The Kingdom

I read Kingdom Come, the Mark Waid/Alex Ross superhero opus, a few years back and enjoyed it, primarily because of Ross’s art. Say what you will about his storytelling skills, he makes spectacle and pages that are just gorgeous to look at. Doing a Kingdom Come sequel without Ross seems like an odd choice, but I decided to check out The Kingdom for a couple of reasons. One is it’s got an issue drawn by Frank Quitely, one of the few things he’s drawn that I haven’t read. I also wanted to check it out because it was the only in story appearance of hypertime, the Waid/Morrison DCU concept that’s a source of continual fascination to me. So, how did The Kingdom read? Surprisingly well, it’s not an all time classic by any means, but there’s a lot of good pieces in here, and it plays as an interesting precursor to what happens in Final Crisis.

One of the most interesting things about the book is its structure. The central conflict is set up in an introductory issue, then we divide off into a series of semi-related stories about various b-list side characters and their role in the crisis, before bringing it all back together for the finale. The obvious parallel is to Grant Morrison’s Seven Soldiers, which used a similar structure. This series doesn’t feature the in depth character work or scope of Seven Soldiers, but the structure still works really well, to the point that the main story is largely beside the point, what lingers is Rose’s troubles in “Planet Krypton” or Iris’s struggle to get equal treatment by her father in “Kid Flash.”

The central story is convoluted, and predicated on a central idea that doesn’t quite hang together. It’s odd that William would so abruptly switch from total devotion to the notion of Superman as God to a mad fury to destroy him across time and space. I suppose someone who had such fiery religious fervor in the first place would be particularly disappointed when it turned out that his faith was built on a lie, but it falls prey to a common problem in these kinds of stories, which is a not clearly defined slippery slope of villainy. It’s one thing to want revenge on Superman, it’s another to go from a normal guy to a cosmic force of destruction. You can justify it, and the narrative reasoning is there in the story, but emotionally it didn’t quite work for me.

But, using his rage as a multi-versal threat gave the opportunity for a bunch of interesting stories about characters hovering on the edge of universal destruction. The core idea is the notion that Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman’s mission back in time will destroy their universe, whether it succeeds or fails. They are the products of a universe built on pain and suffering. Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman may be trying to do a good thing, but why should people be punished for the sins of those in control of their world. So, the story becomes largely about these peoples’ struggles to justify their own existence, and show that their universe is worth saving.

The reveal of hypertime at the end of the story is a way to solve the central conflict of the work, which is what happens to the people left behind when the world is changed. In the context of the DCU, the clear parallel is to the characters from the multiversal Earths who were wiped out of existence in the crisis. In “Planet Krypton,” Rose sees the ghosts of characters from those other Earths, and is comforted to know that they’re out there, that she isn’t alone, and also, to find out at the end, that she shouldn’t regret the choices she made, she’s in the place she’s supposed to be. That story was the high point of The Kingdom for me because it managed to make the DCU emotionally relatable and explore the role of the civilian in this universe in a way I’ve rarely seen. The odd structure of the piece meant that there was room for a digression like that.

The thing I really like about hypertime is the way that it reconciles all the different eras and tones of the DCU into a single cohesive whole. The goofy adventures of early Superman can co-exist with the apocalyptic world of Kingdom Come, and comment on each other without rendering each other invalid. I think it does run into a bit of a self indulgent loop of commentary, when you have a story like this, where multiple versions of Superman converge on each other and are used to comment on the nature of the DC Universe itself, but when a character is as mythic as Superman, it makes sense that he’d function as a significant symbol in a work like this. Hypertime is about recognizing the mythic essence of these characters as a core from which everything else flows.

Hypertime is described here as a river built of events, or stories. In Final Crisis, Morrison picks up this idea, I’d argue that the archetypal Platonic Superman seen in Superman Beyond is the “source” of the hypertime river, he is the hero from which every other hero flows, and is defined against. You could argue that each of the “trinity” of heroes are the source, an idea that’s reinforced by the appearance of Jonathan, a hybrid of Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman, who has power over hypertime. He is the end of the river, the coalescence of the disparate pieces built up by many stories over the years.

I see a lot of echoes of The Kingdom in Final Crisis, which adapts the hypercrisis idea in its tale of a universe built out of stories. Both works end with an attempt to liberate the characters from the notion of a single linear narrative and plunge them into a larger universe without rules or restrictions. On some level, I have problems with this because it plays largely as a way to bring back old stories that Waid or Morrison liked, and seems to spiral further and further away from any real world relevance.

But, stepping back, I think hypertime has a lot to say about the nature of mythology and human identity. People complained that I’m Not There was too insular, something that was only of interest to Bob Dylan fanboys, but I feel like it only uses Dylan as the jumping off point for an exploration of how we all construct our own identities. Similarly, hypertime functions simultaneously as an exploration of DCU continuity and a representation of the way that we construct our own personal narratives. Everything that happened to us exists and is true on some level, but we banish certain experiences to our own continuity limbo, and even build up pieces of ourselves using “imaginary stories” that didn’t really happen, but become a piece of personal mythology.

But, our perception of our own identity is largely based around where we are at the moment. I’ve gone from student to worker, child to adult, all the previous incarnations of my own identity are true, but they aren’t necessarily relevant to where I am now. Similarly, Batman has changed from day-glo 60s Batman to gritty 80s Batman, hypertime is a way to reconcile the growth and change that a character goes through by acknowledging the evolution of fictional personalities rather than trying to create a construct single narrative.

The Kingdom is the precursor to a lot of Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis, and certainly the hypertime stuff is really interesting. But, for me, the most significant thing is the great character work on some of the individual stories. The overall story is fairly typical JLA material, but some of those character pieces were really nice.

Final Crisis #7: 'New Heaven, New Earth'

After a tumultuous seven issue run, Final Crisis wraps up with its best issue yet, an issue that manages to resolve all the threads in a satisfying way, and perhaps achieves Morrison’s long discussed goal of making the DCU a sentient entity. The parents of the universe are gone, the gods are fallen and it’s up to the characters to invent their own world. A large part of the issue is about the characters gaining the agency to control their own story and build this fifth world of their own design. It’s at once a return to the pre-Crisis DCU, and a celebration of everything that has come since. It’s a complex issue, and not everything about it works, but the overall impact is huge, I think this is easily the best issue of the entire series, and a great way for Morrison to wrap up his current time in the DCU.

The issue begins with a trip to an alternate world where there’s a black president and a black Superman. I was already talking about the resonance of Obama and this comic, and this opening fuses the iconography of Obama and Superman to foreshadow the emergence of a new, better world at the end of the series. It’s also a pretty badass moment to have the president rip off his suit and have a Superman costume underneath. The discussion afterwards about using the “wonder horn,” and the music they hear makes a lot more sense after seeing what Superman does later in the issue.

The issue is odd because it violates so many seemingly basic rules of writing, and in the process proves that rules are good, but what really lingers about a story is the energy and experience of it. The early parts of the issue are told in flashback, or perhaps narration in the present, it’s unclear. Images flow from the narration in a seemingly stream of conscious way, drifting from fight to fight in a haze of action. What this means is that we don’t get to see some important story points. I’m frustrated that we don’t get a closer view of Shilo activating his boom tube, after all the buildup of his story, he either doesn’t appear or is barely visible in this issue. I also find it frustrating that we never really see Wonder Woman liberated from her Justifier enslavement, we can infer it, and we get an emotional beat when she crumbles the mask, but we don’t get the seemingly critical moment when her mind comes back to the surface.

So, there’s some sloppy story construction on those beats. I’m not sure how much is a product of the art and how much is conscious choice. I will say that Doug Mahnke kills it on this book. I’ve heard a bunch of people say they wish he had drawn the whole thing, and I can’t disagree. JG Jones did a good job when he was on time, but he wasn’t good enough to justify the delays or art mess. He’s not Frank Quitely. If Mahnke could have drawn the whole story in a timely fashion, it would have been great to have him on board. At least in terms of art, the series goes out on a high note.

The other major issue is the amount of deus ex machina in the story. On some level, a story about gods is going to always involve this sort of ending, but the stuff about the monitors doesn’t feel as developed as other elements of the story, and that makes it feel kind of out of place here at the end. Darkseid was the villain of this whole thing, and to end on a different, somewhat related, but not really connected story thread feels a bit off. But, I think Darkseid gets a good finale too, so it works okay. It’s partially an issue of pacing, it might have been better to have Batman do the final strike on Darkseid in this issue, while Superman was off with Mandrakk and the Monitors so they could be intercut instead of happen in succession.

One of the things I love about the issue is the sheer epic quality of the story. I think that all three Crises, for their flaws and merits, manage to feel truly epic and important for the universe. They stand as testaments to the insane over the top storytelling capabilities of the DCU. On a meta level, the tour of all of the aspects of the DCU in this series is a way of showing its strength, the power of its lifeblood, a way to combat the vampiric death that Mandrakk represents.

This issue’s use of narration in particular makes it feel huge. I’d be hard pressed to say exactly what sequence certain events happen in, but I felt the importance of them, and was emotionally engaged throughout the entire thing, Lois’s narration serving as a way to heighten our emotional engagement with what’s going on. Yesterday, I said that Superman Beyond worked on an intellectual level and a pure spectacle level, but it didn’t have the emotional component. This issue has all three firing at full cylinder, reading the pages, I was really excited to see what came next because it really felt like anything could happen. There were a ton of panels in here that just made me smile, and that’s one of the greatest things about Morrison’s work, and superhero comics in general. They can be so huge, so archetypal that it transcends the traditional demands of a story and just hits you in that part of the brain that loves spectacle and excitement.

In Superman Beyond, we saw Zillo Valla claim that Superman’s origin story was the most powerful story in the multiverse, the story that could pull Dax Novu back from the darkness. Here, we see that story invoked again, and replayed as part of the battle against Darkseid. It starts with the rocket full of Batman’s iconography. Batman is just as powerful an archetype as Superman, the core things that make him who he is will survive any threat against the world, he’ll always find a way. I love the idea that in a world made of story, symbols and images are the life essence, if those can be preserved on another world, Batman will find a way back to life.

