All-Star Superman, Issues Seven to Twelve

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.

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 Seven to Twelve

Issue Seven

You know what am terrible idea? Reimagining Bizarros as zombies. So that’s what Morrison does, proposing some kind of highly infectious Bizarro-plague that turns everybody who is touched into one of the backwards-talking monsters. The obvious way for Superman to defeat this outbreak is by simply asking everybody to stay indoors and socially distance. But nobody’s willing to do that, so instead he sinks the Bizarro-world into something called the underverse. Except, uh-oh, he accidentally traps himself in there, too, where, thanks to red sun radiation, he is powerless. This am very good problem to have.

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Apparently the only other cure to the Bizarro plague is to take loads and loads of Viagra, just like Steve Lombard now canonically does. Look, I’ve heard more preposterous claims for cures.

Issue Eight

Still trapped in the underverse, Superman makes a new friend, Zibarro, who is kind of a reverse-Bizarro. “Wait,” says Supes. “Aren’t I the reverse-Bizarro.” “No,” explains Zibarro. “Bizarros are reverse-Supermen. But that doesn’t necessarily imply that a reverse-Bizarro takes you back to where you started. Who said that the Bizarro function was reflexive? That’s just an assumption on your part.” “You am talking much mathematical sense,” agrees Supes, and then convinces Zibarro to help build a rocket to shoot him back to Earth, before the disgusting monster can get bogged down with any further discussions on involutory functions.

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Supes makes an impassioned plea to the idiot Bizarro populace, easily winning them over with his backward promises and erroneous claims, a situation that, as any student of modern politics will tell you, could never be successfully replicated on Earth.

Issue Nine

Superman returns to Earth two months later, only to discover he’s been replaced by Bar-El and Lilo, apparently Krypton’s first ever astronauts, who are running around on Earth with the usual superpowers doing good and being not in any way deeply suspicious. Naturally, their haughty attitude leaves Supes with no choice but to engage in some moon-based fisticuffs before a deus ex radioactive cloud that causes the minerals in your body to turn into kryptonite puts an end to the problem. He then pops the duo into the Phantom Zone until he finds sufficient time or interest to cure the pair of their ailment. Triumphant once more!

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All the super-powered fighting on the moon leaves it with a great big crack down the centre. Careless stuff from all Kryptonians involved. Luckily, Bar-El and Lilo are blessed with a can-do attitude and stitch it up with a whole heap of random Earth bridges (Sydney Harbour Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge, Bridge on the River Kwai, etc).

Issue Ten