Absolute Superman #1 Review

With the release of Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, comic readers saw a common, if not slightly niche, topic of discussion within the fandom reach the mainstream: How far can you push a character before they become something else? Reimaginings are rampant in the Marvel and DC multiverses, especially with the popularity of reboots, relaunches, and whatever you want to call a Crisis. But across the varying qualities of the output starring the Reeveses, Rouths, and Wellings, Superman had always been seen with constants. These were constants that were quickly and dramatically challenged by Zack Snyder and Henry Cavill. Suddenly, everyone who had always taken these truths of Superman as a given became an expert on what Superman was supposed to be. The idea of one, unified vision of a character is a particularly funny concept in a fandom where the general mode of communication is arguing, polite or otherwise, but it’s one that has become extremely taken for granted, especially for Superman.

So, while reimaging your Ultimate Spider-Men or Absolute Batmen may be a prospect that, in the wake of dozens of alternate versions across movies, shows, games, and books over the last few decades, may excite a prospective writer, reimagining Superman feels like a Herculean task. Maybe it’s the lack of exposure Superman has gotten when compared to the other members of the “Superhero Big Three”. Maybe there’s a perverse sense in challenging Superman, a character who stands right alongside Captain America as the beacon of hope of his respective universe, which makes the idea of him straying from the path of cheery optimism feel like a step too far. Maybe, fresh off the introduction of overwhelming dourness to Big Two comics in the 2000s, the idea of a trunkless, curlless, dark blue Supes felt like it was tiptoeing into the territory of parody, something that would become far more literal with independent entries like The Boys and Invincible. Either way, with the reintroduction of a pastel blue-and-red Man of Tomorrow to our pages (and screen, soon enough), Jason Aaron and Rafa Sandoval were left with the unenviable position of presenting the Superman of Darkseid’s new reality.

Aaron finds his answer in working backwards, building out the foundation of Kal’s original home of Krypton before moving on to the conceit of our newest Superman. Therein lies both the greatest strength and greatest struggle of Absolute Superman #1; Krypton is a little bit too interesting. This groundwork is truly stunning, both visually and conceptually. The worldbuilding of Krypton is fast-paced but not without taking time to let its characters breathe, and for fans of Superman, the recontextualizing of certain iconography immediately sets Absolute Superman apart from other Kryptonian stories. While Jor-El gets his usual heroic beat, reminding us that, as always, Superman’s good streak runs generationally, a surprising amount of time is set with Lara. A character who usually doesn’t get quite as much to work with as her counterpart does, Lara is our introduction to the Absolute Els and is given a heartbreaking sequence. If Kal’s heroism comes from his father, his loneliness and longing for more derives entirely from his mother.

Where the previous two Absolute titles interspersed their protagonists’ origins with the fights they currently face, Absolute Superman splits it more or less clean down the middle. Only once the story segment on Krypton has wrapped up are readers introduced to the titular character and the main hangup of this debut issue: Kal isn’t quite as compelling as mom and dad. This isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker, of course, this is a fresh Superman just starting out his arc and who has nothing but room to grow. That said, it is a bit disappointing to go from two gripping point-of-view characters to one with a much weaker voice.

While the division of time between flashbacks and present that Superman’s Absolute counterparts employed gives time to balance these different settings, Aaron and Sandoval go for a more jarring execution, snapping from a vibrant Krypton to a bleak Earth. Despite the obvious downsides of such a drastic switch, this strategy has its benefits, working not just as a contrast but also to highlight the similarities between Earth and Krypton in the themes of exploitation and hierarchies that the book has immediately immersed itself in. Absolute isn’t shy about its vision for Superman, harkening back to his edgier, anti-establishment Golden-Age roots, most recently brought back to the Man of Steel in Morrison’s stint on Action Comics and the pre-Rebirth DC YOU era of the character. These themes are welcome additions to the new universe, which seeks to reposition its heroes as the underdogs of their world.

As with the writing, Sandoval’s art gets far more opportunities to shine on the massive canvas of this new vision of Krypton than it does on Earth. While there is some interesting challenging of panel conventions (and a particularly cool implementation of sound effects), the delivery of the events remains fairly static. Much of the Kal-El segment is spent building up to a big fight, but it ultimately lacks the panel-to-panel movement or dynamism that one would want from such a payoff. The splash pages and still poses remain stunning, however, and this new Superman design absolutely shines. Ulises Arreola’s coloring too, which on Krypton is marked by ambient pink and reds and corrupting greens, largely loses its coherence in the Earth segments, becoming overpowered by the white of the panel gutters.

While it doesn’t impress as immediately as the other members of the Absolute Trinity, Absolute Superman #1 lays the groundwork for another honest attempt at reimaging a Superman with some grit, this time with the benefit of him being placed in far more realized politics that tie back to an inspired depiction of Krypton. This on its own is enough to buy the book time to flesh out its protagonist who, while not yet quite as engaging as one would hope, should have two worlds’ worth of growth ahead of him.