Designation: None Speaking of Mark Millar, the mouthy Scot penned the ultimate "what if?" story for American icon Superman: how about, instead of crash-landing from the planet Krypton in a Kansas cornfield, baby Kal-El instead found himself in the Soviet Union? As a result of this little change of course we get to see an alternate history of both Superman and Earth itself. The Cold War arms race becomes about superhumans instead of nuclear weapons, the US collapses whilst the USSR thrives, and Lex Luthor - eventually elected to President - makes killing Superman his life's work. Supes, meanwhile, becomes leader of the Community Party, battles Luthor's Bizzaro clone of him, and rules over his country with an iron fist in an Orwellian dystopia. That's pretty dark in itself, even without the fact that the book gets readers to actively route for Lex Luthor to destroy Superman, an uncomfortable turning of the tables. That's before you get to the bitterest pill of all. Although thought to have died saving the world at a climactic moment, it's revealed at the end that Superman is in fact immortal, which means he lives to the very end of the book where Earth has been reduced to a red giant on the verge of exploding, billions of years in the future. And that's why Communism is bad, kids. Or something.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