That’s perhaps the boldest innovation in this miniseries, the idea that the DCU is literally built on stories. It will live on because it’s always “To Be Continued,” and the characters will perpetually deal with the same archetypal story elements. Something like the Joker/Batman conflict is a founding principle of the universe and it will always cycle itself through again and again.

Superman’s confrontation with Darkseid is really well done. At this point, Darkseid has infected virtually the entire populace, the world itself is evil, so what can Superman do? As Darkseid says, “Kill me and you kill everything!” So, Darkseid does precisely that, he fires the bullet at Orion, which he knows will eventually come back to kill him, and in the process, he intends to take the whole world down with him. At least that’s the way I see it, the whole bullet backwards in time thing is pretty hard to fathom, but this view of it makes sense.

I love the payoff on the Flash’s long run through the entire series. They bring death to Darkseid and zip off in a haze of trippy visuals and the sort of crazy science dialogue that Morrison does so well. Lois describes it as “the story of the flashes outrun Death, the Black Racer.” In some ways, this caption is used simply to facilitate the dissemination of narrative information, but I’d argue that the goal is also to transform this story into instant mythology. This is a story so huge they’re already telling it to kids within the DCU, it’s the creation myth of the fifth world, the way that the world was saved and changed and rebuilt. And, the crazy brilliance of the Flashes outracing Death and bringing him to Darkseid lives up to that kind of mythos.

From there, we see the dissolution of the world, conveyed in a series of perfectly chosen scenes that convey what I view as the dissolution of the entire multiverse. We see all the scientists working together to buil this Miracle Machine, even our old friend the Chief from Doom Patrol, whose head is no longer in a jar. This builds to the dizzying assault on Checkmate and the Atoms doing something. These panels are drawn from the pure reservoir of superhero stories. This is what every comic should feel like, filled to the brim with insane images and concepts. Morrison has talked about how comics have to up their game now that films can do superheroes. This is what he means, this is a comic that spans universes and does something you’ve never seen before in every panel.

It’s also a marvel of economy. The Arrow and Canary resolution is touching and funny in just three small panels. I love their hands barely touching as they drift through space, staring down at the Metron symbol. A panel down we can another fuck yeah moment with the appearance of Most Excellent Superbat and his team in action. I don’t know who these characters are on an individual level, but Morrison makes me care about them through the sheer pop joy inherent. Who doesn’t want to save Lolita Canary? Who doesn’t love Lighting Flash dashing between panels, all in a massive buildup of light and fire.

I’m honestly not totally sure on exactly what happens at this point in the comic. I know that the Checkmate satellite explodes, apparently killing Mister Terrific and Hawkman and Hawkgirl, while the Super Young Team and the others evacuate via Mister Miracle’s Boom Tube. Then, there’s a separate JLA satellite where the survivors of all the destroyed multiverse worlds stick around. So, are those worlds entirely destroyed, and then rebuilt later on, or are the only survivors the ones who were stuck in the freezer? I guess it might be that everyone’s possessed by Darkseid, and it takes Superman’s wish to make them better again. It doesn’t really matter, perhaps a couple more reads will make it clear.

The sort of free association storytelling is present in the panels where Renee tells her story. Speaking to Overman about his cousin’s death, we jump to a scene that may or may not have ever happened where he screams in the rain while holding her body. On one level, this is likely an allusion to the original Crisis’ famous dead Supergirl cover, but it also works as a visual way to express the emotion he’s feeling. The walls of reality are breaking down at this point, emotion and logic are converging into a psychogenic reality where idea and feeling are indistinguishable from physical reality.

This brings us to Superman realizing that Darkseid intended to kill himself to bring the whole world down into the black hole with him. If he possesses all their minds, his death will destroy everyone. But, Luthor won’t have that. As I mentioned in earlier reviews, Luthor always exists in reverse moral polarity to the world he’s in. Now that he’s in an evil world, he’s going to fight for good.

Luthor claims that “Libra was the anti-life equation and now he’s not.” So, was Libra a physical incarnation of the concept of anti-life? I’m not sure about that, maybe it’s more that Libra was some kind of vessel used to channel the anti-life into our reality. I’ll have to reread to see what exactly was up with Libra throughout, but the point here seems to be that Luthor and Sivana have created a machine that co-opts the anti-life equation and overrides it. So, using this machine, they’re able to rescue the people under the control of Darkseid and restore their individual will.

This leads to the fantastic moment where Frankenstein rides a giant dog and hacks the head off of someone. It’s great to see Frankenstein back in action, I’ll always have great affection for all the Seven Soldiers characters, and particularly with Mahnke drawing, Frank is as good as he’s ever been.

The Morticoccus virus comes seemingly out of nowhere here. Apparently, it was mentioned in Countdown, and is a call back to Kamandi. The way it reads here, it sounds like the “god-bacterium” could easily be Darkseid himself.

So, this all leads up to Superman’s final confrontation with Darkseid. This is another huge fuck yeah moment. The world is seemingly collapsing, but Superman knows the nature of this world, it’s made of “vibrations,” of stories. If you put a better story against this bad one, the good one can win out. Darkseid is the bad virus designed to destroy the world, Superman is an agent of good, rebuilding the world from within. He sings like only he can and Darkseid explodes, unable to withstand the onslaught of pure universal essence.

I love these sorts of moments because deep down I do believe that good and hope will always overcome darkness. As in this series, things can go bad for a long time, but progress will always win out in the end. I don’t think a moment like this is hokey or unearned, it kills it on an emotional level. Love will win out in the end, you can have a whole world of darkness, but all it takes is one little light to make things bright again.

This leads up to the confrontation with Mandrakk, and our intersection with the stuff from Superman Beyond. Mandrakk is the anti-story, the desire to end the universe and prevent the characters from developing any further. He invokes Superman’s origin story, but positions Superman as his father, a man who failed to save his universe. The origin is the powerful keystone of the entire reality, and Mandrakk is trying to twist it to serve his own ends.

Superman igniting the Miracle Machine with his solar battery is a literal representation of the light concept I was talking about before. I love the panel where he reaches his hand out and seems to have a tiny galaxy spinning below him, electricity arcing to create the Metron symbol around his head. There, he truly is a god, the benevolent architect of a new reality.

This leads to another fuck yeah moment when we see a legion of Supermen descending on Mandrakk, shouting “Let the sun shine in!” You can’t help but play the euphoric Fifth Dimension song in your mind, the music that tore Darkseid apart now echoing in your own mind, a truly bizarre bunch of characters stand and tear down Mandrakk.

The choice of such wacky characters as a bunch of Earth-35 animals and Captain Carrot can easily be read as a meta assertion on the health of the DCU. Mandrakk is the kind of reductive writer who seeks to tear down the magic of these characters, while Morrison wants the universe to be strong in all its bizarre contradictions.

The assembly of Supermen also reinforces Superman’s status as the ur-hero of the DCU, the source of everything that has followed. He has inspired all these others, he is the true god and architect of this world, and next to that power, Mandrakk is decidedly insignificant. He is staked, and the cancer eating at this world is gone, the “symmetry of the orrery” is re-established, Darkseid’s hold is slackened and the world can go on again.

Part of this is Nix Uotan’s emergence as a fully realized 5-D aware being. His story is kind of a reverse John a Dreams. He starts out beyond reality a piece of the core universal essence that is chipped away into an individual form to become a monitor. Then he falls in to our reality and gets lost in a human life, forgetting that he was ever anything more than that. But, now he’s fully realized, he has his monitor powers, but also human emotion to anchor them. There is a power in our lives and loves on this world, and that’s what Mandrakk doesn’t understand.

In his power, Nix summons the “Forever People of the 5th World” and the Super Young Team shows up. This reinforces the idea that new characters will be inheriting the roles of the old archetypes in the new world. The Super Young Team are the new Forever People, Shilo the new Mister Miracle, and I’m sure we’ll see a new Orion and others in the future. But, where does that leave the original New Gods? They are seen here watching over the birth of a new Earth, Earth-51, rehabilitating the graveyard world into a flourishing New Genesis. The war is over and a new world can be born.

At this point, the Fourth World gods seem to have passed beyond physical form, and serve more as touchstones for the next generation. They are the archetypal essence of good, and will reign supreme in a world where the archetypal essence of evil has been defeated and fallen deep down in to a black hole. And, they will guide Earth 51 to better things. It’s a classic Morrison trope, the worst, most corrupted thing drawn back to goodness through positive influence. Earth 51 is Quimper, plunged through the worst shit and reborn as a glorious flower.

This all leads up to the Monitors abandoning their post and descending down into reality to live as humans. The Monitors were old order gods, trying to maintain order in the universe, to keep the parallel worlds separated and limit humanity. They are the evolutionary shackles that helped us grow, but have to be thrown out as we advance into a new world. They are in some ways like Barbelith, and the dissolution into white here echoes Jack’s entrance in to the supercontext at the end of The Invisibles.

Superman Beyond equated the Monitors with the DCU’s writers. So, does this ending imply that the DCU is now beyond writers, it’s a self sufficient entity guiding its own way. One could argue that if this is meant to be Morrison’s farewell to the universe, he’s sending it off to a place where malevolent gods no longer control it and the characters are free to live out stories without his outside influence. Throughout Morrison’s DC work, we’ve seen negative portrayals of god-like controlling figures, from Morrison himself in Animal Man to the Time Tailors in Seven Soldiers. Both the Monitors and Time Tailors are mixed influences, but the point of this ending seems to be that it’s time to stop trying to control everything and to let the universe direct itself.

Superman is such a strong idea, he can guide things forward in a fine way. There’s no longer needs for an intermediary, people have shown that they can control their own destiny. Our heroes are now like the gods of old, and the fifth world has begun. We get very little glimpse of what that fifth world will entail, but I guess that’s ultimately up to you. We’re all Nix Uotan, waking up anew, ready to write our own story.

