A Review
A few years ago when Warren Ellis announced that Mark Millar was taking over the reigns on The Authority, most fans let out a collective "Who?". Shortly after he began his run, those fans discovered what I had known a couple years beforehand.
I was searching through the back issue bin, and found a four issue run of Swamp Thing co-written by Grant Morrison. His name alone was enough to get me to pick it up, and I really enjoyed it. In one of the issues' letter column, he mentioned how most of the story was from the mind of his co-writer, Mark Millar, an unknown back then. Curious, I went back to the store and bought a few issues of Millar's follow-up solo run.
I was astounded. The man had taken the mantle from Alan Moore, and at times surpassed it. I was hooked. Since then, I tried to follow his career, checking out whatever new book he was working on. Unfortunately, it only seemed to be relegated to The Superman Animated book (still better than regular Superman). After a few years of not much else, he landed The Authority. In between those years, he had been discussing an elseworlds book he had written called Superman: Red Son. It seemed interesting enough, so I kept an eye out. Dave Johnson was attatched to draw it, so the excitement level rose.
Years passed, and since then I've been extremely disappointed with Millars output. The final Authority storyline was horrible (seemingly due to editorial interference). Ultimate X-Men was barely adequate at best, sloppily written at worst, and I won't even mention the art. The Ultimates, while gorgeous to look at, has been 12 issues of nothing, and it's taken two years to get to it. I didn't even bother with Trouble.
So, by the time Red Son came out, I opted not to buy. That and it's six-seven bucks per issue. Upon the release of the third issue, my friend tells me it's the greatest book he's ever read and the best thing Millar's ever written.
I trust this guy, he's my best friend, we've known each other for six years, so I tell him to let me borrow the books.
He was right.
Starting out, the book is simply good. It's not amazing by any means, but it's solid. It's your typical Elseworlds fare, something wacky happens in the past and it makes up for a very different timeline. Kal-L's ship crash lands in the Ukraine in 1938, on a farming collective (We never see this is, it's only alluded to). By the time we meet Superman, he's just started out. He moves to Moscow upon adulthood and decides to use his powers to help the people. He quickly is recruited by Josef Stalin and the communist party, and becomes a communist superweapon threat.
The American's of course panic. The President hires Dr. Lex Luthor, a genius of extreme intellect and degree to develop a weapon to counter the soviet Superman.
Lex is where Millar begins to shine. His Luthor isn't necessarily evil, just obsessed with Superman and developing ways to stop him. He's cold and distant, but ultimately always intriguing. Luthor is married to Lois Lane, a relationship that is never developed, because Luthor will not allow it. Luthor reads 13 books at a time, plays and wins 20 chess games at time, teaches himself to read lips simply because he realized he didn't know how. This is the best Luthor I've ever read.
Throughout the story, we see Luthor and Superman's relationship evolve, and it's not so much an antagonistic relationship, but almost a friendly rivarly between two alpha males, two men who refuse to lose. We also get the obligatory Elseworlds Batman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern. Batman, while fitting into the overall structure of the story, still seemed forced. Wonder Woman was written very nicely, and the appearance of Hal Jordan was amazing.
But still, two and 3/4 issues into it, and I still thought "A good elseworlds story, solid. Nothing amazing."
And then came the last 10 pages.
This, folks, is simply the best ending to any comic book I've ever read. Just wow. I even said "Wow" out loud when reading it. In 10 pages Millar deftly shows that he still has a fantastic talent in him. Mind-blowing.
I'll be picking this up in tpb format, if it ever comes out. If not, well, at least I had the chance to read it.
