Hello, fellow comic fans, and welcome to another installment of Comics You Should Have Already Read by Now. This time around, we’re going to be taking a bit of a break from the norm, and look at a comic book that actually came out within the last decade: Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s All-Star Superman. Telling the story of a dying Superman, this book serves as a celebration of who the Man of Steel is and everything he represents in a tale filled to brim with astounding and beautiful moments. Essentially, this book is a giant love-letter to the Last Son of Krypton handled by some of the best talents in the industry, with truly stellar results.



Released as a 12 issue miniseries between 2005 and 2008, All-Star Superman tells the tale of a possible ending for the Man of Steel. After being overexposed to solar radiation while rescuing a band of scientists on the surface of the sun, Superman’s body begins to slowly tear itself apart over the course of a year. With this as our backdrop, the story takes an inspired look at what Superman means on a number of levels. In the fictional setting he inhabits, this means looking at Superman’s role in the world, as well as his role in the lives of his loved ones. In a broader sense, though, Morrison and Quitely give us a study of what Superman means as a comic book character and as a symbol to those of us in the real world, displaying an intimate understanding of essence of the Last Son of Krypton.

Don’t believe me? You need look no further than the first page of the first issue, where they manage to distill Kal-El’s origin story down to a mere 8 words and 4 images!



So to start things off, we have a succinct example of how the creative team, armed with the understanding that Superman has been deeply ingrained into pop culture for well over half a century, are able to break down the essence of who Superman is and incorporate this seamlessly into the narrative.

And things continue along in this fashion, delivering moment after moment that distill the core of the character and the fanciful nature of his adventures.

Issue #3, for example, follows Superman on his date with Lois Lane, an occasion filled cover to cover with Silver Age variety craziness…

But which of course ends with a kiss.

Issue #6, on the other hand, has Superman working with a band of his time-traveling successors to contain a Chronovore in Smallville, during which time he takes the opportunity to connect with his roots and visit his father one last time.

Yet if you had to pick the one issue that best defines Superman, the one that features the Man of Steel at his most iconic, displaying the truest representation of the character, you’d be hard-pressed to beat Issue #10. Narrated by Superman as he thinks on his life, the action follows the Man of Tomorrow over the course of a day as he visits sick kids in the hospital, fights mad scientists from the future, and witnesses the Bottle City of Kandor’s colonization of Mars. Even amongst all this insanity, though, the thing that sticks out the most is the scene in which Superman saves a troubled young girl with the simplest act of kindness there is: a hug.



If you were to ask me to show you one panel to demonstrate the purest and most genuine representation of what Superman is all about, I would show you that final panel with Superman hugging Reagan. This is because Clark Kent is who he is because he’s the guy who always takes time to help the person no one else noticed. He’s the guy who doesn’t fight to punish the guilty, but rather to protect the innocent. He’s the guy who would rather not solve a problem with his fists, but with compassion.

He’s the man with the power of a god, but who’s greatest strength lies in his humanity.

This, then, ties in well with what I think is the best part of All-Star Superman: it whole-heartedly embraces what the character is. Morrison and Quitely understand that Superman is character often maligned for being overpowered and perceived as old-fashioned. But rather than trying create artificial conflict by nerfing his power or making Kal-El more angst-ridden, they instead bring his strength and nobility to the foreground (on the powers front, in fact, this Superman is more powerful than ever with his solar saturation boosting his abilities even as they kill him). By making the story about Superman coming to grips with his impending death, the creators give us a compelling story that assesses the life of Superman and what has made the character an enduring icon.

One of the most important aspects of this is the recognition that Superman is the Man of Tomorrow, not the Man of the Past. Those who think of the Man of Steel as a relic of yesteryear, I would argue, are looking in entirely the wrong direction. He doesn’t represent a simpler, more innocent past that we’ve gotten away from; rather, he represents a goal that we’re still trying to reach. This sentiment is expressed beautifully in the book, when Superman has a spiritual encounter with his father, Jor-El, who explains the significance of Kal’s presence on earth.

“You have given them an ideal to aspire to, embodied their highest aspirations. They will race, and stumble, and fall and crawl…and curse…and finally…they will join you in the sun, Kal-El.”

Superman represents the best of what we want to be, both to the denizens of the DC Universe and to readers in the real world. He is a goal that we still strive for, even if we are never going to reach it.

All-Star Superman celebrates this side of the Man of Steel, and does so in a spell-binding fashion. This is a book that is both inspiring and heartfelt, and any fan of the Last Son of Krypton, or of super heroes in general, owes it to themselves to add it to their library.