In a lot of ways, the story is comprable to The Invisibles’ liberation from the needs of a structured universe at the end of the series and the journey out to the supercontext. The DCU has been engineered to specific ends by these monitors, they thought that they needed to rule like that to ensure the safe progress of the universe. They sought to keep the universes apart and organized because it was too dangerous to let them mix. But, the people here have shown that they can manage their own reality. The child universe has become an adult and we don’t need the gods to guide us anymore. We can be our own gods. As King Mob said on his way to the supercontext, “I’m ready to play with the grown-ups, babe.”

This leads up to one final big moment, the return of Batman, who’s stranded way back at the Dawn of Man, drawing his sigil on a cave wall. Will the bat symbol become as enduring a symbol as Metron’s sigil? How will he make it back to the present day? Has he become a god? Who knows, but the ending feels right, and I’m eager to see Morrison pick up his story again when he returns to the title in the summer.

So, after all that, what is the major takeaway? The DCU is built on stories, and as such, the Miracle Machine can control it by rewriting the story. When Superman wishes for a happy ending, he’s essentially rewriting his own reality. He’s the ur-hero, the source of all good in the universe, and he’s always going to do just the right thing. This version of Superman seems very influenced by Morrison’s vision of the character in All Star Superman. I think he works even better than Morrison’s JLA Superman, outside of All Star itself, this is one of the best Superman stories of all time.

At this point, he seems to have become meta aware of the nature of the universe. He knows it’s built on stories, and will always continue on, but he’s got to make sure this story goes out on a happy ending.

And it does. After all the messy darkness of the previous six issues, this single issue manages to resolve pretty much all the narrative threads and give us a glorious rush of hope to overwhelm all the darkness. It’s a lot to fit in a single issue, but Morrison pulls it off, and makes it emotionally relevant. I had mixed feelings on Final Crisis throughout, I really liked most of it, but it didn’t hit me in the way that the best Morrison does. But, this issue, he’s at his best, and it’s a great farewell to the DCU for now. I want to read some creator owned work soon, but in a year or so, I wouldn’t mind a trip back to the DCU to check on the Fifth World’s progress.

Final Crisis: Superman Beyond #2

Final Crisis ends tomorrow, and I’ll be reviewing it tomorrow afternoon. But, before that drops, I’ve got a few things to say about last week’s Superman Beyond #2. This is an issue that’s frustrating on some levels, but really exciting on others.

My major trouble with the issue is the fact that it’s both a retreading of themes that Morrison has handled better elsewhere, and an essentially insular work. What does this book have to say about our world as a whole? What relevance does it have to your life or mine? There’s certainly some, but it’s more about the DCU itself, and the process of reading superhero comics. Some of Morrison’s best work, particularly pieces of Seven Soldiers and Flex Mentallo, were largely meta narratives about the nature of superhero comics, but they managed to tell those stories in a way that retained emotional relevance to the real world. They were about real people in a crazy world, this story, with its myriad of Supermen and convoluted Monitor mythology, loses that connection to reality and becomes, much like the original Crisis, a spiral into the mythology of the DCU itself.

My other major problem with the work is that all the major stuff has been covered elsewhere in Morrison’s canon. Final Crisis is by its nature a kind of greatest hits journey through his years of DCU writing, but at its best, the main series has managed to touch on new aspects of the universe and feel fresh. Here, the old sucking out the joy of superhero comics meta theme has been covered before. People have read Mandrakk’s fall into corruption as another riff on Alan Moore’s influence on superhero comics, a theme that Morrison handled much better in Zatanna #4’s Zor battle.

Both Seven Soldiers and Flex flourished because they used superhero comics as a way to riff on parental abandonment issues and emotionally arrested development. The Zatanna Zor battle is a riff on Alan Moore, but it’s also a confrontation with her own unresolved father issues, and consequently it has a strong emotional impact. Superman Beyond hits the popcorn spectacle and intellectual sides of things, but only occasionally hits me on an emotional level. Flex Mentallo, the greatest superhero story ever written, deals with superheroes from an aspirational point of view, spinning through the adolescent power fantasy and ultimate parent fantasy as a way of exploring our hero’s psychological condition.

I think ultimately a large part of it comes down to the fact that I generally enjoy the struggles of loser heroes rather than the super confident adventures of Superman. In All Star Superman, the entire series is about exploring Superman as a god totem, an inspiration to humanity who will show us the way then move on. The series often uses Superman in the way that Gaiman uses Morpheus in Sandman, or Miracleman in his run on that title, as an idea rather than a character. The All Star stories work because they deal with the idea of Superman and use him as an entrée to emotional engagement. The two greatest moments in the run are both in issue #10, the page where we see Superman comfort a girl who’s about to commit suicide, and the audacious finale where we find out that Superman actually created our world, and the idea of him was so powerful he infected our minds and emerged in our fiction.

This issue riffs on that idea, placing the Platonic ideal of Superman in conflict with a villain who feeds on the essence of the DC Universe itself, the Bleed. The life blood of the DCU is quite literally stories, it’s in the continuing narrative of these characters that the universe maintains its life. Stay out of the stories too long and your life will wane. That’s what happened to the characters in limbo, in the DCU, death is ephemeral, the only real way to die is for people to forget you. In that sense, the characters have more in common with gods than traditional literary characters. It is our belief and interest that sustains them. We know Batman will never die because he’s too powerful a thoughtform. Our desire for narratives about the character feed him, and out of that lifeblood, he’ll always emerge. So, who is the ultimate threat to these characters? It would be a character who could quite literally drain the stories out of them, and prevent them from continuing on.

The series presents a cosmology that’s similar to The Invisibles. In the lower world of the DCU itself, there is a division between good and evil. Characters align on either side and exist in “dualities.” But, on a higher level, there is no duality, only symmetry. That’s what Captain Atom says, and it takes a ritualistic fusing of matter and anti-matter to send Superman to the source of reality, the world of the monitors. When he reaches that world, it’s similar to the cosmology of the Outer Church and the Archons. The Monitors are the creators of the world, they guide the world forward, while Mandrakk struggles to destroy it. But, Mandrakk is the creator of the world as well, there are no sides, only circles.

In the higher realm, Superman exists in the form that was built by Dax Novu, a form that I’d argue represents the ur-superhero from which all other superheroes, and the DCU in general flows. Superman is an ideal that inspired every other superhero that followed, so you could easily argue that the source of the DCU is that platonic ideal of Superman. The story is powerful enough to fuel the entire universe, that’s why Zillo Valla tries to use the story to save Dax. Perhaps the story that inspired the universe can pull Dax Novu back from evil.

It doesn’t, but Superman still overcomes Dax. The battle is essentially the life force of the DCU, Superman, the ur-superhero, versus the destructive impulses that try to tear down heroes. It could easily be read on a meta level, Mandrakk is the kind of writer that seeks to tear down the mythology and take the magic away from the DCU, but no matter what’s thrown at him, the myth of Superman remains strong. I do think that’s a really interesting point, and ties in nicely to the themes of both Final Crisis and Morrison’s Batman run. All these books came out of the post 9/11, Iraq War depressed mindset, and I think Morrison’s essential point is that hope is so strong, it’ll always overcome the people who try to tear us down. Obama has been associated with the iconography of Superman, and it’s easy to read this as a story about the rebirth of the best of America, and the world in general, overcoming an era of vampiric destruction.

But, the story doesn’t end, and it’s in the final couple of pages that we get my favorite beats of the story. For one, I love the throwback to the winking Superman of the 50s, as Lois struggles to recall this crazy story she imagined. But, it’s the final page that had me just saying “Yes!” out loud. For Superman, and the DCU in general, stories are their life blood, so “To Be Continued” means that they’ll survive another day.

That final page also echoes the end of Mister Miracle, where Shilo burst triumphantly out of the grave. There, Morrison presented Achilles as the ur-superhero, who inspired future heroes. Much like in The Invisibles, Morrison is presenting similar concepts through different lenses, here Superman is the inspiration, there it’s Achilles, but it’s the same idea. This essential force of good will always overcome the forces that prey on life. Hope will overcome fear and repression will crumble. Sure, it’s still out there, but it’s in that struggle that we get better. The very idea of a grave in superhero comics is somewhat ridiculous, as we saw in Batman RIP, it’s just one more obstacle. The hero will always find a way out.

In a recent interview, Morrison talked about his recent comics as experiments in audience participation. With Batman RIP and Final Crisis, he’s been leaving room for the audience to discuss and reinterpret old stories through the lens of his current material. I love that concept, and I think in general, it works well. So much of the furor around Batman RIP was the speculation about who the Black Glove was and what Batman’s final fate would be. I don’t think the finale, either in Batman proper or in Final Crisis quite lived up to it, but the experience of speculating was a lot of fun. And, I think after the story’s over, you can read it as simply a great story.

An issue like this can be read on a straightforward level, as just a wacky Superman story, and I think it works there, more or less. But, it’s more interesting to analyze in light of Morrison’s other work and on that meta level that I’ve been talking about here. I think it is a great issue, and the more I write about it, the more layers I uncover. I think that’s largely Morrison’s point with the issue. But, I don’t think that excuses that lack of immediate emotional impact on the initial read.

The question that lingers now is what will happen in the last issue of Final Crisis. We’ll presumably see a universe wide rebirth and explosion into a glorious new age. But, how much time will there be to cover all this. Things looked pretty dire at the end of #6, how much can be resolved? Word has it that the issue will be along the lines of Seven Soldiers #1, a supercompressed narrative. I love Seven Soldiers #1, but that issue had the emotional attachment of all the previous character minis. I’m not as attached to the characters in Final Crisis. But, if it can match the intellectual density and moments of ecstatic emotion that Seven Soldiers #1 had, it’ll be a great conclusion. We’ll find out tomorrow.

Superman: Beyond 3-D #1

I read Superman Beyond late last night, barely awake, probably not the best way to read a really complex metafictional spin through the many Earths of the DCU. It’s not one of Morrison’s best works, but there’s a lot of interesting stuff here, and in some ways, it’s a more satisfying read than Final Crisis proper. There’s none of the frantic jumping between story points, while still maintaining the overwhelming feeling of desperation that hangs over all of FC to date.

