Superman: Red Son

AUTHOR: Millar, Mark

ARTIST: Dave Johnson (illustrator); Kilian Plunkett (illustrator); Andrew Robinson (illustrator); Walden Wong (illustrator); Paul Mounts (colorist); Ken Lopez (letterer)

PUBLISHER: DC Comics

FIRST SERIAL PUBLICATION: 2003

FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION: 2004

Publication History

Superman: Red Son was first published in 2003 as a three-issue prestige format miniseries: Red Son Rising, Red Son Ascendant, and Red Son Setting. A paperback edition appeared in 2004 featuring an introduction by writer/producer Tom DeSanto and a sketch section with artwork by Dave Johnson, Kilian Plunkett, and Alex Ross, who helped Johnson with the original character design. A hardcover deluxe edition appeared in 2009 with a new cover by Dave Johnson.

British author Mark Millar started working for DC Comics in 1994 with Swamp Thing. In 2000, Millar and artist Frank Quitely took over The Authority, which became Millar’s breakthrough work. However, Millar left DC Comics in 2001 after a dispute and started working for Marvel Comics and its alternate-universe Ultimate series. While working on the second issue, Millar became concerned that because of artistic delays the series would not be finished in time for it to remain up-to-date, so he changed illustrators halfway through issue 2. Fellow British writer Grant Morrison suggested the idea of sending Superman back in time in the final scene of the series.

Plot

According to Millar, he arrived at the original idea for the series in 1976, when he read Superman issue 300, an alternate-universe story in which both the United States and the Soviet Union race for the rocket that brings the infant Superman to Earth. Superman: Red Son uses characters and plot elements from the DC Comics universe, and the historical background and the political implications target a more mature audience.

In Red Son Rising, set during the Cold War during the 1950’s, the existence of the Soviet Superman begins a new stage in the arms race. To counter the Soviets, the United States gets the smartest man alive, Lex Luthor, to destroy Superman. To gather Superman DNA, Luthor sets a Sputnik probe to crash into Metropolis, which Superman prevents. Superman then meets Lois Lane Luthor, who is married to Luthor. Luthor creates Bizarro, a monstrous Superman clone, who sacrifices himself to save London after an accidental nuclear launch.

Superman’s rise in the Soviet hierarchy makes the head of the People’s Ministry of Internal Affairs (NKVD), Pyotr Roslov, jealous. He arranges the poisoning of Stalin but, wracked by guilt, tries to kill himself, which Superman prevents. During this time, Superman also meets Wonder Woman, who is attracted to him.

Superman is at first reluctant to take power after Stalin’s death and does so only when he realizes the plight of the common people.

In Red Son Ascendant, set during the 1970’s, Lex Luthor still seeks to destroy Superman, as the world is increasingly falling under communist rule. Together with the alien computer being Brainiac, he shrinks the city of Stalingrad. Luthor also seeks out Roslov and, with the anarchist Batman, whose parents were shot by Roslov, tries to kill Superman. Using Wonder Woman as bait, Batman lures Superman into a trap where he negates his superpowers with red sun radiation. Wonder Woman breaks free of her own magic lasso, severely injuring herself in the process. When Superman tries to capture Batman, Batman blows himself up, fingering Roslov as the traitor. Roslov is then transformed into a lobotomized Superman robot.

In Red Son Setting, set in 2001, the world is now under communist rule, with the exception of the United States, where Luthor has become president and has turned the previously war-torn country into a success story. For his next attack on Superman he has created the Green Lantern Marine Corps, led by Hal Jordan. He has also enlisted Wonder Woman and her Amazon warriors, but Superman defeats both while beginning an all-out attack on the United States. However, on the brink of victory Luthor makes him realize that his actions have been morally unjustifiable. Brainiac, who had supposedly been turned into another of Superman’s servants, reveals that he has been the power behind Superman’s attempt at global domination, but before he can kill Superman, Luthor destroys Brainiac. Superman seemingly sacrifices himself while saving Earth from the self-destruction of Brainiac’s ship, and Luthor starts building a true utopia that is led by his ancestors and lasts a billion years while Superman watches. When Earth is about to be destroyed by its exploding red sun, Luthor ancestor Jor-L sends his infant son Kal-L back in time where he will have superpowers. His time-traveling vessel lands in Ukraine in 1938.

Characters

•Superman, the protagonist, is an all-powerful alien being who looks the same as the mainstream Superman, with the exception of an emblem consisting of a hammer and sickle on his chest. His costume colors are red and dark gray (the original are red and blue), and from issue 2 on he wears black gloves and a black cape. Though he is a ruthless dictator, Superman does try to help human beings—by controlling their lives.

•Lex Luthor, Superman’s prime antagonist, is the world smartest scientist, who, by issue 3, has lost all of his hair. His megalomaniacal ego cannot accept Superman’s superiority, so he spends all his intellectual energy trying to destroy him. Once Superman is seemingly gone, Luthor uses his genius to make a utopian Earth.

•Lois Luthor, the wife of Lex Luthor, is a journalist and later editor of the Daily Planet newspaper. There is a strong attraction between her and Superman, and she delivers the final blow (Luthor’s message that makes Superman see the error of his ways) against him.

•Wonder Woman is an Amazon princess who becomes the partner of Superman, during which time she wears a costume that is similar in color and style to his. After her injury her hair turns gray, and she turns against Superman.

