Writer: Grant Morrison
Artist: Frank Quitely
Digital Inks: Jamie Grant
Publisher: DC Comics
Price: $19.99
The only area of criticism more prone to hyperbole than rock music is comics. Countless suits of emperor’s new clothes are run off every single week and barely a month goes by without one title being derided as the print equivalent of a communicable disease and another as the second coming. There is, in fact, so much hyperbole, so many verbal gymnastics on display, that at times it’s almost impossible to actually see the point of it all.
So let me make this really clear:
All-Star Superman is very, very good.
The Eisner award-winning title sees Grant Morrison take the character back not to the roots but to the essentials of his world. This is a series where Clark Kent is a bumbling idiot, Lois Lane is a fiercely intelligent and resolutely single reporter and Jimmy Olsen has the worst bow ties on the planet. However, before any nostalgia-induced comas take hold, the series merely uses these elements as building blocks for very different, very modern stories.
The basic conceit is simple; Lex Luthor has succeeded and Superman is dying. The process is slow, almost impossible to spot but definitively there. Overloaded by solar radiation in the opening pages, he finds himself exhibiting new powers even as his body begins to die and, being Superman, sets his affairs in order in a suitably epic manner. Within the space of one issue, he’s finally ‘come out’ to Lois. Within three, he’s taken her to the Fortress of Solitude, given her a 24 hour taste of his powers for her birthday and foiled a dinosaur invasion from the Earth’s core. All the while, Leo Quintum, head of the splendidly named P.R.O.J.E.C.T. and the man who Superman rescues from the sun in the opening pages is desperate to find a way to cure him, Jimmy Olsen is trying to work out his next story and Lex is apparently happy to go to the electric chair knowing that Superman will die first.
There’s no posturing here, no grandstanding for the crowd on either Morrison or Quitely’s part. Instead, this is Superman presented at his most elemental, a gentle, likeable man who has had to hide his abilities his entire life for fear of putting the people he loves in danger. It’s a remarkably pure take on the character, with the creative team content to let him do the (incredibly) heavy lifting and the end result is something that’s both intensely good fun and oddly refreshing. There’s nothing mannered or pretentious or nostalgic about any of the stories presented here, just a look at a character who is easy to like but very difficult to care about through a crystal clear lens.
That, in the end, is the real success of All-Star Superman. The title actually makes its central character both fallible and likeable, a Jimmy Stewart-esque figure of quiet, slightly smalltown integrity who finds himself as amazed by his life as everyone else. This comes to the fore perfectly in ‘Funeral in Smallville’ the story that closes this first volume. Marrying Morrison’s fondness for big science with Superman’s small-town upbringing, it’s a story which is long on dialogue, relatively short on action and wears its heart on its sleeve. The final scene is that rarest of all things with Superman, one that carries actual emotional weight and the end result is a perfect blend of big science, superheroics and character drama. If all this volume collected was ‘Funeral in Smallville’ and the wonderfully OTT ‘The Superman/Jimmy Olsen War’ this book would be worth the money. With the first six issues collected, it’s unmissable.
Expertly drawn, expertly written and with the main character centre stage at all times, All-Star Superman is a gem. Treat yourself, you won’t regret it.
Alasdair started writing when he was nine, powered by a hefty diet of '80s cartoons, Doctor Who and Icepops. He's quite tired by this stage but has written a lot of things for a lot of people, including Fortean Times, Neo and Surreal.