SuperHeroBooks - All Star Superman, Vol. 1
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List Price: $12.99
Our Price: $6.59
Your Save: $ 6.40 ( 49% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: DC Comics
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.5973
EAN: 9781401211028
ISBN: 140121102X
Label: DC Comics
Manufacturer: DC Comics
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 160
Publication Date: 2008-09-02
Publisher: DC Comics
Release Date: 2008-09-02
Studio: DC Comics
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Complete, total perfection
Comment: Morrison has written some great comics - New X-Men, Doom Patrol, WE3, Animal Man, JLA, and the list goes on - but this might be the best thing he's ever created. He strips Superman down to the basics, blending Silver Age earnestness with wild, far-ranging science fiction and mythology, and in the process he creates the perfect Superman story. From the one-page, four-panel origin story to Clark and Lois kissing on the moon to Jimmy Olsen dressed as Britney Spears to Lex Luthor's costumed baboon to the indestructible flower at Jonathan Kent's grave, the entire thing is pitch perfect. And Morrison ties all of these iconic images together with deeply effective emotional anchors. Even Luthor comes off as sympathetic.
Frank Quitely's art needs to be mentioned. Morrison and Quitely work together a lot and it can be hard to separate one from the other; this is indisputably a good thing. Morrison is brilliant, but when paired with Quitely the combination tends toward the perfect. Quitely's sense of pacing is unrivaled in all of comics (perhaps in the history of comics), and there are places where he almost seems to be channeling Jack Kirby's mad imagination. This is gorgeous work and Quitely deserves all the credit he can get for it.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Man of Steel
Comment: I need to preface this with an explanation of how much I hate Superman. It's a stupid idea for a comic, there's no drama, no worry over whether or not he'll get hurt, admittedly it was invaluable to comics, but it's no longer relevant.
However, this book is one of three series starring Superman that I actually enjoyed (the other two being Superman: Red Son and The Death of Superman). There's a little bit of cliche in it, but this series seems to be a little more adult, more up-to-date.
In otherwords, even if you don't like Superman, this would be one to pick up.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Too many cooks...
Comment: The highly-acclaimed All-Star Superman series ran for twelve issues, written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Frank Quitely.
DC's self-proclaimed return to the roots of Superman, the series set out (quoting Grant Morrison here), to be a collection of 'timeless Superman issues'. As such, most issues in the series are self-contained stories. Morrison, however, adds a twist - and a sense of urgency - from the end of the first issue: Superman is dying.
Morrison keeps readers aware of this for the rest of the series, but doesn't flaunt it. Still, the fact that the immortal Son of Krypton is about to kick the bucket adds an added level of meaning to his daily adventures. In the second issue, for example, Superman gives Lois a tour of the Fortress of Solitude. Although a fairly prosaic event in the DC cosmos, it is given a sense of poignancy - Superman is doing his best to share what he can, with who he can. Although he's strangely unafraid of death, he knows that the world needs him, and he worries about the knowledge that will die with him. The series continues in this vein - there's very little in the way of action (although we get a bit of old-school fisticuffs on occasion) - and quite a lot in the way of carefully-veiled emotion.
As shown by his run on JLA and The Authority, Morrison is the best at coming up with Epic-Level Encounters (to borrow from D&D). Morrison's imagination threatens the gods themselves. Morrison is also a master of foreshadowing, and the art of the tightly-woven plot. Although the individual adventures in All-Star Superman may seem unrelated, by the end, the reader discovers that everything - no matter how small - has meaning.
The weakness in All-Star Superman is the art.
In his favor, Quitely is capable of incorporating complex detail in his work - enabling him to include all the tiny facets Morrison's intricate plots. Not dissimilar to Dave Gibbons, in Watchmen. However, unlike Gibbons, Quitely possesses a distractingly terrifying style, that renders the reading experience a chore. Faces are squashed, soft and, at best, dully cherubic. Manga-tiny mouths are paired with equally minuscule eyes, giving everyone strange, beetle-like expressions, lost in vast faces. His bizarre, sub-human visages did their best to ruin New X-Men, and they're no better here.
(Note: I should probably confess that Quitely's 'weeping Beast' cover to New X-Men #117 is one of my favorites of all time... but then, I look at the issues on either side and I shed tears of my own.)
