All-Star Superman #2

Superman. Hero. Icon. Inspiration. Boring?

Well he certainly has not been particularly exciting for a good long while. The only Superman comics in recent years to have been worthy of wearing the famed S-shield have been Elseworlds titles like Kurt Busiek’s SECRET IDENTITY and Mark Millar’s RED SON. The only place to find a suitable Man of Tomorrow on a regular basis was on the Justice League cartoon and in his own erstwhile animated series. In fact, the general lameness of the Man of Steel has been so obvious that DC eventually had to acknowledge it themselves and it is currently being used as the basis for the INFINITE CRISIS event. The memorable shot that Batman took at Superman in issue #1 of that series (”The last time you inspired anyone was when you were dead.”) was as accurate as it was cheap. Just by reading the words on the page you could feel the impact of fanboys worldwide gasping “Oooh, get you!” and then suddenly realizing that Batman’s antisocial barbs were actually justified for once.

It will be a few months yet until this generation’s Crisis is over and done with. DC has made a song and dance about returning their heroes to genuinely heroic status afterwards. It remains to be seen exactly what that means but in terms of Superman it is inconceivable that they could surpass the version that Morrison and Quitely present to us in this book.

Ah, yes; Morrison and Quitely. Some things work perfectly well by themselves but enter an even higher realm of brilliance when they are combined. Peanut butter and jelly. Chocolate and milk. Me and beer. Getting these two together to work on a Superman book more than lives up to the All-Star line’s vague ethos about “big name creators on big name characters” (even if it does make it near-impossible to get equally gifted replacements). While Frank Miller and Jim Lee pack their ALL-STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN, THE INCREDIBLY LONG TITLE with gratuitous and pornographic sketches that can only possibly work as satire, Morrison and Quitely offer a fundamental yet exciting take on the Last Son of Krypton.

Let’s have a gander, cos lord knows we don’t have enough of those…

The Cover – Okay, first thing’s first; with that slogan and with Superman standing in that position, I can only conclude that Lois has stumbled onto his secret Wanking Chamber.

Page 1 – Lois Lane sits in her car reading the Daily Planet as Superman flies said car over the spectacular Arctic landscape. What, that scenery isn’t good enough for her? She should at least turn the lights off. It’ll only run down the battery.

Pages 2/3 – Superman sets the car down in front of the entrance to the Fortress of Solitude. Lois Lane, who has been trying to prove that Superman is really Clark Kent for some time now, cannot bring herself to believe it is actually true after he revealed it in the previous issue. This is what is known as Woman Logic. It is a disturbing and strangely compelling thing.

Page 4 – Superman opens the door to the Fortress and is greeted by four of his Superman Robots. Stop to consider for a moment the sheer ego it would take to manufacture a veritable regiment of highly-advanced robots and make them all look like you. Yeah. Anyway, he tells them to fix a spot of engine trouble he detected in Lois’ car. Told you the lights should have been off.

Page 5 – Cute Touch #1: Lois is concerned about the size of Superman’s key. She mentions the massive Silver Age version of the Fortress key, which has been replaced by a bog-standard, regulation-sized key and lock… except the key is made of super-dense material and weighs half-a-million tons, so only Superman can lift it. Neat.

Pages 6/7 – Double Splash Fun! Superman introduces Lois to the massive lobby of the Fortress, where various robots are milling around taking care of things. There are various objects in sight, including the Bottle City of Kandor, Joker’s Giant Penny, the Space Shuttle Columbia and a very peculiar chess board. Superman obviously needs a high-speed internet connection.

Page 8 – Lois showers and dresses in evening wear. Yes, we get to see her in her panties. Somehow she still seems elegant though, not sexploited as with Vicki Vale in ALL-STAR SIN CITY. Anyway, she continues to have a big flap as she ponders the logistics of ageing in a long-term relationship with Superman. The word “sagging” is involved, and rightly so. Superman’s big response is to give her some flowers. Sure, they are from Alpha Centauri 4 but it is quite reassuring to know that even Superman doesn’t have a better plan than just giving her flowers.

Page 9 – Superman continues his Alpha Male routine by showing off his wonderful toys to try and impress Lois. The most impressive is a time telescope, which allows him to briefly contact his successors from the distant future. They only get brief and cryptic messages at the moment but it is almost as though this could somehow tie into the plot later on. Huh.

Page 10 – Superman has seemingly graduated from keeping a mere super-powered Labrador as a pet. Now he has a baby sun-eater and feeds him miniature suns that he creates with a cosmic anvil made on New Olympus. Lois’ response? Standing with her arms crossed, looking unimpressed. Christ, luv, what’s a guy gotta do?

