My favourite response to All-Star Superman #12 thus far is Cole Moore Odell's. Not because I necessarily buy into his Luthor = Quintum theory - the evidence is all circumstantial, and it seems too obvious an understory to prompt one of those revelatory rereadings that Morrison loves - but because he cleverly dragged Paradise Lost into it.
Of course, using a blindingly obvious messiah figure as its protagonist doesn't make All-Star Superman a straight Christian allegory. You can go through the series picking out suggestive Biblical allusions (Samson, the struggle against a false solar tyrant, etc.) but I don't think that would illuminate much. Christ said the only path to salvation was through him, and Superman's purpose is an inverse one: working against time so that we can save ourselves once he's gone. He wavers ("When I'm not around anymore...can they survive their own self-destructive urges?") without ever losing the hope that earthlings will follow him into the sun. Morrison stresses our perfectible potential rather than ineradicable sin; he sees gods poised inside ordinary people, the most radical of humanists.
It neatly complements the recurring motif of quantum uncertainty. In issue #3 Lois Lane became both dead and alive at the hands of the Ultrasphinx, which mirrors Superman's situation not just in the opening pages here but all those turned before them. His sustained burst of legacy-building activity was interrupted again and again by living reminders of his mortality. Up in the stars, he looks down on his own memorial, and at the very end Quintum stands before a final unopened box.
If the prismatic philanthropist is Lex's reflection, Luthor ably fills the more familiar role of Superman's Satan. His charismatic genius is wasted on that narcissistic vendetta against a perceived interloper from above. The brilliance and the insecure chauvinism alike feel authentically, depressingly human. And for all the heat-rays and light, Morrison's Luthor is ultimately the same as Milton's Lucifer: a mere shadow trying to snuff out his sun.
Even that clash has its surprises, though. This story is both simpler and subtler than it first appears. Initially, racing through issue #12, I took Luthor's comeuppance as a variation on one climax from Mark Millar's risible, self-adoring Authority run - the Power of Love with intellectual pretensions. It's actually far more disarming than that. The baddie is undone not by a supercharged empathy for his fellow men but the sudden conception of how small and alone they all are inside a vast, pitiless system. And just to spread around the ambiguity, Superman waves away this tearful revelation before using the opportunity to beat Luthor up. If even Steve Lombard became a hero, can not the saviour of all the Earth fight dirty?
2 comments:
It neatly complements the recurring motif of quantum uncertainty.
Yeah, that's a nice crystallisation of a thought I was having, vaguely - leading from Clark's secret(??) identity to Lois' drawing breath (here, and in Beyond)... I never want the Quintum theory, which I choose to believe is correct, or Clark's i.d. status to be clarified either.
I like Millar's Authority, the first arc anyway, though - think it's some primo offcuts from the Morrison oeuvre; likewise, the best bit in Ultimates was when it was indeterminate whether he was indeed a Norse God or Norwegian mental patient.
Nice thoughtful commentary. BTW, I had not considered Superman's goals being inverse to the traditional Christ. One of those "right in front of your nose" things that one just doesn't consider.
Post a Comment