Red Son

[selenak]

Following a recommendation from londonkds, I've read Mark Millar's Red Son, aka the Superman AU in which his pod crashes in the Soviet Union instead of Kansas. Which was interesting to read and shared several elements with JMS' more recent Supreme Power, notably of course the idea of the Superman character raised to love the state and being driven towards the idea that assuming power might be the only way to deal with humanity's problems once the state starts to show its colours. I appreciated the twist on Batman's origin story (and Soviet! Batman coming complete with ear muffins both made sense and cracked me up), and the fact Lex Luthor is and remains an utter jerk throughout the story - defeating Superman as his only goal just becomes one sanctioned by (American) society and thus makes him everyone's hero instead of everyone's villain. Lastly, considering that likeadeuce found out, in Ultimate X-Men, that Millar seems to believe Das Kapital was written in Russian, I wasn't suprised on the, err, vague take on communism (though points to Millar for not just going the communism = bad, capitalism = good route, he just doesn't seem to have much of an idea how communist economy actually is supposed to work if he thinks Superman can make it a world wide success with superpowers.

His take on Superman goes the lonely Alien route, not suprising as this one doesn't have a Clark identity as such, either fake or real, and despite the red-headed girl from the colchose he was raised in, no real human ties. The way Lex defeats him fits completely, though one element annoys me, which is something I had problems with throughout the story - to wit, why the hell does Lois remain married to Lex Luthor? Because other than that she has to be there for the climax of the story so she can hand over that paper on which one devastating sentence is written, I can't really see a reason. No, he's not a supervillain in this universe but as previously mentioned an utter jerk, they hardly spend time together, so why? It's not that she needs the alternative of another man. Lois Lane in any incarnation should have enough spine to get divorced (in the 60s at the latest in this saga) because of herself.

I'm also not sure where Millar was going with the Luthorism at the end, because it sort of negates the point about the hubris of the assumption any one person, no matter how powerful and/or benevolent, can "save" humanity. As with Lois and her marriage, it seems more for the sake of a cool revelation (in that case, the final pages) than anything else.

Comments

[searose.livejournal.com]

Writers have wanted to do weird things with the character of Lois Lane. One of Marv Wolfman's ideas for the 1986-87 reboot was a riff on Citizen Kane, with Lex Luthor installed in a mountaintop 'Xanadu' mansion overlooking Metropolis, and at his side, Lois Lane, his kept mistress. And that would have been the introductory foundation moment of canon for Lois Lane for the next twenty years in-continuity, but the idea was shot down by John Byrne.

I've glanced through Red Son. Some people I play around with do like the graphic novel. I might have a hard time buying into necessary naivete on the character's part, since one of his powers is extraordinary hearing. The entirety of the USSR would not have been soundproofed; the guy would have heard an awful lot being said and done even if the Superman analog thought of the Stalinist state as a lawful entity. (Handwave for the conceit's sake, yes, I know.)

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Lois as Susan Alexander?!? Good think Byrne shot it down.

Re: naivete - I read an interview in which Millar declared that just as Vietnam didn't taint "real" Superman, the gulags etc. don't taint "Soviet" Superman. But it does clash with his powers, as you say. I think JMS handled it better with Mark Milton who early on just tries very hard not to know because he wants to keep on believing in his parents, and then after denial breaks down knows it all.

[searose.livejournal.com]

Maybe he would have been kinder and made her an analog of Marion Davies? But the gist was that Clark was to meet Lois for the first time when she was the sexual property of another man, his archnemesis-to-be, so I dunno about kind intents.

Yeah, the post-Crisis Kents were also known to be aware of their son's eavesdropping abilities. Couple of times, "Careful. He *can* hear us," when they were discussing him amongst themselves. Not in the sinister vein of Milton's upbringing, but just acknowledgement (from the various writers) that the Kent household was short on privacy and circumspect about confronting this in the open.

