Millar takes a massive gamble here with one of the world's most enduring icons.

Should be recommended as a piece that any and every fan should check out ... utterly superb.

You have to admire all this cleverness; there's just no way around it.

Millar and Johnson do a great job .

From acclaimed writer Mark Millar (Ultimate X-Men), and artists Dave Johnson (100 Bullets) and Kilian Plunkett, comes a revolutionary alternate reality for Superman!

It?s an American nightmare! What if baby Superman had crashed on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain and grew up to become Stalin?s right-hand man? And what if insane genius Lex Luthor was employed by the US government to develop their own countermeasure against the Man of Steel, turning the Cold War hot?!

From acclaimed writer Mark Millar (Ultimate X-Men), and artists Dave Johnson (100 Bullets) and Kilian Plunkett, comes a revolutionary alternate reality for Superman! It's an American nightmare! What if baby Superman had crashed on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain and grew up to become Stalin's right-hand man? And what if insane genius Lex Luthor was employed by the US government to develop their own countermeasure against the Man of Steel, turning the Cold War hot?! Alive with historical figures and starring a host of familiar superheroes, including Batman and Wonder Woman as you've never seen them before, this superb graphic novel takes the arms race and infuses it with the thrilling powers of Kryptonite!

2008-03-08 A Red Son Rises... never to set, hopefully

I have read this book over ten times so far and am still finding layers I had not seen before. I cannot recommend it enough. Red Son takes Kal-L (note spelling old school Superman fans) and places him in Soviet Russia at the height of Stalin's power. It shows how the world would be if Superman had ultimate power but communist ideals.

The story begins in 1953, continues up to the modern day and far beyond. Superman remains the same kind hearted hero he has always been portrayed as but now his actions have as much political impact as physical particularly with Stalin's influence. As time moves on his responsibility grows and he must decide what to do for the best. America fears this new Soviet weapon and so commission their greatest mind Lex Luthor to come up with a solution. Luthor is portrayed brilliantly here, his genius pouring out of every word and action. When he is first introduced he is learning Urdu from a tape recorder he designed in the washroom, reading Machiavelli's Il principe and playing fourteen games of chess at once, all in his coffee break.

Millar does a good job of making extraordinary things like this seem simple and relatable to the reader. The Superman presented here is massively powerful but also very human. When he meets Luthor's first but by no means only plan to remove him, a bizzaro-esqe clone, and his true blue spirit is shown as well as his awesome power. He says, in perfect English "Pardon me if my English isn't perfect but I only learned the language ten minutes ago and I'm still having trouble with the grammar but... these shores are off limits comrade." He wants to help everyone but finds that the more responsibility he has the more control he must exert over the people bringing the point that absolute power corrupts, not nessaceraly the man but his ideals. He laments later "Life was so simple in those days: deflecting meteorites, welding tectonic plates, managing a global economy single handedly."

The writing is immensely clever and the art reflects both the idealistic and darker elements of the narritive. Other Dc characters are placed in the story subtly while various political viewpoints both old and contemporary are discussed. The narrative twists and turns and the ending comes as a complete surprise...something very rare in comics.