All Star Superman, Vol. 1
I don’t often read graphic novels anymore, and much less Superman (a friend once said that the main challenges that Superman face boil down to his “lifting things”), but my brother gave me these to read, and so – with no exams in the distance – I sat down to read them.
Just as with Superman Returns, this is a “reboot” of the franchise, and ties in with a lot of the history of the Superman character across decades of comic history. It’s an well-told story, with lots of twists and turns, but lacking substantial knowledge of the Superman mythology as I do, it was mostly lost on me.
It’s a shame you couldn’t get more out of the story, Dave. All-Star Superman is one of my favourite series ever. I guess I can see how a lack of Superman mythology knowledge might hamper one’s enjoyment, but maybe it’s also a Grant Morrison thing?
I love Grant Morrison’s writing, but it’s not always the easiest to read. I don’t know how much (if any) of his work you’ve read before, but in a way you need to be ‘trained’ to appreciate Grant Morrison. Underneath the big, crazy ideas he throws at you, there are usually all kinds of subtleties to his writing that it’s easy to miss at first glance, but if you get them (and I must confess I often (not always, but often) need to have them pointed out to me), they make the whole experience several levels cooler.
For example. in All-Star Superman, once you realise/are told the following (URL made tiny to prevent spoilage: http://tinyurl.com/2akro8h), the whole thing takes on a whole new meaning.