This issue is another metafiction take on the history of superhero comics and the DCU, and as such, it touches on a lot of themes and concepts we’ve seen previously in Animal Man and Seven Soldiers. I felt like Seven Soldiers was Morrison’s definitive statement on the DCU, and the best followup to the exploration of superhero comics in Flex Mentallo. All Star Superman has been brilliant, but other than that, his recent superhero work hasn’t hit me in the way that his best stuff has. With this book, and Final Crisis in general, I really like the concepts and isolated moments, but it’s not hitting me on an emotional level. It’s a very clinical read, so hypercompressed that there’s no time for things to really sink in.

It’s a heady rush of concepts, a style he previously used in Seven Soldiers #1. The major difference is Seven Soldiers #1 was the culmination of a 30 issue story, and we had the emotional base for understanding these characters. I suppose you could argue that Final Crisis is the Seven Soldiers #1 of Grant’s entire lifetime of DC work. As such, we don’t really need to delve into character specifics, we know these guys from his previous stories, and FC is all about doing one final power metal riff on the classic melody he’s been working on since Animal Man.

The problem with that kind of greatest hits approach is that it doesn’t really do anything we haven’t seen before. Think of Wong Kar-Wai’s My Blueberry Nights, it’s a great movie, that’s better than the vast majority of movies out there, but nonetheless feels a bit underwhelming. So many of the concepts and characters feel like lesser imitations of his own previous work. It’s got to be hard to for an artist to keep innovating like Grant has over the course of his career. This book is an evolution of themes from the past, but it doesn’t feel quite fresh enough to stand with the best of his work.

As I said before, the storytelling style of the Final Crisis books has been a bit difficult for me. I like that he’s trying to fit as much as possible into the series, it’s a nice return to the style of the Silver Age. After reading this issue, or an issue of FC proper, you feel like you got your money’s worth. There’s a wealth of concepts and ideas to ponder, and a lot has happened. But, the best Grant work manages to fuse that Silver Age abundance of ideas and narrative with the occasional slow down to focus on emotional beats. I’m hoping that the latter half of Final Crisis will give us some more personal moments mixed in with the spectacle. Here, we get to spend more time with a single story, but things happen so fast that it takes about half the issue to really ground myself in what this story is about.

Part of my issue comes from my not quite total familiarity with the Monitors. I understand all the big things, but I don’t the grounding that makes it easy to read stuff with them. It’s all in the text, but I’m spending a lot of time trying to keep track of what’s going on. What Morrison seems to be doing here is mixing the pacing of Silver Age comics, with the conceptual density of his own work, resulting in a work that simultaneously flashes by in an instant and takes a long time to delve into. That’s a mix that works on a lot of levels. Intellectually, this is a full, rich comic, one that definitely benefits from a reread.

The art is by Doug Mahnke, who did amazing work on Morrison’s Frankenstein book. There, his pencils had a subliminally dirty quality, and were the perfect match for the gritty pulp stories Morrison was telling in that book. Here, his pencils have been cleaned up a bit, and the element of his art that really stands out is the 3-D stuff. Unlike some online commentators, I really liked the 3-D pages, particularly in the book of infinite pages section, things really seem to pop off the page. Plus, just wearing the 3-D glasses for an extended period of time makes everything feel trippier. The world itself is discolored, only the comic looks right. That metafictional element makes reading the comic a trip in and of itself.

Superman goes on this quest to heal Lois with the ‘Bleed’ substance. This was a Warren Ellis concept from The Authority, the material that universes grow in. It would be logical that the placenta like material in which universes grow would heal people within the universe. It’s even referred to as Ultramenstruum in the comic, reinforcing the uterine connection.

The part of the comic that really interests me is the conceptual material near the end of the book, where Superman hears a story about the birth of the universe. Ironically, this is also the material that fits most with the complaints I had earlier, about this book retreading the thematic ground of previous Morrison works. The trip to Limbo hits the same story beats as Animal Man, but twenty years later, the concept isn’t so out there and audacious. Or perhaps, it simply feels less otherworldly in a book where we’ve got Supermen from five universes together. What made Limbo work so well in Animal Man was the real world grounding that Buddy’s life provided.

You don’t get the sense that Superman would be terribly shaken to find out his entire life was a fictional creation. He’d be able to deal with that, just like he deals with anything. Superman is so powerful in our world that limbo doesn’t pose much threat for him. He’s never going to forgotten, in a lot of ways he has become more powerful than the human beings who created him. If he was to meet his ‘writer,’ who would he meet?

The major evolution of Morrison’s DC cosmology in this book is the notion of stories as the basis for the universe itself. Perhaps this is the final piece of the master plan started with Animal Man. There, Buddy Baker found out he was just a character in a piece of fiction, here Superman finds out that the entire basis for the universe is stories. Literally, the DC Universe is made up of thousands of stories, each comic they publish develops and changes the universe a little bit, some more than other.

This whole thing gets back to the notion of hypertime. The idea there was basically that continuity is determined by which stories ‘stick.’ The more powerful stories, like the death of Batman’s parents, form the backbone of the universe, the essential basis for the character. Other stories may exist as rivers off the main timestream, less essential pieces of continuity that may no longer fit into the overall narrative of the character. So, if you’re trying to figure out why Superman’s heat vision does one thing in a single 50s story, but doesn’t do that today, you could just say that the 50s story in question was part of an abandoned branch of hypertime. Continuity is built out of elements that recur for the character. The more an element is used, the more essential it becomes to continuity, the closer to the center of hypertime. But, every story still exists, and they’re all true in some way. 60s TV Batman is just a different branch on the hypertime river than Dark Knight Returns Batman. And, it’s possible to try to knit it all together, by making everything true, as Morrison is currently doing in Batman.

Anyway, Morrison gives us the origin of the universe when he says “A flaw found at the heart of monitor perfection! Monitor makes a concept to contain the flaw!” That is the beginning of thought, the beginning of stories. Out of a white void of perfect singularity comes an anomaly. To deal with that anomaly, one must conceptualize it as other, and come up with a mental reason for its existence. If you see a splotch of red paint on a white wall, you would think, someone must have put that paint there. You make a story in your head.

This one narrative multiplies into others, and reveals “unforeseen complexities and contradictions.” This panel, depicting the bleed, also functions as an origin for the multiverse. The first story creates others, they each branch off in distinct directions, and eventually you’ve got the convoluted continuity of the DCU.

Captain Marvel and Merryman discuss the idea of a universe with universes within it, or a story with all the other stories in it. This ties into the idea in The Invisibles of the UFO, the piece of universe trapped within itself. That void that Superman refers to is the initial world of the monitors, the more the monitors reach out, the more they encounter other stories. The story “without limits or definition” that spins out of control could refer to the multiverse going out of control before Crisis.

This is where my lack of knowledge about the Monitors becomes problematic. Morrison seems to posit the idea that the Monitors exist beyond DC continuity, they were there at the beginning and are the ones who oversaw the start of existence. He then goes on to say how the ‘flaw,’ the first contact with stories, was sealed over with the first ‘monitor,’ who looks a lot like Superman. I like the idea of the entire DCU flowing from Superman himself, the first superhero who led to the creation of everything that followed. But, is this stuff actually referring to the fusion of everything into a single universe after Crisis? I’m not sure where Morrison’s commentary on our world in relation to the DCU lies and where his comment on the internal nature of the DCU is.

Let’s say that the Monitors are like the 4-D beings in The Invisibles, they exist outside time, they were there at the beginning of the universe and are helping to guide things to make sure they proceed the way that they’re supposed to. In this case, rather than guiding one universe forward, they’re guiding a series of multiverses towards some kind of ideal. But, there’s also definitely an Eden thing going on here too. The Monitors aren’t fully aware of their mission, as John a Dreams was. Rather, they exist in a pure state outside of time, and it is an encounter with time, with stories, that infects them and brings their world from a sheltered nothingness to a chaotic something. It would make sense that all the flaws, everything they’ve experienced is leading them towards a role in the Final Crisis. Every world in the multiverse is spinning toward destruction, and they will have a role to play in the oncoming battle.

Notably, the monument that they call the “relic of first contact” is a giant statue of Superman. That would tie in with the idea that Superman, as the first superhero, is also in a lot of ways the creator of the DCU. It was the meeting of the Superman idea with the guardians of universes, the monitors that led to the creation of the DC multiverse. Now, the Monitors insert themselves into time to gather an army of champions, all echoes of that first conflict, to do battle and save their universe.

In that sense, the Final Crisis is an echo of the conflict that led to the creation of the universe. Much of Final Crisis has a religious tinge, there’s the Bible of Crime that Libra preaches, the New Gods and Darkseid. Morrison’s made it clear in his JLA that the superheroes would be the ones to take over for the New Gods, and start the new age of things. They are the template for human evolution, so it would be logical for the creators of the universe, and the heroes within it to come together to overthrow the old gods and pave the way for a new universe.

In that sense, is it that the Monitors, with their placenta like bleed are the female element, and Superman is the male element. When they come together, they create a universe. But, what are the Monitors, beyond a sci-fi concept within the DC Universe? Are they God? Morrison’s never been one to shy from metafiction, most likely they’re another iteration of the Time Tailors, the writers of the stories themselves. After all, what is the process of creation but the intrusion of something into nothing. A story hits your mind like a flaw, sitting there until it needs to be addressed, growing and layering on itself. Now, the writers of the stories are drawn into the world to save it from its darkest hour yet.

So, perhaps the issue wasn’t as thematically redundant as I’d thought previously. There’s a ton of material here, but I feel like there’s a disconnect between this really fascinating conceptual thematic material, and the fairly standard story itself. Those few pages, I’m still struggling to wrap my mind around, but I feel like the story itself needed a bit more to really grab me emotionally. Still, it makes a lot more sense after really examining it. All these Supermen are here as the ‘founding father’ of their respective world. He is the first superhero, the spark that made something out of nothing, and now he will have to save the world in its darkest hour. A world’s Superman is the best representative of its nature, with a Superman like the DCU’s, there’s no way that evil will win in the end.

