SUPERMAN (RED SON)

What It Is:

Probably the greatest of all the Superman Elseworlds tales, Mark Millar's Superman: Red Son poses some interesting questions. What if Kal-El's rocket had landed in a collective farm in the Ukraine, instead of in Smallville, Kansas? Just how American is Superman, after all? Are the devotion to truth and the love of justice incompatible with the teachings of Karl Marx?

Red Son plays out along a historically realistic time frame, with the Soviets revealing Superman to the world during the presidency of Eisenhower. In the story's first few pages, Ike has to break the bad news to the American people, and it's an announcement that would make the Sputnik launches pale in comparison: the existence of an "alien Superman, committed to Communist ideals whose very existence threatens to alter our position as a world superpower forever." Soviet propaganda images of the costumed alien reveal a character very much like the one we know - except in black-and-white, like the early George Reeves Superman - and with a hammer-and-sickle in place of the familiar 'S' on his chest.

The president calls in America's ace-in-the-hole, Dr. Lex Luthor, who in Millar's tale is an attractive, red-headed dynamo with a ridiculously high I.Q. Luthor plays chess with multiple opponents while reading Machiavelli to stave off boredom, and he just so happens to be married to the beautiful star reporter, Lois Lane Luthor.

Luthor concocts a plan to lure Superman to the United States - Sputnik gives him the idea to engineer a panic in the sky - a plummeting satellite from which the citizens of Metropolis will need to be saved. He correctly calculates that Superman's commitment to pravda and social justice will trump his specific loyalty to the Soviet way just this once. Superman takes the bait, rescuing the city and making a strong impression on Lois, but he leaves a bit of himself on the satellite, which was Lex's gamble. Dr. Luthor will eventually turn a sample of Superman's DNA into the story's Bizarro - an ugly American Superman with "USA" stamped on his chest.

Over the next few decades, Superman succeeds Joe Stalin as the leader of the U.S.S.R., secures an alliance with Princess Diana (Wonder Woman), and continues his battle with the indefatigable Luthor. Lex forms a partnership with the alien android Brainiac, who shrinks a Soviet city before their plans are foiled. Superman's failure to restore the bottled city of Stalingrad to its former greatness will haunt him in the years to come. Yet Superman's greatest challenge is overcoming the threat posed by the Batman - a mysterious, omnipresent symbol of anti-authoritarianism who strikes from the shadows at Superman's empire.

Red Son holds our interest both with these subtle reflections of established DC mythology and world history and with its implied commentary on Superman, who as a Soviet champion is different but not markedly better or worse than the Man of Steel we know. Millar's Soviet Superman has a greater social conscience, reminiscent of the classic Siegel and Shuster character. What the Red Son lacks is Jonathan Kent's doctrine of personal responsibility - a strong faith in the ability of human beings to choose their own destinies and to both see and shoulder their responsibilities. Ultimately, this failing proves to be the Russian Superman's downfall.

Red Son, like any good story, doesn't conclusively answer all of the questions it poses. Rather, it leaves us with a dialogue between two philosophical extremes. Perhaps it is this balance between social obligation and personal freedom that makes Superman seem so essentially American.