Thursday, May 22, 2008

Superman: Red Son

After reading the post about Iron Man last week, and my reference to Superman as "superbland," Andrew Shih recommended that I read Superman: Red Son.

So I did, and it was tremendous.

In Red Son, the rocketship carrying an infant doesn't land in Smallvile--it lands in the Soviet Union.

If that sounds like an interesting but shallow idea, it doesn't work out that way. Mark Millar writes with a significant amount of nuance, and there is much, much more to to the story than I expected. Superman is so well-established at this point (even shopworn, perhaps) that warping the myth onto another path entirely makes for entirely absorbing reading.

Other superheroes show up, too, but I'm not going to give you any spoilers. If you're interested, here's an Amazon link: Superman: Red Son.

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