Showcase Superman Volume 1

I’ve read a lot of articles/interviews where people talk about the deconstruction of superheroes, how Alan Moore and Frank Miller’s seminal 80s works changed the medium and took away a lot of the fun. For a long time, the only older comics I’d read were 70s X-Men, which aren’t exemplary of what these people were talking about, with their heavy angst and emotional soapiness. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago when I started reading Showcase Presents Superman that I really got the zany craziness that people talk about when they discuss 50s comics. These comics are totally insane, as crazy, if not more so, than anything Grant Morrison’s come up with, with a total disregard for real world logic or narrative consistency.

I’d always heard the premises of these 50s Superman books, Superman has a lion’s head, Superman shoots a tiny Superman out of his hand, etc. and thought that’s a great concept, but the comic itself probably isn’t as good. Well, if Superman inexplicably has a lion’s head sounds like a great story, then buy the book. It won’t disappoint. It’s astonishing to me that this book was popular entertainment, it’s so insane, every single story full of bizarre narrative gaps and logical jumps that blow your mind. It feels like somebody on an LSD trip throwing out the craziest thing he can think of, then scrambling to get things back to normal within ten pages.

You really can’t approach these comics as any of sort of sustained narrative, like today’s books. It’s not a coherent universe, or evolving milieu, it’s basically a sitcom. Every character has one trait, Superman is ultra-powerful, but constantly scared of having his identity discovered. Jimmy Olsen is his loyal friend, aiding in his schemes. Lois Lane desperately wants to marry Superman, but is foiled at every turn by Superman’s scheming.

The stories are very formulaic. Usually some outrageous premise is thrown out that disrupts normality, like Superman losing his powers. Then, Superman struggles to maintain the illusion of normalcy, in that case through his crazy schemes with Jimmy, and ultimately everything returns to normal, with Superman winking to the audience. The reason it works is because everything is so nuts, you don’t get mad at the deus ex machinas or narrative shortcuts, you just laugh at them. The creators seem to know how wacky the stories are, they’re in on the joke, and the joy is the journey through the story, not the destination. Notably, we’ve got no cliffhangers, and very rarely is Superman in real danger. The only one who suffers emotional consequences is Lois, who always comes this close to marrying Superman, only to have her dream foiled.

Reading these comics provides a startling twist on the societal myth of the 50s as a time of boring conformity. Yes, these stories are ultimately about enforcing the status quo, but brimming under that status quo are a myriad of psychological issues and deep seated fears. Why does Superman have such a fear of people discovering his secret identity? Why does he cruelly maintain the illusion of Clark Kent, even planting a room in his Fortress of Solitude dedicated to Clark so no one will find out his secret identity after he dies.

The opening story of the collection, “The Super Key to Fort Superman” is still my favorite. In it, Superman and Batman play an elaborate game of pranks on each other, which culminates in Superman pretending his powers have been disabled and they’ll both be trapped in the Fort forever. This comes after Batman has spent days infiltrating the Fortress, apparently leaving Gotham undefended. And, the reason all this happens is because Batman was shopping for a birthday present for Superman, but couldn’t find anything. If people say Batman the TV show wasn’t like the comics, point them to this and they’ll be in for a rude awakening.

Reading this, I can see why people would feel like something major has been lost in comics. First off, these issues contained three crazy stories in one, each a complete done in one tale. If you want to know why people don’t read comics like they did in the 50s, I think it’s clearly due to the fact that they’re just not a good value at all. These issues entertain for a while, and are easily accessible, not like the bloated super epics out there today. I’d be much more likely to buy books in single format if they were like this.

And, the stories are just so imaginative, it’s hard to believe what’s going on. I would think books like this, not 60s Marvel, would be popular with the counterculture. Morrison’s All Star Superman was not exaggerating the craziness of these early days. Superman barely even fights crime, he mostly battles identity issues played out through these crazy sci-fi conceits.

But, I think the stories are missing something. Morrison is able to keep these crazy concepts, but fuse a strong emotional layer on there as well. These stories feel like the crazy childhood of Superman, All Star is his adulthood, he’s more mature and able to recognize that there’s more to this world than just protecting his own identity. All Star Superman feels much closer to this guy than the Superman seen in JLA recently. That’s probably due to the fact that these are the archetypal Superman stories, where all the elements that persist to the present were established.

It’s interesting to compare what Morrison does with All Star to the way Moore approached Superman in Miracleman. I absolutely love Miracleman, I think it’s pointless to criticize Moore for doing his deconstruction work, Watchmen and Miracleman are such great works, it’s worth having them even if it means ‘losing our innocence.’ And, I think comics are stronger having gone through that dark period, Morrison and Miller have since found a way to integrate the insanity of these old comics with the darkness of the 80s.

Frank Miller’s masterpiece, The Dark Knight Strikes Again, takes the insane concepts and willful disdain for logic of these 50s comics and applies them to a post deconstruction world. I think it’s one of the greatest superhero comics of all time, and a perfect model for what comics can be.

Things have changed and we can never return to the style of these 50s comics without playing it as pastiche. The best thing we could get is something like Moore’s “Untold Tales of Supreme,” which ape the style and form of these 50s comics, but also have a tinge of dislike for the original material. It’s pastiche, and while these guys in the 50s had a sense of humor about the work, I don’t think they would like to be reduced to a series of formal tics that Moore emulates. It’s a form of storytelling that just can’t feel uncalculated in today’s world, we’ve moved on.

But, I think there’s still a lot of great lessons to be taken from these books. The embrace of craziness is something a lot of books could benefit from. Throw out crazy ideas on every page, and don’t necessarily focus on Superman fighting someone every issue. Superman very rarely faces a major villain in these stories, and they’re more interesting because of that. His greatest villain is his own nature, and his struggle to figure out what role he should play in this world.

All Star Superman #10

This was a big week for Frank Quitely comics. Earlier in the week, I read The Authority: Earth Inferno, and yesterday I finally caught up on All Star Superman #10. Reading these books, it became clear that Frank is the best comics artist of all time, edging slightly ahead of JH Williams for me. His work has such a unique quality, going beyond realism to a kind of hyper-reality. And, he always seems to make creators kick up their game to compete. Grant Morrison always writes good comics, but you get the sense that his Batman is just a fun diversion, he wouldn’t deliver a Batman script to Quitely. If Quitely’s going to spend months working on an issue, it’s got to be worthy of his time, and this issue definitely is.

There’s a number of things that are striking about All Star Superman #10. But, what really jumped out to me is just how satisfying it is as a single issue. Much as I love the medium, I think there’s virtually no books on the market today that are satisfying to read on an issue to issue basis. There’s just not enough material there to make it worth your money or keep you sated for the long gaps between issues. If people are saying it’s too frustrating to wait a week between 45 minute TV episodes, how are you going to keep them occupied during month long gaps between 22 page stories? That’s why I read most of my books in trade.

But, if every single issue was like this, this dense and emotional, comics would be a lot more popular. So much happens in the issue, there’s so many ideas, and so much feeling, I want to read more, but I don’t need to, it’s a totally satisfying experience as a single part of a larger work. I always take longer to read Quitely comics because I love to get lost in the pages, to just study the artwork and linger in the moments. It took me probably double the time to read this book than it did the average single issue, and the longer I spend on a comic, usually the better it is.

The thing that Morrison does better than any other writer out there is combine his huge ideas with a very real emotional base. One of the many outstanding moments in the issue is Superman sending the Kandorians out to save the kids in the hospital. It’s a loopy sci-fi concept, the notion of these miniature people being injected into Superman to try and save him, but Morrison brings you into a headspace where you accept that, and roll with it. Then, the moment where Superman sends the Kandorians out to heal the kids becomes incredibly beautiful. It’s a single page that’s just totally invigorating. It’s like all the joy and possibility of humanity is contained in that one single panel.

There’s a lot of moments like that in the issue. We see what Superman means to the people in the world, the way he is able to save a whole city and a single girl, and each of them feels equally significant. The scenes on Mars are amazing, you can practically feel the wind blowing through Superman’s hair, Quitely is able to convey the tactile experience of the place simply through the visual.

The notion of freeing a city of small people feeling inferior next to someone so large is a perfect metaphorical encapsulation of humanity’s feelings towards Superman in the comic. For Luthor, it’s hard to deal with knowing he’ll never be able to be as good as Superman. Even if Superman dies, Luthor will still live in his shadow. However, for a lot of the humans, Superman functions as an ideal, something to aspire to and be inspired by.

This is captured perfectly in the scene where Superman saves Regan from committing suicide. In that single page, Morrison and Quitely capture everything amazing about the character. Other writers put Superman in more traditional villain battling stories, but that doesn’t work for the character. I love Morrison’s vision of him as this pacifist ideal, someone who does want to save everyone. The implicit message of a lot of hero stories is once we clear out the bad guys, we can make a better world, but they never make it past that beating the bad guys part. Here, Superman isn’t battling villains, he’s battling the very force of negativity itself. So, saving Regan is equally important as saving Kandor, it’s all part of the same push for something better.

So, does that make Superman the ultimate Morrison hero? In The Invisibles, we saw King Mob move away from guns and try to create some kind of zen war practice. Superman is above the game, he’s not battling people, he’s just trying to save lives. He is as enlightened a character as Morrison has ever written, and reading this issue, you can see why he is the top hero, why he’s such an enduring myth.

That’s what Morrison makes explicit in the wonderful meta elements of the infant universe Qwewq. It was awesome to see Qwewq back, the beloved character/concept from Seven Soldiers. It’s been present in much of Grant’s DCU work, and I hope to see it return in Final Crisis. Qwewq has always been the stand-in for our universe, a world without heroes. So, it turns out that Superman has invented our entire universe as a means of seeing what the world would be like without him. And, it turns out that we would have to invent him. Those final pages are exhilarating, as we zip across plot lines and stop briefly on the birth of Superman in our world. He is an idea so powerful, he will always be around in one form or another.

