Absolute Superman 1: Last Dust of Krypton
No, I didn’t like this much. It’s a collection of the first six issues of the Absolute Superman comic and it’s all backstory, explaining how Kal-El escaped the destruction of his home planet of Krypton and crash-landed onto the Kent homestead in Kansas. The way the story is told we switch back and forth between the events leading up to the death of Krypton “years ago,” and then what’s happening on Earth in the present.
The main conceit is that the two planets mirror each other exactly. On Krypton Kal-El is raised by homesteading parents, who are effectively Krypton’s version of farmers, in an area known as the Redlands. And just as Krypton is being destroyed by subterranean forces set loose by excessive mining or fracking and its social structure pressed to the point of revolution between the different political orders (scientists at the top, labourers at the bottom, a police state maintaining the hierarchy), so a near-future Earth is dominated by a militaristic technofascist organization (the Lazarus Corporation) that keeps the miners and other plebs under its heel by brute force. The Kents are the last of the yeoman farmers in America, so Kal-El is ready to join the revolutionary underclass when he grows up and becomes Superman. Meanwhile a shadowy figure named Brainiac is keeping tabs on Superman, though for what purpose isn’t clear, while a kick-ass Lazarus agent named Lois Lane is on Supe’s tail.
As with all the Absolute Universe stories this is a pretty radical re-imagining of the title character, though not as wild as Absolute Batman or Absolute Martian Manhunter. This feels more like the familiar Superman transported to a different or future timeline. The main change is that a lot of his power seems to come from his suit, which is operated by an AI called Sol that requires solar power to recharge and that provides Kal-El (his identity as Clark Kent is never mentioned) with helpful advice and information as he goes along. And Sol is also an aid to the reader, who is probably even more at sea given how much needs to be explained about what’s going on.
But no, I didn’t like it much. It feels like it’s all background with no clear story in the foreground or villain aside from the faceless Lazarus Corp. Brainiac remains mostly offscreen and it’s only on the final page that an angry Ra’s Al Ghul rises from a Lazarus pit (so that’s how it got its name!). There’s some conflict being set up, but it’s taking some time to get going and I can’t say it hooked me, I think mainly because Kal-El/Superman remains such a vague figure. I could understand him as a boy, but on Earth he struck me as a total cipher, and not that interesting either. Meanwhile, the political subtext was pretty standard stuff for a lot of SF stories, going back over a hundred years.
Will I read the next volume? Maybe. But I’m not in any rush.
