All-Star Superman Is the Greatest Superhero Comic Ever and I Can Prove It

Superman is all the rage right now. Superman is the most anticipated superhero movie of the year and DC is putting out some of the best Superman comics of the modern era. Superman may not be at the level of comic sales as Batman, but there’s an energy to the Superman line powering the current Super-ssaince.

Superman has long been a trailblazer in superhero media, with some of the greatest superhero stories of all time starring the alien wearing the big red S. However, there’s one Superman story that stands above the rest, a legendary story with wide-reaching influence — All-Star Superman, by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. Originally meant to help kick off the aborted All-Star line, this twelve issue series is often praised as the best Superman story of all time, but I would go further.



I would say that All-Star Superman is the greatest superhero comic of all time.All-Star Superman‘s pedigree speaks for itself. Grant Morrison is one of DC’s greatest creators and Frank Quitely’s beautiful yet unique style of art has long made him a fan favorite.

All-Star Superman does everything a superhero comic needs to impress readers and it does in ways that put it past classics like Watchmen, The Dark Knight Returns, or “The Dark Phoenix Saga”. All-Star Superman is what happens when a team of creators sets out to define a character, but it goes much further, showing just how amazing superhero comics can truly be.All-Star Superman Is a Masterpiece of Form and StoryAll-Star Superman is a relatively simple story.

Superman goes on a mission to save the first manned mission to the sun when it’s endangered by Lex Luthor. Superman succeeds, and his powers are supercharged by his proximity to the yellow sun. However, that was all part of Luthor’s plan, as Superman’s cells start to burst, cursing to him to death.

With his mortality clear in front of him, Superman decides to leave the world a better place than it was when he got there, and sets forth on what will be known in the future, revealed by time travelers in the story, as the legendary Twelve Labors of Superman, mirroring those of Hercules in antiquity.All-Star Superman takes everything wonderful about Superman and boils it down to its essence. Lois Lane is the smartest, most beautiful woman in the world, yet still shocked when Superman reveals his identity.

Jimmy Olsen is the greatest best friend in the world, a resourceful young man in a world of superheroes. The Daily Planet is the ideal newspaper office, full of interesting characters and the human interactions that make Superman comics so fun. Lex Luthor is hate personified, a petty man whose jealousy has kept him from being the person he wants to be.

Superman is the perfect hero, but one who is still human, his struggles affecting him at a level we see multiple times in the comic. Superman gets angry, he gets confused, and he even cries. RELATED: DC Reveals Brutal Showdown in Superman #25 First Look PreviewThe simplicity of the story also extends to the structure of the book.

All-Star Superman is a twelve issue, continuing narrative, yet each issue is a one and done story that builds the overall plot. If All-Star Superman had been published in the old newsstands days, it was possible to buy one issue and get a full story, with its overall plot hooking readers. In many ways, it’s a greatest hits package of Superman, taking elements from the Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age, and modern age and combining them in way that feels timeless.

The vicissitudes of DC continuity doesn’t play any effect on the story and a reader doesn’t need to have read Superman for years to understand where the character is in his life. It’s all there, on the page.Morrison and Quitely are a supreme team.

While this isn’t one of Morrison’s more complicated narratives, it’s more than just a superhero story. It’s the story of a god who loves us, one who will do anything, sacrifice anything, to make sure we reach our potential. The dialogue is funny, poignant, and life-affirming; everyone knows the moment from issue ten when Superman saves young Regan from suicide.

It’s become a Superman cliche by now, but that doesn’t change how perfectly it encapsulates Superman. Morrison understands Superman and his world, and that comes through on every page. Quitely’s pencils are the glue of it all.

There are few artists out there who understand visual storytelling as well as Quitely, and the way he draws Clark Kent and Superman make them feel like two different people. His Superman has the classic feel of artists like Wayne Boring and Curt Swan, a truly super man. Quitely’s character acting is peak as well.

He gets across the feelings of each panel wonderfully. There are few creators who do what he did with Lex Luthor, capturing the arrogance, malicious glee, rage, and the core of sadness that infuses the character. All-Star Superman takes the alchemy of comics, the union of words and pictures, and shows its perfect version.

All-Star Superman Stands Tall Above the Rest All-Star Superman doesn’t redefine what can be done with the comic medium like Watchmen. It’s not the Greek tragedy that is “The Dark Phoenix Saga” nor does it have the kind of bombast of “The Galactus Trilogy”. It’s not some deep mediation on society or anything like that.

It’s just the perfect Superman comic, a story created by two creators using every trick in they know to tell the story of the death of Superman. It perfectly captures everything that Superman and his world is, and it says more about humanity than it seems. All-Star Superman can be read by anyone and it will make a believer.

It’s not the kind of the book that makes one question what the world is, but it doesn’t need to. It takes everything that makes superhero stories so great and amps it all up to eleven. It’s such a marvel to read; there’s constantly the feeling that there’s no way this book can be this good, but it is.

James Gunn is taking the feel of All-Star Superman and using it to inform Superman, which is exactly the right thing to do. This is peak Superman, and because Superman is the peak of superheroes, that makes it the greatest superhero story of them all.The post All-Star Superman Is the Greatest Superhero Comic Ever and I Can Prove It appeared first on ComicBook.

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