I always love the metatextual elements that Morrison uses in his work, and this book ties in wonderfully with Flex Mentallo. Flex was all about dealing with youth, with the feelings of inadequacy that come with adolescence. This book follows it up, as Morrison, and the character of Superman, come to terms with getting older, becoming more aware of imminent death. I need to reread Flex and compare it with this book, but what both books uniquely have is the sense of wonder about superheroes. There’s some inherently unknowable about this Superman, some piece of him that remains beyond us. Morrison told that classic story about meeting Superman before writing this, and finding it all from talking to the guy who said he was Superman. The character feels like something beyond Morrison’s imagining, like he’s writing this series to have an accurate record of who he is.

I don’t know that the universe of Qwewq stuff will factor in the rest of the series, but I love that Morrison got it in there. It’s part of what makes the issue so good, the onslaught of ideas and concepts, Morrison struggling to fit in all the ideas he had for the character with only three issues left. You stack Qwewq on top of Regan, on top of the bottle city, on top of the kids at the hospital and you’ve got a crescendo of emotion coming off the book.

I really love the scenes with Superman and Lois as well. Quitely draws her so beautifully, and as shown here, she is his rock, the one person who can keep him going when he gets down. And, of course, he can’t just stay with her, he can hear everyone, hear all their pain, and knows that he can save them if he tries hard enough.

I think this is without question the greatest Superman comic I’ve ever read, and I find it hard to believe anything out there could top it. In the character’s seventy years of existence, this is the best story that’s been told about him yet. The Superman we normally see, here on Earth-Q, is but a flawed reaction of the man himself. This is the platonic ideal, who Superman should always be. I think I dwell so much on Quitely’s art because it doesn’t feel like Morrison is writing the series. I can see much in common with his other work, but I almost don’t want to delve too deep, to deconstruct it. I want to let it linger as this series of perfect moments, of single pages that say more than years of stories can.

I’ll admit I was a bit lukewarm on the series after loving the first four or five issues, it dipped for a bit. But, this issue brings it fully back, it’s everything a comic should be. It is the greatest Superman story ever told.

All Star Superman #6: 'Funeral in Smallville'

The first TPB comes to a close with an issue that’s fairly schizophrenic, bouncing between the emotion of Pa Kent’s death and the bizarreness of the Superman Squad. Much of the series has been about that balance, simultaneously embracing the Silver Age wackiness and more grounded, realistic emotion. But, this issue doesn’t quite pull it together as well the others. There’s moments here that are as strong as anything in the series, but it doesn’t quite cohere into a cohesive whole.

The opening few pages of the issue are probably the most unqualified success. You simultaneously experience the Superman and Clark parts of his personality. He’s still reverent towards his father, embarrassed when he tells the story about how he crash landed on Earth. But, once he gets to use his powers, he’s having fun again, chasing Krypto up into space.

The best thing about the space stuff is how much fun Clark is clearly having. While I do love the angsty superhero soap opera of something like X-Men or Buffy, all that worrying frequently obscures the basic joy of being able to do something that other people can’t. Superman doesn’t go to the park to play fetch with hi dog, he goes to the stars and rests on the moon.

Superman has that classic hero’s journey arc. Much like Luke Skywalker, he has to leave the family farm and go off into the big city. Unlike Luke Skywalker, his home wasn’t destroyed, so he can return back and imagine what could have been. Did he make the right choice in going to Metropolis and becoming a hero, or would it have been better to just say home and work on the farm. One of the strong things about the issue is that it makes it feel like a legitimate conundrum. Sitting in the diner with Lana, it seems like he would gladly stay there forever.

However, adventure calls and in a funny panel, Lana claims that he must be Superman. This is the opposite of what Lois Lane says, she is unable to believe that Clark could be Superman even after he says he is. Lana knows that Clark is. I’m not that familiar with Lana’s place in the Superman mythos, but just judging from this issue, she’d have known him growing up and would be more aware of how he felt developing the powers. So, she’d notice when Clark started acting weird, acting like Superman.

Superman then meets the Superman Squad. This is a concept that cropped up in Morrison’s JLA: One Million, which, if I recall correctly, also featured the Unknown Superman and Kal Kent. The Superman Squad is a cool concept for JLA, since that was a universe full of superpowered characters. However, here in All Star, I always got the impression that Superman was the only superhero. He does mention Batman, but we never see anyone else, and I feel like it undermines his specialness to have three other Supermen around.

The Chronovore is a cool concept, right in line with a lot of Morrison ideas. The idea that he turns “Farmer Stone’s cows into the hamburgers they were destined to become” is great, very Invisibles. But, the 5-D Superman is just annoying. So, it’s not all good.

What I like about the issue is the way it shows how far Superman has to go. He recklessly rushes in to show up Kal Kent and in the process misses his father’s final moments. One of the best panels is Superman rushing across the grass, screaming “I can save him! I can save everybody!” That sounds a bit like Anakin Skywalker, the hubris of the young hero with near unlimited power.

I suppose the thematic reason for combining the story of the Unknown Supermen with the death of Pa Kent was to force Superman to confront forces larger than him, and to grow up in the process. At the beginning of the issue, he’s happily bounding through the sky and meeting with childhood friends. By the end, he’s been shown up by the Superman Squad and also been rocked by death for the first time. He can’t save everyone and he recognizes that in the funeral scene.

I love the speech that Clark gives there, it’s exactly the sort of thing that Superman would say. However, this again positions Clark as a young man, I felt like he was older in the first issues of the series. The Superman who was faced with mortality in issue one felt more middle aged than this guy who seems barely into his twenties. I suppose he puts on a more mature approach as Superman, but reverts to a younger mentality when he’s back home.

The issue ends on a curious note, as we find out that the Unknown Superman is actually Clark himself. It’s interesting that the 5-D Superman says it took Jonathan Kent’s death to ensure that Superman left Smallville and moved out to the big city. He flirted with staying a child, but realized that he does have to grow up, and become something new.

The issue is quite ambitious, mixing a lot of elements. I think I see better now what Grant was trying to do, but it’s still tough to fit all these things together into a cohesive whole. I would have toned down the oddness of the Superman Squad a bit, but I think it works as a glimpse into Superman’s future. This is his legacy, but it’s also Jonathan Kent’s legacy, and Jonathan wouldn’t have wanted Clark to stay home. That’s why he hired help on the farm, he knew Clark was destined for something bigger and needed a little push out into the bigger world.

When the series first started, there was a strict division between Clark and Superman. It was represented in their physical appearance and characterization. I felt like Superman was the real guy and Clark was just a disguise. But, as the series has gone on, the line has blurred to the point that they’ve become one interdependent entity. The first issues presented a really iconic, chill Superman, but as they’ve gone on, we’ve gotten a bit more character development. I think he’s still true to the Superman that Morrison met, but his possible death has forced him to reassess things a bit.

I’m probably going to start following the series in singles, since the individual issues are essentially self contained and satisfying enough to bridge the gap between publication. So, I’ll be getting issue seven next time I’m at the comic store, then it’s time to wait for things to get rolling. In the meantime, I’ve been reading the first trade of 52, a review’s coming soon, but the quick summation is surprisingly good, and inexplicably addictive. It’s like the methadone to Seven Soldiers’ heroin.

All Star Superman #5: 'The Gospel According to Lex Luthor'

Morrison continues his journey through the Superman mythos with a stop at Lex Luthor, who lectures Clark Kent on the nature of Superman. This issue is notable for not featuring Superman at all, which turns him into more of an idea than an individual. Much of the series’ thematic focus has been on exploring that concept, Superman as an icon, but by focusing things through Lex’s point of view, we get an entirely different notion of the man of steel.

One of the most fun things about this issue is watching Clark Kent struggle to solve problems without revealing he’s Superman. As I’ve said before, Morrison and Quitely have created such a brilliant dichotomy between Superman and the front he puts on as Clark Kent that you can legitimately believe that Luthor wouldn’t know that the man standing right in front of him is actually Superman. A lot of it is Quitely’s art, which gives Clark this awkward slump, a big contrast to Superman’s shoulder back, chest out pride.

In a lot of circles, the Kill Bill Volume II speech about how Superman is the real person and Clark Kent is the disguise has become taken as fact, and you could certainly see things that way in the series. Watching Clark go about, you can feel he’s uncomfortable in his own skin, but as Superman, he’s totally in control. But, I think it’s more than simply him really being Superman and playing this role of the goofy human. I think Morrison’s understanding of the character is informed by the idea that both sides of the personality are equally valid. He is the last son of Krypton, sent to save Earth, but he’s also a Kansas farmboy who finds himself out of place in the big city.

Now, one could argue that that lack of confidence is part of the persona, but I think it reveals the underlying uncertainty that Clark/Superman has about his place in the world. As Superman, he’s in his element, saving people and not having to worry about individual interaction. But, in Clark, we can see all his insecurities made manifest. The iconic image of the first cover shows Superman calmly observing the world from above, when he’s down in the mess, things aren’t so serene.

Luthor raises the question of what the world would be like without Superman. As a reader in a world without Superman, we have to think of our own world, one where people are pretty much content to accept that this is all there is. We’ve already seen how Superman has inspired people like Leo Quintum to invent new things and try to bring all humanity to the level of Superman. For him, Superman is a model to aspire to.

In Luthor, we see the reverse of that, what would happen if a man could work all his life to be his best, both physically and mentally, but still be unable to match up to Superman. That would be incredibly frustrating, and this issue does a good job of conveying that frustration. There’s some irony in Luthor telling Clark that he could never have Lois as long as Superman’s around, but it also hits home in some ways. This is coming after Lois was completely unable to believe that Superman was also Clark. She doesn’t want to acknowledge that the all powerful model human could have the weakness of a Clark Kent in him. He can’t even compete with himself, so how are others expected to match him?

