“Yesterday’s” Comic> All-Star Superman #1

Mentally preparing himself to lose everything and gain an armored suit.

All-Star Superman #1

DC Comics (January, 2006, although my copy is a Free Comic Book Day reprint dated June 2008)

(This story takes place outside of regular DC Continuity.)

Lex Luthor sneaks a suicide bomber onto a mission to the sun. When Superman saves the crew, his proximity to the sun cause his cells to supercharge to the point where he gains new powers…but is dying in the process. This is all according to Lex’s plan. The comic ends with Clark revealing his secret identity to Lois.

Let’s be honest, the Superman is dying story has been done before, but from all I hear Morrison did a good job with this series. That’s kind of the problem. It’s in the later issues that this is supposed to shine. However, and maybe it’s just me, but the story in this issue setting up the series came with a few things that bothered me. For example, Superman gaining new powers. The man is so powerful now that it’s ridiculous. Attempts to tone down his powers only last until the next writer insists that he has to be the most powerful being possible, which makes it difficult to give him a worth challenge. I saw that happening here (for example, extending an energy field to protect the ship) and wasn’t impressed.

Also, it ends with Clark revealing his true identity to Lois. However, by this point in continuity Clark & Lois were married! We already had that story a long time ago and this wasn’t early in his career like Superman: The Animated Series or Smallville, so this bothered me. (The fact that One More Day had happened and I remembered from the Superman 2000 project that “they” wanted to kill off the Super Marriage as well. Now you have the post-Flashpoint reboot, which makes things worse.) So this bothered me as well.

The art is good, but I’ve never personally cared for painted style art in comics. Quietly’s characters are drawn very well until you notice that the faces don’t seem to have a lot of expression. It’s the digital coloring that gives it a beautiful look, but it feels off for a regular comic. It works somewhat better for the concept of this series, but I still don’t care for it in my comics.

I’ve heard so many people whose opinions I respect and often agree with praise this series, so I can’t argue with it. However, there were just too many red flags for me to go beyond the FCBD reprint and seek out the series proper. Maybe someday I’ll give it a proper reading but I don’t have the funds at this time, nor the time really.