Page 11 – Lois gets distracted as her journalistic streak kicks in. This may or may not be the same thing as being a noisy wee so-and-so but whatever, the point is that she goes into a room, sees a robot monitoring strange experiments with various X-rays and diagrams of a woman on the wall and then Superman ushers her outside and tells her the room is off-limits. You can’t blame her for getting curious now. To be fair, he did leave the door open. Always conceal the Wanking Chamber, Kal-El.

Interlude for a great big, fuck off Mario advert!!!!

Yeah, thanks. Begone, Bob Hoskins.

Actually, do you remember the original Super Mario Kart game? That was awesome in the most immense sense of the word. Only Burnout 2 surpassed it in terms of racing games. Well, that and Supercars for the Amiga 500+. That game went above and beyond, since you got to go shopping for your cars and get into fights with the greasy bloke at the dealership. Ah, memories.

I’m going to buy a Nintendo Revolution just for the SNES back catalogue. Anyway, um, Superman…

Page 12 – Superman puts on his gladrags – sorry, traditional Kryptonian formal wear from the Fourth Age – and goes for dinner with Lois. That’s dinner on the Titanic, which he has added to his Fortress, with the actual menu from the ship’s kitchen, cooked with freshly picked ingredients by Superman himself. We’re into “above and beyond” territory here. Hell, all the 40 Year Old Virgin had to do was take the daughter to a sex clinic. Lois, however, is still suspicious about the whole Clark/Kal connection. We see from her POV for a panel and it is in black and white…

Page 13 – Lois continues to see Superman and the relationship in black and white. She is not at all happy that the biggest story in the world has now simply been handed to her on a silver platter (never mind that it is a silver platter from the Titanic), and is angry at Superman both for lying to her for so many years and for not letting her know why he chose now to confide his secret. Don’t worry, Supes. The Wanking Chamber is always there for you and it asks no questions.

Page 14 – Dinner has ended abruptly, so Lois jots down some notes on her laptop as Superman looks forlornly at his Clark Kent glasses…

Page 15 – Cute Touch #2: He puts the glasses on and looks into the Mirror of Truth, which of course shows him without the spectacles. According to his little mirror confessional, he only told her now because he thinks he is dying and wants to spend some truthful time with her. Lois, meanwhile, is getting herself worked up into a right state and has convinced herself that Superman is plotting something sinister in his secret room to hurt her with. She also gets even angrier when she considers that some part of Superman may actually be the bumbling Clark Kent. You see? Nobody likes Clark Kent. Well, except for Chloe, but she’s dead. Or dying, or will be shortly. Whatever. If a future issue of this title has Chloe in it then I will ejaculate in the street, hollering with glee. Anyway, the interstellar flowers stand in a vase on the table behind her laptop and they glow an eerie blue…

Eerie, Indiana. Is that on DVD yet?

Page 16 – Lois darts off to find herself a weapon from the room she was in earlier. You know, the one with the Time Telescope? Yeah, well, the Superman of 4500AD is standing in it, head wrapped up in bandages…

Page 17 – Lois tries to get a straight answer out of the future Superman before a couple of the robots come in to take her to the present Superman but it proves a little difficult. You see, the future Superman is demanding an answer to a riddle that has plagued his people for many generations. I realise I’m doing a spoiler-filled review here but I just can’t bring myself to ruin the question, you really do just need to go and read it for yourselves. It definitely ranks as Line of the Year Thus Far… It also ranks as Cute Touch #3.

Page 18 – Lois runs away from the robots, grabs a Kryptonite Laser and heads off to confront Superman. She is convinced that the future Superman she spoke to was sporting the Hush line of skincare products because the present Superman is about to be deformed by a hideous accident in his secret room… she must be prepared… is this the way George Bush’s mind processes information?

Page 19 – As before, but more paranoid and with the closed door of the secret room bearing a sign that says “Keep Out: Superman At Work”. Why does he even have that sign when nobody else goes into the Fortress? What an odd fellow…

Page 20 – He comes out of the room and she shoots him with the Green K laser. He is not harmed, merely tickled. It seems that he has become immune due to the massive power boosts he received in the first issue when he was in the sun. Lois immediately comes to her senses but unfortunately she looks a little like Kate Moss the morning after. Come on Frank, mate, you can do better than that.

Page 21 – Exposition!!!! Monologuing!!!! To paraphrase, Superman tells Lois to shut the fuck up and stop being such a bloody cock-tease. He has been using weird funky alien shit to duplicate his powers so that she can spend 24 hours with his super-powers.

Page 22 – Happy Birthday, Lois Lane! She gets a Superwoman costume to put on just in time for issue #3, which should probably be with us before 2007. My Word spellchecker is apparently quite fine and dandy with ‘Superwoman’, though I have no idea when I ever typed it before. I just hope it wasn’t in that letter to the council I typed up earlier on.

Anyway, yeah, she’s fine.

The Final Word: Crazy, sexy, cool, emphatically super and utterly immune to boring.

Rating - 8