Luthor talks about turning the prison into an alternative society, one where Superman is absent. The notion of building a society in miniature is something Morrison has done a lot, in the Petri dish world and Libertania in The Filth, as well as the robot dome in Manhattan Guardian #2. It’s not really developed here, but I’m assuming we’ll return to the prison at some point later in the series, and see how Luthor’s plans pay off. This issue, more than any of the previous ones, feels like it’s setting up elements in a larger arc. There’s a payoff on the threat, but I really hope we return to what Luthor is working on down the line.

Using The Parasite as a foe here is great because it puts Clark in legitimate danger. How can he stop The Parasite without revealing himself as Superman. We again see Clark use his goofiness as a weapon, as well as Luthor’s calculating skill as a warrior.

I’m not sure if the baboon in the Superman suit has a larger significance, or is just a goofy, funny image. There could be some connection to evolution, the idea that this baboon is to humanity what humanity is to Superman. It also works as a way of Luthor showing how control he is, even in prison, he can do anything he wants.

Luthor’s ending speech is fantastic, largely because of the drawn on eyebrow. This such a goofy, funny touch, and yet it also gives him some menace in that final panel. I don’t think it’s coincidental that the eyebrow gives him the look of Quimper. It’s interesting to see Clark first try to reach out to Luthor, then get angry when he refuses. This is the human part of Superman, the bafflement at dealing with a foe who just might be one step ahead of him. And, down here, Clark is unable to reveal his real power to Luthor. Luthor tells Clark that Superman is dying, a message to bring to the world. Will Clark reveal this?

Luthor says if Superman wasn’t around, he’d be ruling the planet. It’s tough to be second best, that seems to be Luthor’s primary motivation in battling Superman. He can’t handle the competition. It’s a distinctly human motivation, this inability to accept that someone better than you is out there.

Luthor hands Clark off to his apprentice, who one day hopes to rule the world. It’s great that she’s dressed as a dominatrix, rowing through a river of what’s apparently lava in a cave to bring Luthor stuff. What can I say, it works for me.

So, this issue really sets up the stakes for the rest of the series. Luthor may be one step ahead of Superman, and as Clark Kent, he’s powerless to do anything about it. Of course, now he knows more about Luthor, and can likely use this knowledge to eventually defeat him. But, for now, the future looks uncertain.

I still miss Lois, but this issue was great. Quitely and Morrison create such a demanding, visual comic. It’s great to read a work that really uses the medium of comics, this isn’t experimental in the way that an Alan Moore work is, but it’s as profound a redefinition of what the medium can do. I feel like Morrison and Quitely just raise the bar for what a comic can be, and I’m glad to follow along as they do this.

All Star Superman #4: 'The Superman/Jimmy Olsen War"

“The Superman/Jimmy Olsen War” is the weakest issue of the series yet, but it’s still fun and stylish in the way that only Morrison and Quitely can deliver. What’s hooked me on the series is the relationship between Superman and Lois, so it’s a bit disappointing to leave them for an issue to focus on Jimmy. But, getting past that, there’s plenty of good stuff here.

One of the notable things about this issue, and the series in general, is how well Morrison uses the twenty-two page comic format. Most writers today structure things in six part arcs that are “written for the trade.” Now, I read almost all my books in trade and I have to say it’s perhaps even less satisfying to wait six months to read a story then get less than the equivalent of a single TV episode. Grant manages to fit a whole story into twenty-two pages and provide a satisfying emotional and visual experience. In a lot of ways, I think structuring for the single helps discipline his writing. Both this and Seven Soldiers are marvels, each issue complex and worthy of seemingly endless analysis.

The opening page has the great gag with Jimmy dressing as a woman, and all the previous setup is worth it for that. I like how Leo Quintum is the best dressed man in Metropolis, I too could not ignore the coolness of his Technicolor dream coat. Quitely stocks Jimmy’s apartment with all kinds of fun stuff, including an odd portrait of him dressed as a cyborg turtle. I’m sure there’s some story behind that, and Grant could probably tell it to you if you asked him.

Jimmy’s tour around the P.R.O.J.E.C.T labs has some fun stuff, but things don’t really get going until he falls into the pit of pink liquid. The scene with Clark running out of Perry’s office, turning into Superman as he goes, is fantastic. Grant and Quitely do a great job of selling the difference between the two of them, such that what was once an absurd narrative problem because one of the series’ greatest assets. It’s a lot of fun to watch Clark change into Superman when he finds out he’s needed.

It’s hard to watch Superman turn evil under the influence of the black kryptonite. As I’ve discussed earlier, Morrison’s Superman is an incarnation of absolute good, and it’s hard to watch him spiral down into evil. Superman struggles to deal with it, and in the process, raising the question of what they could do if Superman did turn evil. The last ditch option is to kill him, but first, we get Jimmy transforming into Doomsday.

Their fight is well executed, particularly the moment where dark Superman is crippled by his fear of death. Here, we see the feelings that regular Superman would never be able to show. He’s aware of his role as a symbol of what humanity can be, he can’t allow himself to succumb to this weakness. But, his opposite can, crying that he can’t die because he’s Superman. I particularly like the idea that Black K Superman becomes weaker the worse he acted. That implies that regular Superman because more powerful when he does good.

And, in the end, Jimmy uses Quintum’s resources to win over the heart of Lucy, impressing her with his tickets and a message on the moon. It’s a great finale, a really sweet moment for the issue’s hero. Quitely’s Lucy looks like she belongs to a different Quitely book, a bit more realist, but it still looks good and that final panel of her is great.

So, this wasn’t the most emotional or thematically dense issue, but it’s still a lot of fun. Now, I’m eager to check out the Clark Kent issue and see what happens to him and Luthor in prison.

All Star Superman #3: 'Sweet Dreams, Superwoman'

“Sweet Dreams, Superwoman” is another really fun issue that manages to seamlessly mix over the top Silver Age craziness with real, emotional impact. That’s the series’ greatest strength, and it comes out of Morrison’s love for the material. He truly believes in what this version of Superman stands for, and is able to extrapolate from his existence what the universe would be like. If Superman is a regular presence in your world, the appearance of an evolved lizard from the Earth’s core would just be a minor inconvenience, and that’s an exciting world to live in.

The first page of the issue is incredible, Morrison sums up the issue’s premise quickly so we can get right to the action, and does so it in a way that lets Quitely do some phenomenal work. I like that Superman color coordinates the box with his costume, in the previous issue, we saw a more domestic Superman, and this kind of design work fits with his interests. I love the way Quitely draws Lois, particularly the bottom panel, which is just dripping with sex. Is there any significance to that? I’m not sure, but it works well, she is clearly excited by the idea of being like Superman and that final panel shows her taking control of things.

My one major problem with this issue is that Lois gets powers, but doesn’t really get to do anything. She flies around at first, but then spends most of the issue standing around while Superman, Samson and Hercules fight over her. I think you could do something interesting where Superman transfers his powers to her, so that he is forced to be human and let her do the heroics. Alternatively, you could just have the two of them going around together and helping people, but I guess it was not to be.

But, I think Morrison’s primary interest in the issue isn’t showing what Lois would do with superpowers, it’s more about showing why Superman is different than other heroes. It’s interesting that he chose two figures out of older cultural mythology. Morrison has always equated Superman with the Greek gods, referring to the JLA as the pantheon when he was writing that book. In the same way that the Greek gods served as a model to aspire to for people at the time, Morrison wants Superman to be a model for humanity. I think that’s a major reason he takes issue with Moore’s deconstructionist superhero writing, to Morrison, superheroes aren’t juvenile power fantasies, they are models for humanity to aspire to. A work like Miracleman shows what an ordinary person would do when presented with huge power, the ways that it would corrupt him and lead to an almost Aryan society. This work is more about showing what the ultimate hero is, and how humanity struggles to live up to his example.

Anyway, it’s notable that Superman is presented as the only mythological character who’s actually more than human. The others are petty and jealous, hoping to impress Lois with absurd feats of strength. Superman is so confident in himself that he doesn’t need to engage in their juvenile antics, he just chills for a while, then ultimately wins using his mind. Morrison presents an evolution of mythological figures, we don’t need the violence and pettiness of our old models, Superman is above that. In addition to commenting on mythology in general, it also fits as a meta commentary on superhero comics themselves. Superman doesn’t need to lower himself to the pointless violence of other characters, he is beyond that, something that most writers of the character don’t get.

On the page where they first meet, I love how Quitely has the subtle background action of Superman retrieving Krull from space. That’s one of the best things about Quitely’s art, and the way Morrison writes for him. It’s not just an illustrated story, you have the “read” the images to understand the story and there’s a ton of details in each issue to catch on repeat reads.

I like how Lois is so confident in Superman, she goes along with the feats. For her, it’s fun to watch these other guys put so much effort in, knowing that they’ll get shown up soon. They can talk about having drinks at the crucifixion or riding a chariot drawn by gods, that can’t compare to hanging out with Superman. The funniest thing here is when Lois says she’s trying to teach him a lesson “after the creepy and ridiculous impersonation of Clark Kent that started all this.” He just can’t convince her that he can the bumbling journalist as well as the Superman.

Superman ultimately shows up Samson and Herclues through his intelligence, not his strength, answering the riddle of the Sphinx. It’s notable that his answer is to surrender, a non-violent approach. We all just accept that superhero comics have to have violence and fights to be sustainable. That’s what a hero does, someone who literally fights for what’s right. But, this book presents a different approach, and it’s exciting to see it in action. This is a whole new paradigm for the sort of stories that can be told with the character, and superheroes in general.

Superman goes out to a beach to finally shut up Samson and Hercules and does so in a spectacular arm wrestling competition. My favorite part here is Lois’s total relaxation as she sits and watches, as well as Superman’s whistle as he defeats them. Visually, it’s pretty fantastic too, emerging into the gorgeous blue sky and ocean after our time in the cave.

From there, Superman and Lois head up to the moon to do something he’s wanted to do since the very first day they met. What exactly is that? Clearly they have sex, but wouldn’t they have done that before? Perhaps it’s sex with the superpowers, they do look pretty spectacular on the full page splash up on the moon, another amazing Quitely image. That moment, and the closing scene makes us understand what it’s like to have a relationship that’s so far beyond what humans can have. Superman feels everything more, so much so that Lois is exhausted by her day and drifts off to sleep.

