. It's Millar's What If...? take and there's some cool stuff here, including the actual underlying idea. The art is fantastic.
But my biggest problem with Millar is that he writes like a hyperactive child with no attention span, and this book reads like a horribly hacked up abridged version of a much longer and much better story.
Millar, it seems, has given up on stories with any sort of build up, or nuance, and instead writes a series of set pieces that look cool. He introduces and throws away characters in the span of a couple of pages. Instead of a narrative, there's just a few familiar faces that go through their motions to get to the big build up and pay off at the end.
And Lex Luthor? While Millar takes liberties (as he should, in this what if scenario he's sketching—and it's all sketch, not painting) with all the pre-existing characters, it's Lex that's so stupidly over the top. Millar's basically mashed Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen, and Tony Stark from Iron Man into this frenetic, stupidly obsessed anti-hero.
If only Millar had a fraction of his obsessiveness to detail, this graphic novel would have been longer, paced better, and would have been far more satisfying.
As it is, it feels like it was a quickly babbled out joke just to get to his three-or-four page punchline at the very end.