•Batman is an anarchistic antagonist of Superman, who wears a felt cap with his costume. He takes their rivalry to a new extreme when he tries to imprison Superman for life and kills himself after failing to do so.

•Pjotr Roslov is the illegitimate son of Stalin. Although modeled after Superman friend Pete Ross, Roslov is Superman’s rival.

•Brainiac, Superman’s antagonist, is a robotic computer similar to designs from the 1980’s. Brainiac, who is behind Superman’s quest for world domination, gives Superman a way out of his moral predicament as a dictator.

•Hal Jordan, a.k.a. Green Lantern, is the commander of the Green Lantern Marine Corps, which Superman defeats when he attacks the United States.

•James Olsen, a.k.a. Jimmy Olsen, is Luthor’s running mate when Luthor runs for (and becomes) president of the United States.

•Joseph Stalin, Soviet dictator, appears as Superman’s mentor, with only a passing reference to his atrocities against his own people.

Artistic Style

Dave Johnson is an award-winning cover artist, with an Eisner Award in 2002 to his credit. The change in style when Kilian Plunkett took over penciling in issue 2 is slight. The protagonists’ facial features, especially Superman’s, become sharper as they age, so the style evolves in conjunction with the evolution of the characters.

Johnson’s covers are reminiscent in style of the propaganda art of socialist realism, which is also used in some of the interior panels. Some classic Superman scenes are re-created throughout the book, connecting it to the past via intertextual references.

The colors are mostly dark and gloomy, emphasized especially by Superman’s costume, which turns from red and gray into a mostly black and gray military-style uniform, while his body ages and becomes heavier. A special feature is the many overlapping images with bigger background pictures that set the tone of the page and smaller pictures in the foreground that advance the story, creating complex panels. Throughout the story, even during fight scenes, there are almost no sound icons, which is unusual.

The narrator is Superman himself, with the captions in red and yellow. Other narrator captions are used sparsely and for description of locations only. For Brainiac, machine lettering is used as opposed to hand lettering for human characters.

The artwork as a whole is not overly detailed but delivers strong characterizations of the protagonists, especially Superman, whose changes in body and costume run parallel to his moral decline.

The story ends with a powerful one-page picture of Superman’s rocket crashing in Ukraine in 1938.

Themes

With a superhero as powerful as Superman, there are two obvious questions: why doesn’t Superman fix the Earth’s problems, and why has Superman never been corrupted by his powers? Superman: Red Son tries to provide a different answer to both of these questions.

As Superman is reared inside the Soviet system, he believes in the prevailing communist ideology. His naïveté, which reflects his Boy Scout attitude in the mainstream DC universe, makes him at first reluctant to take power after Stalin’s death, whose legacy he never openly criticizes, but the plight of the people persuades him to use his powers for good. Aided by Brainiac, he reshapes the world into a modern utopia that paradoxically oppresses individual freedoms and lobotomizes its enemies. Superman even decides to go to war against the United States but in the end fails utterly as he realizes that he has no right to meddle in other people’s affairs—a realization that becomes a strong commentary on the moral obligations of the world’s one remaining superpower. The loss of his human anchor, Lois Lane Luthor, isolates him from humanity and sets him adrift. As such, the core messages of the Superman comics (leadership by example rather than force and that power alone does not make one a hero) are still valid.

Impact

DC Comics imprint Elseworlds’s formula is to remove characters from the DC universe and place them in other contexts. This imprint has produced quite a number of noteworthy graphic novels since its inception in 1989 with Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, a story that pits Batman against Jack the Ripper in the late nineteenth century. The more successful graphic novels have become part of the continuity of the DC universe, especially after the mega crossover event Infinite Crisis (2006) and the following 52 series created 52 parallel worlds, with some of them originating in Elseworlds stories. The Earth of Superman: Red Son is Earth-30. This version of Superman has also surfaced in other titles, such as Superman/Batman (2001- ) and Final Crisis (2008-2009). However, alternative-world Superman stories have a long tradition from the 1960’s on, with iconic stories such as Superman Red/Superman Blue (1963), in which Superman is split into two beings who transform the Earth into utopia. Nevertheless, Superman: Red Son is unique in that it creates a complex alternative story of the DC universe, using many of its central characters, while commenting on important political issues.

For a graphic novel, Superman: Red Son, with its use of an American icon in the context of communism, caused quite a stir, especially in the mainstream media. Although it was already finished before the war in Iraq began, it has been interpreted as an allegory of the consequences of American interference in the affairs of other countries. Millar himself sees his work as a reaction to the end of the Cold War and the dangers that lie in the existence of a sole superpower. The book’s success also led to a series of action figures.

Further Reading

Moore, Alan, and Curt Swan. Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? (1986).

Morrison, Grant, and Frank Quitely. All Star Superman (2005-2008).

Waid, Mark, and Alex Ross. Kingdom Come (1996).

Bibliography

Boztas, Senay. “Superman Declares War on America.” The Sunday Times, April 27, 2003. Available at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article869790.ece.

Jensen, Jeff. “Cape Cowed.” Entertainment Weekly 706/707 (April 25, 2003): 156.

Yeffeth, Glenn, ed. The Man from Krypton: A Closer Look at Superman. Dallas: BenBella Books, 2006.