COMIC BOOK REVIEW: Superman: Red Son (DC Comics)

DC Comics’ Elseworlds line is described as thus: “In Elseworlds, heroes are taken from their usual settings and put into strange times and places – some that have existed and others that can’t, couldn’t, or shouldn’t exist. The result is stories that make characters who are as familiar as yesterday seem as fresh as tomorrow.” Just as in Marvel Comics’ What If…? series, this premise allows writers to weave stories that may not fit the hero as we know them and not to worry about the regular continuity of the respective comics universes. This premise can provide hits or misses. Superman: Red Son is most definitely a hit.

Originally published as a three issue mini-series in 2003, and now available as a trade paperback, writer Mark Millar, pencillers Dave Johnson and Killian Plunkett, and inkers Andrew Robinson and Walden Wong do a more than admirable job of re-imagining the Superman myth. Superman, that iconic symbol of truth, justice, and the American way is now a Communist. In the mid-twentieth century, a rocket ship from an alien planet crashes onto a collective farm in the Ukraine rather than the Kent’s farm in Kansas. Interestingly enough, the values he learned on that collective farm do not seem that far removed from the values he learned from Ma and Pa Kent.

The story begins with Superman making his presence known in Moscow as an adult. Stalin sends a communiqué to the rest of the world: “Let Our Enemies Beware: There Is Only One Superpower Now.” As true as this appears readers familiar with the Superman saga know that Lex Luthor is still an American. Nonetheless, President Eisenhower still laments about how if that rocket only crashed into Earth twelve hours earlier Superman might be an American.

Along with Lex Luthor the rest of Superman’s friends, enemies, and fellow heroes make appearances. There’s Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Jimmy Olsen, and Perry White. Superman’s rogues’ gallery is still Lex, Braniac and Bizarro. Working from the concept that Superman was the lynchpin for all other DC Superheroes, the story introduces us to other well-known faces in unexpected ways. Batman is around, in a post-Dark Knight Returns incarnation, that plays foil to Superman’s new socialist values, and we learn what kind of heroes Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, The Flash, and Green Lantern have become now that Superman is a Soviet hero.

An insider’s knowledge of the DC Universe can add to the overall cleverness of this set-up but even knowing the Superman myth in only broad strokes will not endanger enjoyment of the story. From the hammer and sickle replacing the S on Superman’s chest to President Kennedy, now married to Norma Jean, and dealing with civil strife and a triumphant USSR, to a play on Superman’s disguise of wearing glasses, there is much to be found different yet familiar. There’s even a reference concerning exactly these types of re-imagined stories. The greatest strengths of Superman: Red Son is that it changes the Superman myth without changing Superman himself and it has an ending that sheds new light on that myth.