Toward a Red Planet (Superman goes Communist)

National Post ^ | Monday, May 12, 2003 | Jeet Heer

[adam_az]

That is completely insane.

"Red Son also demonstrates that there is a deep affinity between the aesthetics of superheroes and traditional socialist realism."

That was the first thing that came to mind - all that bad commie artwork extolling the "worker."

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's the hero of the comrade worker proletariat! And his cute girlfriend and Pravda journalist, Lubyana Laneskovich!(barf)

What next, a blonde Nazi version called Ubermensch?

[adam_az]

click on article link for pictures...

[Smedley]

I liked Dan Aykroyd's portrayal of "Uberman" -- a "what if" skit where Superman landed in NAZI germany.

[dark_lord]

Pictures...here ya go:

and here:

[Montfort]

We really are overdue for some coverage of Communism's attrocities. We get non-stop coverage of the Nazi's attrocities, but with communism, the subtle message is that communism was fine, but was hijacked by evil individuals like Stalin and Pol Pot.

People need to be reminded that communism was inherently evil-- that is impossible to give communism a go without taking away individual freedom and turning a nation into a prison. The absolute authority of the State necessarily invites tyrants, either individual tyrants like Stalin, or tyrannical oligarchies.

[Smedley]

I wonder if Soviet Superman's secret identity would have been a reporter for Pravda.

[dead]

Although using the Soviet Union as a background, the storyline is actually a sly comment on contemporary world politics, where the United States dominates the globe like an unchecked giant.

Sly if you’re an idiot.

To buy into the analogy, you have to suspend all moral values and imagine a world where a constitutional republic, where people live in relative freedom is analogous to a brutal socialist hellhole which murders 20 million of its own citizens and denies all essential liberties to those that survive the purges.

Of course, somebody that dumb probably spends their time reading comic books instead of learning history.

[Caipirabob]

You should check out this series.

One of the coolest lines in the story is when MM confronts some ex-nazi's serving as security in a South American compound.

MM approaches an aged guard in the compound who sees in him the "Arian Ideal" so long touted to him in his youth in Germany. He looks up worshippingly..."It's you! The one they told us would come! The overman!"

MM approaches slowly, eminating an aura of power which is actually bright enough to illuminate the night. "Yes, I know."...he gently places his finger over the Nazi's chest. "You can go now..." and he pushes his hand through the Nazi's chest while the Nazi looks down in surprise.

Great work by Alan Moore.

[Grig]

These 'Elseworlds' graphic novels have been going on since at least the 80's. I have several, one where he was raised by the Wayne family until they were killed before his eyes, one where he was involved in the American Civil War, or landed in the jungle and grew up as a tarzan-like savage.

In each case, the story shows how the CHARACTER of Superman overcomes his upbringing and circumstances to become a TRUE hero. Save your outrage until the story is over.

[Anamensis]

Just as President George W. Bush is willing to bomb any country that could challenge American hegemony...

Oh really? Someone thinks "hegemony" and "security" are interchangeable, I guess.

[xdem]

I agreed with you until you bashed reading comics. :)

[dead]

I constantly mock my two brothers who read comic books. I can't help it!

[N. Theknow]

He will probably have some sort of "relationship" with Captain Planet.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Saturday Night Live did a parody where baby Superman came to earth in Nazi Germany. He was later named Ubermann.

[Cicero]

Comic book heroes were pretty reliable until they started to tinker with the in the 60s, a time when absolutely everything had to be revised. Red Son is just another step down the same regretable path of moral relativism.

Does Red Son help Walter Duranty exterminate the peasants in the Ukraine? Does he help round up escapees from the Gulag Archipelago? No doubt he helped murder 10,000 Polish officers in Katyn Forest, too.

[VANHALEN2002]

Colossus from the X-men already has the hero of the people, grew up on the collective in the Ukraine thing down.

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

writer Mark Millar posits an alternative universe where Superman grew up on a collective farm in the Ukraine in the 1930s rather than in the idyllic Midwest town of Smallville, U.S.A.

Funny they would choose a 1930s Ukrainian collective. Odds are good that the young'un would have been orphaned by Stalin's collectivization-induced famine there.

[HELLRAISER II]

Some of the old comic books were kind of dopey in 60's & 70's, i'll give you that. But the comic books of today are a very sophisticated make you think type of reading, now if you haven't read any since the 70's I can understand your statement. But like I said the comics of today are a whole different animal, quite frankly the "What If's & Elseworlds" are all about putting your thinking cap & imagination together and enjoying a good story.

[Portnoy]

The comic is an interesting scenerio. I will have to pick this one up and judge it for myself.

[HELLRAISER II]

You know Colossus is dead now, he died from the Techno virus.