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Underground > Comic Books >

Superman: Red Son

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Graeme McMillan

21:00 / 06.05.03

"isn't he in there to help reinforce ideas about one man's freedom fighter being another's terrorist?"

Are you channeling Bobby Gillespie there, Yawn?

yawn - thing's buddy

22:05 / 06.05.03

yesil.

Haus of Mystery

23:24 / 06.05.03

Thanks for using the 'shoehorn' adjective so much people. i feel real special.

yawn - thing's buddy

07:57 / 07.05.03

mind if I call you a blowhard?

I love that word.

Haus of Mystery

08:53 / 07.05.03

Not at all dear boy. I am a blowhard.

The Natural Way

10:20 / 07.05.03

Luthor's 'He beat me at chess!' motivation made me want to hit things. Weeeeeak as fuck.

I know, I know...it's a funny joke. Only not. And a terrible joke to base a lifetime's vendetta on.

Haus of Mystery

20:21 / 07.05.03

I don't know. My brother beat me at chess when I was nine and I've been waging war on him ever since.

He never beat me at fucking Ker-Plunk though!

yawn - thing's buddy

22:35 / 07.05.03

you two should have been in xmen 2!

look, red son is real good crap.

admit it.

jusrt read manotomorro tother day for first time innawhile.

So good. so weird. so......DC!

I'm gewtting into DC's weird universe again. I think i've always dug it more than marvel's you know.

Graeme McMillan

01:02 / 08.05.03

DC's universe allows for more ridiculously dumb, exciting, "pop" ideas than Marvel's, I think. It's more playful and fun. For me, at least.

02:06 / 08.05.03

I have read much less DC, and, thus, less shit DC (Universe.)

My mum bought me Batman: Year One one time when I was sick, and I was pissed off 'cos it was DC. I eventually read it though.

08:47 / 22.11.03

Anyone get through this? Just happened to grab a copy of it and wondered what people's thoughts were now that the whole thing has been unleashed.

10:41 / 23.11.03

Each issue was less interesting than the last. That almost sums up my feelings on it, except for that the first issue has a lot of truly wonderful images and moments (the smiling, communist Superman handing the baloon to the child who's life he just saved is priceless). I think the switch in artists really hurt the title, despite what Millar says on the subject - a lot of dignity's sapped from the presentation by the change, and a lot of ideas that might have seemed credible story-tellingwise just come off as... not Millar's best writing, I suppose.

Though it was funny hearing two men argue in my local about how the Green Lantern Corps would "totally kick Superman's faggot ass" and that Millar was "blatantly disrespecting" the majesty of Hal Jordan.

Oh, and that ending... WTF? That whole idea comes a little out of left field and seems utterly irrelevant, except as Elseworlds continuity wank.

Communist Superman = intriguing. Everything else beyond that point is just sort of nonsense. If book 2 and 3 had never been released I would have loved it.

Though I did find the idea intriguing that the major difference between Yankee Superman and Commie Superman was that the latter never learned the that people-less-gifted-than-he needed to Do and Fail for themselves without his interference.

But only for a minute.

07:03 / 21.10.04

Bah, you're all snobs!

I thought the whole thing was loveletter to 80s Alan Moore work. V was Batman, now Batman was V. The last couple of pages were completely "Whatever happened to the man of tomorrow?" And echoes of Miracleman through out the book. It read like a pretty good cover song, perhaps the best kind of cover song.

I really don't like Superman at all and the only direction that makes sense for him is to go Miracleman on everyone's ass.

I thought the final note from Luthor was going to be a really badly done oneliner that would ruin the whole book for me but it was a crushing and beautiful moment.

I think Wanted and Unfunnies, like most of Millar's stuff are best used as cumwipes but he's finally beginning to grow on me again with Chosen (despite the lazier approach revealed at the end) and Red Son.

Hope "Run" gets done someday and it isn't sixteen years later like this one, and excited about Millarworld Phase 2, however far it may be.

I hope Millar can stop being a fuckin' adolescent and try writing more work like this and Chosen.

07:47 / 21.10.04

My thoughts on Chosen are mixed. I felt that I should like the art, but after the first issue it felt like an ill fit. Enjoyed the idea of a Jesus who was going to look at an old skin mag. Supremely disappointed when Millar decided to end the story with a dick joke (seriously) and a cop out to the more interesting story potential.

Red Son was great. Sure there were moments when I was unsure of character motivations (Luthor killed those people why?), but I thought it was generally well written. And the Elseworlds ending worked for me, especially considering (and I could be wrong) that the original Earth-1 Jor-El was named Jor-L.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

17:22 / 21.10.04

What exactly happened to Wonder Woman when she snapped her lasso? It seemed at first that Millar was going to turn her into some sort of brain-damaged zombie but she seemed more or less fine afterwards. Did she loose her powers and start aging or something?

