Superman: Space Age Is Perfect and You Need to Read It

Superman has been going through something of a renaissance in the last few years, all building up to the upcoming release of Superman (2025). This began around 2021, when Action Comics starting building to “Warworld Saga”, one of the best modern Superman comics all time. The Superman titles started to have new energy, as DC did their best to make Superman into one of their top heroes, allowing him to rival Batman as a character.

This led to a book that doesn’t really get the credit for its greatness — Superman: Space Age, by Mark Russell, Mike Allred, and Laura Allred. Superman: Space Age didn’t look like it was going to be anything that changed Superman’s mythos. It was a story that hearkened back to the Silver Age, with the Allreds’ beautiful retro art telling a story of Superman that spanned the ’60s to the ’80s, and many fans didn’t really think much of it.



This is a huge mistake.Superman: Space Age is a perfect Superman story. It takes advantage of DC’s years of cluttered continuity and creates a story that does its best to boil down who Superman is a character and present it in a story with multiversal consequences.

Superman: Space Age belongs in the same conversation as classics like All-Star Superman and Superman For All Seasons, books that used the past of Superman to inform their treatises on what Superman is and what he should.Superman: Space Age Combines Silver and Bronze Age DC to Create a Unique Kind of Superman StorySuperman: Space Age kicks off in 1985, a year that most DC fans will recognize as the same year of Crisis on Infinite Earths. The world is ending and Superman is in the Fortress of Solitude with Lois Lane and their son Jon, spending the last few moments of existence with the people he loved the most.

From there, the story jumps back to the past, the 1960s mostly with some scenes taking place during his childhood in Smallville. The book goes about establishing the relationship between Superman and Lois, the status quo of The Daily Planet, and Superman’s life as a hero. He’s visited by Pariah, from Crisis on Infinite Earths, who warns him of the coming end of the Multiverse.

The Justice League is formed and the threat to the Multiverse is established. Brainiac shows up, trying to steal the energy of the universe to join a multiversal army of Brainiacs to battle the Anti-Monitor. As time grows short, Superman realizes that his life as a hero hasn’t made a huge difference, and he begins to work on making life better for humanity, coming up with cures for disease and creating a database of humanity’s genetics.

Eventually, the destruction of the universe happens, but Superman is able to throw his library of human DNA through a multiversal portal, where it lands in a universe that was pilfered by Brainiac that only has Superman left alive, and that Superman is able to resurrect the people of Earth, giving him a reason to live again.RELATED: DC Reveals Brutal Showdown in Superman #25 First Look PreviewSuperman: Space Age hits all of the right spots to tell a fun retro Superman, but that isn’t what makes it a perfect Superman story. There are some parts that don’t really feel necessary — for example the entire Lex Luthor plotline, which involves the villain nuking a city, going to prison, then getting out at the end and trying to stop Superman’s philanthropic work.

There’s a little too much Batman, but that’s a normal DC problem and would lead to the sequel series Batman: Dark Age. What makes Superman: Space Age so perfect is the way it understands who Superman is. Superman isn’t the kind of the character who would feel like just being the guy who punches things is enough to save the world.

Him suddenly changing towards the end of the story is exactly what Superman would do. His work at the end of the story, curing diseases and creating a DNA library, is Superman realizing that his methods actually did nothing and changing. Superman realizes that sometimes, saving the world has nothing to do with punching things, but instead using all of one’s skill to create a new world.

This is the perfect Superman, and it’s what makes Superman: Space Age such a great Superman story.Of course, one can’t talk about Superman: Space Age without talking about the Allreds. Mike and Laura Allred are one of the best art teams of all time, especially for a book with a retro feel.

The Allreds’ work throughout the book takes everything that Russell sets out to do with Superman: Space Age and brings it to life. The character acting alone is enough to talk about, as Allreds perfectly render the emotion of every scene, but one can’t read Superman: Space Age and not constantly marvel at the art. The Allreds’ Brainiac is the creepiest version of the character ever, and is just one of the beautiful highlights of the book.

Pariah is another example of the Allreds’ expressive pencils and inks taking the core of the character — a tormented man traveling to soon to die universes — and bringing it to life. Their Superman is just as great, a hero who draws the eye every time he’s on the page. Superman: Space Age is a beautiful example of what comics do so well — combining words and pictures into an alchemy that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Superman: Space Age Understands Superman In Ways That Other Superman Stories Don’tRetro Supeman stories aren’t exactly new. DC loves to go back in time and look at its past through the lens of the present day. It’s easy to write Superman: Space Age off as yet another retro Superman story telling the same kind of Superman stories all over again.

Superman: Space Age has some elements that don’t really work for the story, as well. This should keep it from being a “perfect” Superman story, but the book understands Superman so well that it makes an impact. This is the strength of Superman: Space Age.

Superman: Space Age builds up this amazing version of Superman, showing him grow and change over the twenty year period of his existence, and ends up finding exactly the kind of hero Superman should be. Russell and the Allreds give readers a Superman experience that they don’t always get. Superman often becomes the defender of the status quo, and that’s when Superman stories aren’t the best.

Superman: Space Age sees Superman abandon the status quo because the only real way to accomplish his mission is by using his powers to fight against the real evils of the world — greed and hate. This is what makes it such a perfect Superman story and why every fan of the character needs to give it a try.The post Superman: Space Age Is Perfect and You Need to Read It appeared first on ComicBook.

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