[gentilhomme.livejournal.com]

I suppose one could argue that divorce wasn't a real option for most American women until the '70s wave of feminism; not that they couldn't, it just wasn't a very socially-acceptable option. IIRC, women in the '60s couldn't even get a mortgage without their husband or male relative signing off on it.

/tangent

[searose.livejournal.com]

On that tangent, it sounds more like a comment on the middle class and how the middle class changed over time.

My grandmother was a middle class businesswoman who owned various enterprises (businesses, buildings) in the mid-1930s onward. Her husband, my grandfather, was a travelling salesman for a local corporation. The banks dealt with *her*, rather than waiting around for my grandfather to be in town. I think it was a case of banks of that time being more willing to trust women who were proven income-earners or who held collateral in their own names.

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

Being a property owner/wage earner used to be pretty key to your public participation in society. I have a feeling that was the original connotation of a citizen in the US. (In some states, women who owned property could vote long before the 19th amendment. New Jersey granted the vote to anyone, man or woman, with a certain amount of wealth or property, as soon as they became a state.)

[searose.livejournal.com]

I think in the 1950s, an upper class American woman could be savvy enough to divorce well, if she wanted to do this and didn't run afoul of a misogynist of a judge. A character like 'Lois Lane', I'm not convinced she'd be all that concerned about loss of social status, maybe not so much monetary detriment. She's supposed to be an adventuring type, and was in the 20th century.

Okay, in comics' matters, it would be *forgivable* if Lois Lane divorced Lex Luthor, the more spectacular that show, the better. Maybe not in-story, if Luthor was a good husband to her there, but in the minds of readers not used to that pairing at all. In Red Son, it does serve as a memorable twist that the two are a married couple, very outré of Millar.

[lilacsigil.livejournal.com]

It seemed to me more of a comment on the Dark Knight Returns Superman than other incarnations - if Superman prefers to identify with a system and stability, what change does the kind of system cause to him? I don't think Millar is interested in a real communist economy (or indeed any economy!) so much as the symbol.

Also, Batman was still Batman, and he was awesome.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

I think that Millar's idea is that both Superman and Lex in this are absolutely mind-blowingly super-intelligent to the point of near-infallibility, so can get past the economic calculation problem and make a planned economy work (Lex's USA by the end is arguably a fascist rather than socialist planned economy).

I really do think the best things about it are the central characterisation of Superman and the very thoughtful and amusing variations on standard DC canon. I think the origin story of Batman is the absolute high-point, because of the perfect ideological inversion of someone who remains exactly the same character - standard Batman sees his parents murdered by a random criminal and becomes one of the most law 'n' order obsessed of superheroes, to the point of sometimes being actually written as an authoritarian Conservative, Red Son Batman sees his parents murdered by the secret police and becomes an extreme right-libertarian.

What does give me problems in Red Son is, what exactly, is meant by the ending, because it does seem to argue that Lex can bring utopia to the Earth despite being a brutal totalitarian bastard. But Millar's political beliefs as expressed in his work seem more shallow the more I read or read about his work - he often seems incapable of portraying anyone to the right of Old Labour as anything other than a consciously-evil monster who rapes little children before breakfast. Red Son is the only work of his I'd really recommend to anyone, as it's a rare occasion when he's forced to write for an all-ages audience and as such isn't tempted by his flippant extreme violence and icky half-jokey-half-fascinated portrayal of sexual violence, especially male on male rape.

You may be interested to know, by the way, that Grant Morrison reportedly suggested the final time-loop twist, after Millar felt that his original ending was too low-key.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I think the origin story of Batman is the absolute high-point, because of the perfect ideological inversion of someone who remains exactly the same character -

Agreed. The most clever thing about the comic.

What does give me problems in Red Son is, what exactly, is meant by the ending, because it does seem to argue that Lex can bring utopia to the Earth despite being a brutal totalitarian bastard

Same here. As I said, it seemed to negate the main point. Though perhaps Millar just loved the irony "Lex Luthor by defeating Superman creates paradise on Earth" and didn't bother to think about the implication or politics at all...