All-Star Superman

Locations
Call Number: Teen Graphic Novel / Superman, Teen Book / Comics & Graphic Novels / Superheroes / Superman
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown Teen, 1st Floor 4-week checkout	Teen Graphic Novel / Superman	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown Teen, 1st Floor 4-week checkout	Teen Graphic Novel / Superman	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Westgate Teen Books 4-week checkout	Teen Book / Comics & Graphic Novels / Superheroes / Superman	4-week checkout	Due 04-29-2024

"Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, by special arrangement with the Jerry Siegel family"
"Originally published in single magazine form in ALL-STAR SUPERMAN 1-12."
"The Underverse ruled by Bizarros. The time-eating Chronovore. Jimmy Olsen, superhero? Nothing is impossible in ALL-STAR SUPERMAN. Except for the fact that Superman... is dying. Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely's masterpiece is now released as a part of DC's prestigious new imprint of standalone graphic novels, DC Black Label. Time running against the Man of Steel. After a diabolical plot by his arch-foe Lex Luthor puts him on the brink of death, Superman must tie up loose ends and make sure that he leaves the Earth better than he found it. The unstoppable creative team of writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely join forces once more to take Superman back to basics. In an emotionally and visually stunning graphic novel harkening back to a Golden Age of comics, ALL-STAR SUPERMAN creates a new, and at the same time familiar, take on the world's first superhero. This now-classic graphic novel features Superman's renowned supporting cast, including Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Bizarro, Perry White and of course, his greatest foe Lex Luthor. "-- Provided by publisher.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Summary / Annotation
Author Notes

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

The Platonic Ideal submitted by oriolbt on July 1, 2023, 5:33pm Morrison and Quitely continue to operate at the top of their craft with this one, a timelessly fresh narrative that plays occasionally loose with established canon to depict Superman at his most virtuous. Morrison is writing at their most accessible level here, which means a satisfying and wholesome (albeit far from cloying) story that works spectacularly well on a fairly simple and straightforward level which *also* unfolds to present a surprisingly deep puzzle box (or box of boxes) with numerous background mysteries for the keen-eyed reader to solve.

Quitely, too is just whiz-bang-pow top notch here. His output has been increasingly drawn out (pun intended) over the years, due to a combo of spinal issues from years of drawing and his ever-meticulous creative approach. The latter is on full show here, given carte blanche to play around in the technicolor world of the man of tomorrow, with Superman's primary colors competing jovially on the page with vivid magenta dino-men or electric blue explosions. Quitely's linework feels a bit sparser here than his work on, for instance, Jupiter Ascending, or We3, gesturing instead toward the minimal classicism of Golden Age comics. But his depiction of action beats and human physicality (not to mention the "quotidian" backgrounds of Metropolis all drawn in fastidiously assured perspective) are perfect, giving equal import and weight to Superman throwing a punch and Clark Kent clumsily colliding with a pedestrian to save him from dying in a car crash.

Apparently, this is serving as a point of inspiration (of, I imagine, several) for James Gunn's upcoming film Superman: Legacy - a reassuring proposition. All-Star Superman is miles removed from Zack Snyder's grimdark caricature of a meritocratic, Randian WMD. Morrison recognizes the appeal in an earnest Superman who actively practices the radical optimism and love he was created to represent. Let's not forget that Superman was a wildly subversive inversion of the Aryan notion (appropriated from Nietzsche) of the "ubermensch". Authored by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel—two Jewish men—Superman was here to protect the powerless and disenfranchised. By reconnecting Superman with Derrida's concept of unconditional hospitality, Morrison and Quitely ably succeed in honoring that legacy.