All-Star Superman, Issues One To Six

The other greatest Superman story of all time!

Counting down to the new Superman movie, I’ve just completed a Bottle City of Kandor-sized recap of the greatest Superman story of all time, The Amazing Story of Superman-Red and Superman-Blue.

The Amazing Story of Superman-Red and Superman-Blue

But, fine. Some of you may not like the whimsy of the Silver Age. Here, then, is the other greatest Superman story of all time, and the one much more likely to be used as inspiration for Gunn’s movie, Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s All-Star Superman.

Issues One to Six

Issue One

Morrison starts the story with a typically show-off move, summarising the entire Superman origin in one page, four panels and eight words (‘Doomed planet’, ‘Desperate scientists’, ‘Last hope’ and ‘Hick farmers’‘Kindly couple’), before dashing straight into the action with Supes rescuing a manned mission to the sun (‘one small step for man, one giant melanoma for mankind’) from a Lex Luthor-controlled Parasite. But, uh-oh, in the process, he’s exposed to critical levels of stellar radiation, which both overpowers and dooms him, a fate that would be far easier to accept had it not been delivered on the moon by a ludicrous popinjay scientist in a technicolour lab coat named Leo Quintum. Supes responds to this news by revealing his secret identity to Lois on the final page, causing her to drop her oranges like some kind of The Godfather cut scene.

Top Panel(s)

Look at bumbling Clark secretly rescuing this idiot from being hit by a truck without anybody even noticing. That’s proper Supermanning.

Issue Two

After revealing his secret identity to a still-sceptical Lois (‘fool me once, shame on Superman, fool me every single comic book in the Silver Age, shame on me’), Supes whisks her off to the Fortress of Solitude where he shows off some of his most ostentatious toys (a time telescope, a baby Sun Eater and a front door key that weighs half a million tons!). Lois remains unimpressed, however, so Superman gives her superpowers for her birthday, but not before she’s sufficiently infected by some kind of paranoia smoke that she shoots him with a kryptonite raygun. It’s kind of a weird relationship, if I’m being honest.

Top Panel(s)

Superman’s lies come back to haunt him, as Lois calls him out on literal decades of super-gaslighting. A valuable lesson indeed.

Issue Three

A birthday potion from Supes gives Lois powers for a day, and an opportunity to connect with him as an equal. Instead, SuperLois is hit on by, uh, Samson and Atlas, who pop into the story from their respective mythologies for some bro time. After battling children-eating red dinosaurs, other-dimensional Egyptian philosophers and way too much toxic masculinity, Supes eventually wins SuperLois’s heart by showing off his prowess at arm-wrestling (?) and they celebrate with a classic moon-smooch.

Top Panel(s)

I particularly like how Samson - now a time traveller for some reason - is making sure that Lois gets a good look at his car. Chicks dig chronomobiles, am I right, lads?

Issue Four