08:45 / 22.10.04

I read this two months ago but iirc, I think she just lost the "wonder" bit, and became a normal woman, aging really badly.

And Batman screaming and begging her not to help him was one of the best Batman moments in a decade. Superman's reaction was just brilliant.

Chosen: Gross' art is just lovely and I really want to see him somewhere regular. I do agree that the book could've been Millar's magnum opus if he'd not copped out and taken the story where it went without the selfimposed limitation of a short series but I still enjoyed the first two issues way too much and while it's a lesser book for the ending, and does piss itself, I'm still going to remember some of the moments that were made memorable by Gross.

Still, this is coming from a guy who's written more than his fair share of crap.

yawn - thing's buddy

14:12 / 19.12.05

First all: sod off (please) to anyone who doesn't want to see this at the top of the threads.

let it fall if you have nothing to say.

I am resurrecting it, cos I just reread Red ‘Sohn’ recently and really fuckin enjoyed it.

and Who am I?'s comments above are spot on. It really is a love letter to Moore....and perhaps Miller - Mark Millar's brain food throughout the eighties.

Who's comments re: last few pages being 'Man of Tomorrow' - yeah true - but crossed with ‘for the man who has everything’ - the visions of future earth in Red Son remind me a lot of the gibbons metropolis designs in the 80s moore classic.

It’s one off Millar’s strongest works, I reckon. And while I was suspicious of this initially - it really did seem lost in space and irrelevant to today’s post 911 word - i ended up loving it. or rather, liking it a lot.

Art was great. like a cross between gibbons and mignola. luthor was awesome - in a torquemada kind of way.

surprised by Ldones comments regarding the ending: for me, it made total sense.

i wonder though, would it have been an even stronger ending to have the craft with baby supes in it crash into America, rather than Russia? or would that have derailed the meaning and neatness of it all? (it would at least give the elseworlds tale a bit of credibility within the DC’s main continuity stream, not that I give a fuck about that kind of thing)

Secondly: the reread caused me to ponder ASS.

and Grant Morrison’s inspiration for ASS.

then I realised: both ‘man of tomorrow’ and ‘for the man who has everything’ by Moore get to the core of what supes is all about. and both have a timeless, eternal vibe to em.

wouldn’t be surprised if these stories, along with the other influences that morrison has already cited, are fuelling the ASS’ engine.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

17:00 / 20.12.05

But the whole point in the end is that Supes is Luthors great great (to the power of a squillion) great great grandson.

My only gripe is that, like most of the Elseworld and canon stuff, it's Supes Versus Lex AGAIN, and there's the Golden Age Braniac too. However, despite that disappointment it's very well written and certainly better than almost everything else I've written of Millar's, he should be forced to write PG stuff so he can't put in teh bumrape.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

17:38 / 20.12.05

I really enjoyed Red Son... as Lady says, it's way better than most of Millar's other stuff. It always reminds me, though, of the arguments on the JBF forum (started by a Barbeloid, as I remember, though I don't remember who, otherwise I'd thank them by name) about why shouldn't there be an Elseworlds in which Superman's gay? (Byrne, funnily enough, didn't like this. It never seemed to occur to him that Superman being a Communist was WAY more "out there" in terms of messing with the character than his sexuality could ever have been...)

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

17:43 / 20.12.05

Aha! I've found the thread in question.

23:26 / 20.12.05

I think a lot of people (not so much in this thread) were disappointed in Red Son because they were expecting some sort of very hard-hitting political commentary or satire, when in fact the whole Russian angle was more of a backdrop for an examination of the Superman mythos. Red Son was less about politics and more about re-examining how Superman works by removing him of the American contextual baggage (which was there from the beginning but was amplified by Post-Crisis Byrne's "Krypton sucks, America rules" take on the character) he's usually associated with and placing him in an entirely different locale operating a new set of rules. That Red Son Superman's costume is almost exactly the same as his American counterpart's to be expected because the point is that there would be a Superman no matter where he landed; Superman's supermanity is innate, not a product of his (American) environment.

Which, I guess, is what ALL the Elseworlds have ever done, but for some reason (marketing?) there seemed to have been a higher expectation for "seriousness" as opposed to the proper spirit this was meant to be read in. Which is: "Whee! Soviet Superman and Batman with funny cold-weather flaps!"

And that ending was the best thing evar.

01:48 / 21.12.05

Because Grant wrote it. I didn't really 'get' the end at the time.

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