The layouts are often confusing - in many cases the action wanders side-to-side from page to page, making the dialog difficult to follow. I'm sad to say this is at its worst in issue 5 ("The Gospel According to Lex Luthor"). Clark Kent is interviewing Lex Luthor while the villain sits on Death Row. Luthor brags smugly about his intelligence, humorously overlooking the fact that his nemesis sits in front of him. Unfortunately, many of the quirky twists and turns are lost due to over-complicated layouts. And the close-ups of Luthor's gloating face - filled with tiny, ferret-like teeth? The stuff of nightmares.
With All-Star Superman, the whole is infinitely less than the sum of its parts. Despite his best efforts (at least, I assume they are his best efforts), Quitely's art distracts and detracts from Morrison's complex narrative. Morrison's distinct style brings enough intricacy to the table without having Quitely's stylized art and layouts involved as well.
Too many cooks...
Customer Rating:
Summary: Superman at his best
Comment: Superman is a tough character to get right. If you give him too much inner turmoil or angst, he loses that special quality that has made him so enduring to readers since the 30s. And if you make him too perfect, too "Super," he can be boring, and no one wants that.
Grant Morrison gets it right. He walks the thin line between the two extremes, giving us a Superman who is exactly what everyone strives to be, physically and mentally, yet still remains interesting and relatable. This Superman is kind, smart, confident, brave, even funny. What's more, all of his supporting cast--Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, Jimmy Olsen, Perry White--has been just as fleshed out. Morrison goes for the iconic, but he injects everything with enough unbridled originality and enthusiasm that things remain fresh.
But let's not forget Frank Quitely. His inventive designs are half the reason why this take on Superman works so well. He draws Superman bulky and square-jawed, yet with enough kindness and humanity that he never looks intimidating. And the differences, right down to the posture, between Superman and Clark Kent are truly inspired.
All Star Superman rivals Alan Moore's "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" for the title of "Greatest Superman Story Ever Told," in my opinion and I'm sure many agree. It's just that good.
Customer Rating:
Summary: This Is Not My Favorite Superman
Comment: This book contains six stories all concerning Superman's inevitable death:
1 Faster
This is about how Lex comes up with a plan to kill Superman by using the sun to overcharge his cells. Some good sequences here, but nothing really special.
2 Superman's Forbidden Room
Superman invites Lois to his Forbidden Room as he hopes to enjoy some probable last moments with her as well as celebrate her birthday with a special gift. Again, nothing out of the ordinary.
3 Sweet dreams, Super Woman
Some of Superman's pals request a contest to win a date with Lois. Totally ridiculous.
4 The Superman/Jimmy Olsen War
Exposure to black Kryptonite causes Superman to turn evil and Jimmy with the aid of some extraterrestrials, tries to stop Superman from ruining his reputation on earth. Very uninteresting.
5 The Gospel According to Lex Luthor
Pretty epic. Kent interviews Luthor on why he is the way he is. There are some pretty fun exchanges between the two. I guess they were saving the best for last.
6 Funeral in Smallville
Probably the best story in the book as Supes visit Smallville one last time but encounters some strange superheroes there. Can't say too much on this one because there is a nice surprise. This story alone is worth the purchase.
The artwork may take some getting adjusting to. It is very different with the detailed features like the face, hands, and feet appearing very small with very little shading and everything else really wide and spacious making the character appear very static and fat. With Superman, this is not much of a problem because this makes him resemble the classic Superman, but Lois Lane is a big disappointment because she does not look anything like Lois at all. The colors are very bright and clean, but again, very little use of gradient or shading. I'm not really a fan of this type of art because while beautiful as a static image, you really do not feel any excitement or action from this type of art.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Two of the comics industry's top creative talents, writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely, the acclaimed team behind JLA: EARTH 2, reunite to redefine Superman based on the timeless, essential iconic elements that everyone knows about the Man of Steel. In the first volume, the World's Greatest Super-Hero rescues a doomed group of astronauts on the surface of the sun when he's exposed to massive amounts of solar radiation no one could possibly anticipate how he'll be affected - except Lex Luthor!
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