This is an interesting but, in my opinion, deeply flawed comic. If you're wondering whether to read it or not, the answer is: if you're a Superman fan you kind of have to (rather, you probably already have). Personally I found it highly aggravating. That's all I can really say before the spoiler tag.
#####SPOILER WARNING#####
The obvious direction to go, and the one I was NOT expecting this comic to go in as I thought it too obvious and too shallow, was to make Superman a villain simply because he was raised in the Soviet Union. So initially I was happy when that did not seem to be the case, only to be deeply disappointed when it was in fact the story that the comic ultimately settled on.
Superman, in this story, is a good man. A VERY good man: he devotes his life to helping others. Everything he does is out of a desire to better those around him. Meanwhile Lex Luthor is portrayed as being very self-centered and amoral. His methods are highly questionable, and the motivations given for his desire to defeat Superman are selfish: he is doing it out of pride.
In other words, the characters are fundamentally unchanged. The only difference is that Superman is Soviet and communist this time, which somehow is enough to make him the villain despite his basic nature being completely unchanged. Luthor, despite also being the same character as always, is still American, and somehow that now makes him the hero.
It is all ultimately extremely jingoistic: Superman is a Soviet communist, so he is the villain, no matter how selfless he is and how good his intentions are. Lex Luthor is an American capitalist, so he is ultimately the hero who saves the day, no matter how narcissistic and selfish he is. I understand that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, but when you say that one change leads to completely different, far worse results then you are condemning that change, and that change here is simply the country that Superman grew up in.
Now I'm not an American, so I suppose this kind of deep-seated jingoism is more obvious and egregious to me. I can fully understand how this story might feel natural or... correct perhaps to people raised in America. I apologise if that sounds condescending or if I'm constructing a strawman: I too have my blind spots, and there's plenty of stories that I've casually enjoyed without picking up on problematic elements until they were pointed out to me.
Other than the nationalistic elements, I also disliked the moral ones. Superman could have "won" at any time, but he did not because his morals held him back. Luthor, who's methods were not restrained by any moral code, ultimately wins. That alone might be a fair reflection on real life; it's often easier to win if you cheat, and in many arenas (such as politics and business) those who pull ahead tend to be those who will do anything to win. My issue in this story though is that Luthor is ultimately portrayed as the hero, and Superman as the villain: Luthor saved the day using amoral methods, and that's the happy ending! In other words, it seems to me to be condemning individual morality and endorsing the idea that all that matters is the results! I can't even see it as endorsing the idea that the end justifies the means, because Luthor's end goal was simply to defeat Superman, not to save the world! The message reads to me as being that we should pursue our own personal benefit using any means necessary! And somehow that makes the world a better place? I don't know very much about Objectivism, but this seems to fit the descriptions I've read of it. And I hate it.
Let's talk for a moment about the origin of Superman. According to Wikipedia, Superman was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and first published in 1938. The character initially went through a number of changes and backstories before that time, but the published version was an alien from a distant planet.
Superman is therefore an immigrant. He came to Earth, adopted our culture and values, but brought with him knowledge, skills and attributes of his own home. By gathering the best of both worlds he serves his adopted home, improving and enriching the land, people, and culture. Just as the X-Men represent minorities, Superman represents immigrants. The "American Way" that Superman stands for is that of immigration and integration, of diverse and different people coming together, learning from each other, and working alongside each other for the benefit of all.
In Red Son, Superman is portrayed as a distant descendant of Lex Luthor himself, sent back in time to escape Earth's destruction. I don't really know why they felt the need to end this way; was it just so they could leave us with one more surprising twist? Because while it was indeed a callback to some of the earlier concepts that Jerry and Joe were working on for Superman, it would seem to be completely missing the point of the actual published Superman, the one people have been following for over 80 years now, as he's no longer an immigrant.
So yes: the original Superman is an immigrant who helps people through his selflessness and kindheartedness. Red Son Superman is a local who almost ruins the world through his selflessness and kindheartedness. I don't know if this was all deliberate or not, but I just feel like Red Son is an insult to Superman, a slap in the face of the original ideas and morals that Superman represents and champions. I just... I guess I have to say I actually feel offended by it.
Well, those are my biggest issues with the comic. I do have some other minor nitpicks to close things out with. First of all, I didn't like their treatment of Wonder Woman. For a very long time she was arguably the most well-recognised female superhero in the world. She starred in her own TV show, she's one of DC's "big three", and she was the first to have her own movie. While there are some... debatable elements in her history, overall Wonder Woman has been a comic book icon of female empowerment for many years now. So I did not like the way this comic reduced her to an inconsequential background character. She supports Superman's facist regime due to falling in love with him - love that is completely unrequited as Superman never even realises how she feels about him. Really? Wonder Woman is so passive that she never even makes a move or expresses her feelings to him? Then when she stands against him he simply blows past her with minimal effort? Good grief.
