Originally published as an Elseworlds limited series (2003) For sheer ingenuity in concept and execution, the most essential of these alternate takes on classic superheroes must be "Superman: Red Son". Writer Mark Millar manages to extract the ironic from the iconic by subverting one of the most basic facts about the Man of Steel: what if he had not been raised in the United States of America, but instead in Soviet Russia? By moving the arrival time of baby Kal-El's rocketship forward a measly twelve hours, "Red Son" manages to simultaneously reverse crucial elements of the Superman mythology while grounding the overall story in a real-world context. As with the Batman of "Gotham by Gaslight", the characteristics inherent to Superman remain more or less the same in "Red Son"; chief among these is the belief that everyone, Russian citizen or not, deserves a second chance. But these are moral beliefs, reliances on ethical worth, and by no means are they incorruptible. The politics of Communist Russia drive these beliefs into another realm altogether, one in which Superman works to protect all of the people of earth - whether they want it or not. The realism of "Watchmen" finds similar treatment here, and one might dub "Red Son" as an "alternate history" fiction more than anything else. As with many Elseworlds and What If? stories, popular heroes are filtered through a different lens - giving us Lex and his wife Lois Lane-I-Mean-Luthor, aviator-style Green Lantern, and the stubbled boozehound Batmankoff. Liberties are taken beyond the simple nudging of the timeline (especially in the last few pages, which are quite ambitious), but everything stems from a relatively simple question of the ground on which baby Superman arrives. After that, all bets are off. Which alternative or hypothetical superheroes are your favorites? Let us know in the comments section!
