All-Star Superman Volume Two
Posted: Wednesday, February 25, 2009
By: Tom Waters
Grant Morrison
Frank Quitely
DC Comics
Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely are not only a match made in comics heaven, but a pair that have somehow managed to not only raise the bar on the oldest comic book superhero in the history of the field, but on their own careers as well.
Volume Two had me at “hello.” Having read the first book about a year ago and having the tome blow my mind out the back of my head at that time, I scooped the second addition up the minute I saw it behind the counter on New Release Day. Morrison is without a doubt the most creative comic writer working today, and this is one of the best titles he’s ever written. I’d place it somewhere slightly below Arkham Asylum and a few notches up the ladder from Doom Patrol.
Quitely is a gifted artist whose work is so distinctive that there’s no mistaking his panels for those by anyone else in the business. At first glance, his work reminded me of David Boswell’s magnificent Reid Fleming: World’s Toughest Milkman. Quitely’s art has a comedic grace to it in the Clark Kent sequences that is similar to Boswell’s, but that’s where the comparison ends.
Quitely’s panels are inspired, inspiring, emotive, unique, powerful, and passionate--and they breathe life into Morrison’s one-of-a-kind story. This is what great comics are supposed to be, and it’s a shame they don’t come along more often.
In the previous volume, Lex Luthor tricked Superman into saving a spaceship from crashing into the sun. However, that gave Superman an overdose of the very thing that empowers him--solar radiation from a yellow sun. Through this concept of Superman slowly dying (an amazing concept to introduce, that), Morrison explores the theological parallels to the character while juggling Superman’s battle with 12 great trials and tests that Samson predicts will overshadow his entire career as a superhero.
Superman also comes to terms with his own mortality, manages to impart the kindness and gentle nature that informed his upbringing as an orphan with caring foster parents in an unkind world, and then makes the ultimate sacrifice. To top this all off, he fights his way back from the dead (briefly) to win one last battle that no one else (alien or human) would be able to win.
My previous paragraph doesn’t do justice to just how amazing both volumes are. While one could fill a warehouse with must-read graphic novels from talented and outspoken British writers (Alan Moore, Mike Carey, and Neil Gaiman spring instantly to mind), Morrison’s contribution to the landscape of comics is undisputed. His work on All-Start Superman ignores his previous work and (much like Siegel & Schuster’s Blue Boy Scout) delivers one of the best stories I’ve ever read on the printed page. It’s sincere, heartbreaking, wonderful, astonishing, hilarious, and thought provoking in a way that makes the phrase “thought provoking” seem cheap. If it seems like I’m gushing too much, then you haven’t read the series yet.
Batman and Superman seem to be lightning rods for great talent. While many artists and writers eventually wind up working on the entire stable of flagship characters at DC and Marvel, good writers become great writers by either throwing a new wrench into these two longstanding bastions of superhero myth or ignoring their pasts completely and creating a story that no one has ever dreamed of, let alone put down on paper.
Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale caught everyone’s attention with a return to the innocence of the character in Superman for All Seasons. Mark Waid and Alex Ross showed us an embittered and partially retired optimist in Kingdom Come. Darwynn Cooke and Tim Sale took us on a roller coaster ride of vulnerability with Superman: Kryptonite. The point is that we can all count on two hands how many truly memorable Superman stories rose above the level of “merely engaging” to “truly classic.”
I’ve got a soft spot for Superman and Batman. They are the Yin and the Yang of DC Comics--amazing heroes with simplistic origin stories who have endured thanks, in large part, to the writers who kept adding depth, ingenuity, and compassion to their canon of stories. Morrison has done the unthinkable with both, and I’m starting to wonder if he sold his soul to the devil for two of the greatest stories about the World’s Finest Duo.
Between Arkham Asylum and All-Star Superman, I’m going to start systematically buying every compilation volume he’s ever written. He is peerless in his consistency, the impossible quantity of his work, and his knock-em-dead quality every single time (from what I’ve read so far, and I’ve read plenty). Grant Morrison is to comics what Bob Dylan is to popular music. Read that line again and think about that.
Frank Quitely isn’t too far behind either, and the only reason he didn’t grab more real estate in this review is because this is the first series where I was lucky enough to stumble onto his work. If DC is smart, they’ll sign them each to a twenty-year contract because I honestly can’t fathom a team that could even come close to the statistically impossible perfection of All-Star Superman. The first volume gets you hooked and the second drives it home. Buy them both the first chance you get.
Tom Waters lives and writes in Lancaster, NY. He is the author of seven books (mostly rants, some poetry), a weekly columnist for Night Life magazine, a pod cast radio host and a celebrity interviewer and bar reviewer for the Buffalo News. For more information, click over to: www.tomfoolery4.wordpress.com.
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