Superman: Red Son

Published 9:00 am Sunday, August 27, 2017

What if baby Superman’s rocket landed in the Russian Ukraine instead of the American farmland of Kansas?

Question answered in “Superman: Red Son,” a masterful what-if story by writer Mark Millar and artists Dave Johnson and Kilian Plunkett.

Superman becomes the Soviet superweapon in the 1950s. Russia doesn’t need the bomb when it has a person who can stop any American weapon. The arms race is stalled.

Though the young Soviet Superman is Stalin’s handpicked successor, he does not allow nationality to stop him from saving people around the world. President Eisenhower taps Lex Luthor to find a way to either compete with Superman or eliminate the Soviet threat.

The storyline stretches through the decades into the early 21st century. Superman becomes the Soviet premier then the ruler of the world with the exception of the holdout but beleaguered United States. 

Through the pages of the trade paperback edition that collects the entire story, a Russian Batman rises to defy Superman, Brainiac shrinks Stalingrad and places it in a bottle, Wonder Woman works with Superman, and Luthor strives to defeat his foe.

“Superman: Red Son” pays tribute to a skewed vision of numerous Superman traditions, while making the defender of the American way into the sentinel of the Soviet Union. Even the title “Red Son” is word play on both Superman coming from a solar system with a red sun and his being the guardian of the Reds in Russia.

The illustrations are reminiscent of Soviet-style propoganda art of the era.

“Red Son” is a masterful what-if storytelling.