I also thought Batman's representation was strange. This kind of story is usually built on the idea of a single change to the established history, in this case Superman landing in East Europe rather than North America. But it doesn't really follow that that single change would have created such a different version of Batman. Which made him feel out of place to me. His character also kind of feels "wrong" to me, but I can't really explain why. I guess I just didn't really get why he was in the story? It felt gratuitous, like somehow you can't tell a Superman story without squeezing Batman in? I say why not? I just don't think he was really needed. Also what was the purpose of the reveal at the end that he had survived (despite it making no sense that he could have)?
At one point we are told that Lex Luthor has solved all of America's problems (at least the economic ones), but we are never given even the slightest suggestion of how he actually did it, which somehow made the assertion feel hollow. I know that no-one actually has the solutions, but I would have liked if some kind of surface-level explanation was provided. Oh well, maybe that's not reasonably of me, I just have a bit of a pet peeve when we are told that someone is super-intelligent but we don't exactly see them demonstrate that intelligence is an intelligent way, we are just told "hey look he just did a super-smart thing!".
Lex Luthor implies that everything that happened, including his own apparent defeat on multiple occasions, was all according to some long-term grand plan of his. Are we supposed to believe that this is all true, that it all happened according to Luthor's design? I choose to believe that it is not true but Luthor, an arrogant narcissist, has convinced himself that it is because that's just how big his ego is. History is written by the winners right?
Finally I will admit that there was one idea that I really liked; it's not a new idea to me but I don't see it addressed very often in comics so I enjoyed when it was brought up in Red Son, and that's the idea that Superheroes solving all our problems might not be a good thing. It robs us of the opportunity to learn how to solve them ourselves, denying us the chance to grow and improve as people and as a society. I do believe the ultimate solution to most problems is education, understanding, and empathy. Superheroes solving every problem in the most direct and straightforwards way - typically with the application of violence - is very shallow and, in the long run, could be considered a trap.
We develop problem solving strategies and tools through education, experimentation and experience, but if all you do to make problems go away is punch them then the only tool you have developed is a hammer, and if all you have is a hammer then everything starts to look like a nail, right? I would say this is even baked in to superhero universes: the same villains keep coming back, the same problems keep repeating themselves, the world as a whole never actually gets any better, if anything it just keeps getting worse.
I have to admit that ultimately I do like Red Son's treatment of the issue, with America eventually learning to solve it's problems on it's own - yes, OK, we are told that it was just one guy who figured out solutions to all the problems, but as he was a native part of the system it still more-or-less represents us figuring out solutions to our own problems rather than having them handed to us by a deity-like parent figure (in which case we would not have gained actual problem-solving skills and would have need help with the next problem etc).
EDIT:
Initially the nationalistic elements of the comic were what stood out to me, and so were given priority in my review. After thinking about it some more though, I suspect they are actually secondary to the political/economic elements. Basically the comic is probably more about Capitalism vs Communism than about America vs the Soviet Union. Of course it's not a pure distinction since the elements are somewhat intertwined (in this story at least). But it's easier for me to accept it when I think of it as an examination of economic and political ideologies than as a jingoistic condemnation of the Soviet Union.But even that has it's problems. By picking Superman to represent Communism and Luthor to represent Capitalism, the comic has muddied the waters by having the communist be a heroic figure and the capitalist be a villainous one. Of course I believe that was deliberate for narrative reasons; it's a more engaging and thought-provoking read and arguably it creates a deeper and more nuanced story. But unfortunately it still ends up condoning the selfish and amoral actions of Luthor and condemning the selfless and moral actions of Superman.
And that too might be deliberate. Whether it is or isn't, that's the part that I still have issues with. Besides, I don't know if painting Capitalism as inherently selfish and amoral is something that most capitalists would agree with, and I'm not convinced that Communism's problems stem from well-intentioned selflessness and morality. And I don't personally agree with the ultimately binary conclusion - Capitalism is right, Communism is wrong - that seems to be presented.
This is all assuming that Luthor represents Capitalism of course. But as I said earlier, his actions feel closer to Objectivism than Capitalism, at least based on my VERY limited knowledge of the two. I wonder how the same story would have worked if it had been, say, Bruce Wayne filling the role of Luthor? Would it have been more of a pure representation of the ideologies involved, with less interference from the baggage the characters bring (although admittedly that baggage was a main part of what gave the story it's impact)? Or would Bruce Wayne have needed to be changed too much from the character we know in order to properly embody Capitalism?
Ultimately for me it comes down to comics as morality fables; I like superheroes when they are inspirational icons. Yes, character flaws add realism and depth and allow the stories to tackle real issues that actually affect the readers. Yes, real life is not black and white, comics can explore difficult moral issues without always coming to a clean-cut conclusion. Yes, it's possible to write a morality tale even if your protagonist himself is not a moral character. But... I don't like comics that champion amoral characters. I typically don't like the message they send. So even though I can respect Red Sun more now than I initially did, I still don't like it.
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