The final page is very sweet. Quitely has an unmatched ability for framing a panel. The top panel on the final page shows us exactly what we need to know, but in a more dynamic way than a full body shot of Superman carrying Lois would. Here, we have the strength of his arms, the iconic symbol, juxtaposed against the quiet sleep of a now human woman. That’s what the series is all about the blend of super and man, over the top craziness and relatable emotion.

This is another great issue, again proving that Morrison has the definitive take on the character. I feel like with every book he writes does everything the characters need to do. We don’t need any more X-Men after the end of his run, no more Doom Patrol, no more Animal Man. He takes the concepts to their logical ends, incorporating everything important from the mythos and condenses it into one great run. That’s certainly what he’s doing here.

All Star Superman #2: 'Superman's Forbidden Room'

After reading three issues, what strikes me most about the series is the way Grant simultaneously manages to make it goofy fun and smart and emotional, all at the same time. It’s largely because he’s never condescending or giving a wink to the audience, he loves this material in all its ridiculousness and that makes it infectious. We get just as caught up in the world and totally believe in it.

One of the funniest running gags in the series is the fact that Lois just won’t believe that Superman is Clark Kent. It was always hard to buy that people wouldn’t recognize the similarity between the two characters, and you’d think playing off that would make it more believable. So, it’s ironic that her total disbelief actually makes you believe people could buy them as separate people. His acting as Clark so thoroughly sells people on this persona that it seems like there’s no way they could be the same.

I love Quitely’s Lois, you usually don’t think of Quitely’s people as being pretty, but she is, in a really modern way. I think there’s a tendency to stick to classic designs for these characters, but the update on Lois works great. I also really like the way he dresses her, very stylish clothes. Morrison and Quitely always place great emphasis on style and glamour, we saw it in New X-Men and we see it again here. There’s not much you can do with Superman’s outfit, but Quitely runs with it on the characters he can design.

I like how Superman walks into the Fortress with the greeting “Afternoon, robots.” Throughout the issue, we get the sense that Superman really enjoys showing Lois all his stuff, he’s proud of what he’s done and is happy to share it with someone. I particularly like the moment where he brings her the flowers from Alpha Centauri.

Superman describes the Fortress as a time capsule, capturing “how it felt to live at the dawn of the age of superheroes.” Morrison’s best superhero work taps into our own feelings about the future. In X-Men or Flex Mentallo, superheroes are presented as the next step in human evolution, a guide to move humanity forward. That concept is made literal here, with Superman offering this place as a guide and memorial of what humanity is and could be. It’s notable that so far in the series, Superman hasn’t done any violence, he’s just helped people.

I love the gritty deconstructionist superhero work Alan Moore did, and I’ve always been annoyed when he said stuff like all superhero books since are based on one bad mood he had twenty years ago. But, reading this book shows that you can do mature, smart superhero books without resorting to violence and deconstruction. This is just a straight ahead embrace of the Superman myth, that this is a guy who offers humanity a vision of what they could be, and our goal is to try to live up to that, to reach his level.

I had read that the series consisted entirely of standalones, and that’s true to some extent, but the overarching Superman is dying thread provides a great structural backbone and urgency to the tales. In this case, the entire tension of the issues comes from the fact that Superman can’t tell Lois what’s going on with him, leading to her paranoia. Why doesn’t he just come out and say it? I feel like it’s largely because he doesn’t want to admit it, that he has flaws, that he is, on some level human. Lois says she doesn’t want to believe that a part of him could be Clark Kent. So, one of the central questions of the series seems to be, if Superman is everything humanity could ever hope to be, what does it mean that he too is flawed?

The issue ends with Superman giving Lois the super serum, setting up the next issue. I like the way the issues flow into each other, so that even if they are essentially standalone tales, things seem to build and flow into each other. This issue also sets up some interesting future stories, during Lois’s encounter with the Unknown Superman. Some of the future Superman stuff seems like a retread of what Morrison did during JLA, but it was great then, so it’s ok to bring it back.

So, this issue works as a great fusion of crazy silver age fun with some real emotional stuff. The sequence where Lois’s typing is intercut with Superman looking at himself in the mirror reaches a real emotional place, and the ending is great. I just love spending time with Morrison’s Superman, he’s the coolest guy around, and I guess that’s the point.

All Star Superman #1: 'Faster'

Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely have arguably the best partnership in the history of comics, perfectly complimenting each other and producing consistently brilliant comics. Coming off the amazing We3, they dove into All Star Superman. I have to say, I wasn’t thrilled to hear that Quitely would be spending two years drawing the adventures of Superman. I’m glad that he’s working with Morrison, but the amount of time it takes Quitely to draw means each project he does must be amazing to justify the time spent. He is a precious resource and should not be wasted.

After two issues, my initial reluctance to the project has largely dissipated. While I’d still prefer to see them doing something original, this is a fantastic book, fun, exciting and the only book I’ve read that really understands Superman and is able to make him work in stories. The very nature of the character makes it nigh impossible to do ordinary stories with him. You can deconstruct him, as in Miracleman, mythologize him, as in Supreme, but is it possible to just do straight up Superman stories? Here, Morrison proves that it is, managing to fuse massive stories and personal drama to create something really special.

Morrison has previously written Superman during his run on JLA, and there he treated the character as the idol of all the superheroes, the model they aspire to, a pure, goodhearted true hero. The entire series was about treating the heroes as gods, battling the largest foes on an intergalactic stage. That made for some great storylines, but only in the stories of the lower level heroes did we get any really meaningful character development. Here, Morrison manages to make Superman a viable character, and the end of the first issue sets him off on a potentially very interesting arc.

The issue begins with a page that almost has to be read as a big middle finger to the Brian Bendis style endless retreading of a hero’s origin story. We all know the Superman myth, do we need to spend seven months getting off Krypton? While I liked Bendis’s take on Ultimate Spider-Man, in fact, the extended origin is easily the best arc in the book’s run, I love the jump right into the action style that Morrison takes. The All Star label is perfect for him because it allows him to pick all the best elements of the mythology, what people know about the character, and leave behind the excessive complication that can come from long term continuity. I really do feel this is a book you could confidently show a new reader, certainly a better take on the mythos than the generally unsuccessful Superman Returns.

So, Superman’s origin’s wrapped up in a page and we’re introduced to the man himself in a glorious two page spread. A lot of what makes Quitely’s Superman work is the facial expressions, you get the sense this is a guy who’s just on an entirely different mental plane than everyone else, he just loves what he does, and that’s great to see. I’ve frequently said that one of the primary differences between Moore and Morrison is that when Moore sets out to make a tribute to Silver Age comics, he tries to literally replicate them in all their datedness, what Morrison tries to do is replicate the impact they had on him as a child, recapture that pure excitement of seeing heroes in action in crazy universes. Moore doesn’t have the same love for this material that Morrison does, and in every page of this book, you can see his glee at having the chance to write Superman.

I love the odd look of green haired lady who speaks about Superman’s progress. I’m not sure who she is, but it doesn’t matter. I think that’s one of the great things about this book, I’m not that familiar with the Superman mythos, but I can still appreciate the vast weirdness of everything that’s happening. We know about the man himself, and that’s enough.

Morrison plays with the repeat conventions of superhero stories, having Lois write the headlines before they happen. They have that much confidence in Superman. A similar concept occurs in Luthor’s operation of the machine, sending all his directions to the sun nine minutes ahead of time. Luthor’s mission is to kill Superman, and he realizes that you can’t do that in the present, what he does to Superman here is more subtle, overcharging him to take away his immortality.

Superman’s appearance in the ship, saying “Not if I can help it” is another great moment. Quitely renders him as a guy who’s totally confident, he knows he can beat the exploding man, he’s just that powerful. That power is what makes it nearly impossible to write compelling Superman stories. This opening sequence isn’t tense in the traditional sense because we know that Superman will win, Lois has already written the headline.

By bringing in Superman’s imminent death, we change the nature of the stories. He’s forced to reassess his role in the world, he’s no longer above humanity, he too will eventually join them in death. I’m guessing that much of this arc will be about Superman becoming more human as a result of his imminent mortality. This is all told to us in a visually dazzling manner, with the Technicolor dreamcoat wearing Doctor Quantam operating in a cool floating blood void. What Quantum makes clear is that Superman is as important as an idea as he is as a man. He inspired Quantum to work harder because he wants to prepare for what the world would have to be without Superman.

One of Morrison’s central thematic ideas is that superheroes are the blueprint for our future. As we evolve, they are the myth we will turn to to understand our new abilities, and Superman is the ultimate model for humanity, what we one day hope we can be. We saw this at the end of Morrison’s JLA run, in the World War III arc, and also in Flex Mentallo. The logical end of this series would be for Superman to die, but in having lived, create a world where everyone can be like him.

Morrison’s Clark Kent is a guy who’s having fun pulling one over on the world, presenting this jokey parody of what he thinks humans are. Reading this page, it is hard to believe that he’s Superman, and the intercutting of him saving the kid with Clark’s goofiness is great.

Things end with Clark telling Lois he’s Superman, a revelation that’s not that powerful because we didn’t know if she already knew this. But, it’s an essential moment of the Superman mythos, and allows Morrison to go in a more personal direction for the next issue. I think Morrison’s goal with the series is to do the greatest hits of the mythos, create a twelve issue series that tells you everything you need to know about Superman, and this moment is a big part of that.

So, I was very impressed by this first issue. It makes Superman work, and that’s not an easy thing to do. The character feels mythic, but still human and accessible. Quitely’s art is phenomenal, and together, the two of them become something so much more. I go back on who the best artist in comics is, Quitely or JH Williams. The most reliable answer is the one I’ve read most recently. JH has incredible versatility, but Quitely has a singular elegance and emotion. We shouldn’t have to choose, and luckily they both spend most of their time working with Morrison and Moore, so we get the best writers and best artists creating the best comics.