Hey there, Readers! I have an extra Spotlight for you this month! The Summer of Superman is well and truly underway with the new movie dropping this Friday! One massive inspiration for James Gunn was All-Star Superman and, wouldn’t you know it, there was an adaptation made available in the form of an audiobook in late June!
For those who may not be familiar with it, All-Star Superman was released in 2005 in 12 issues as a huge celebration of the wilder and more whimsical elements of the Silver Age of Superman comics. Written by Grant Morrison and illustrated by Frank Quitely, it won multiple Eisner, Harvey and Eagle awards, as well as being extremely well reviewed. It was later collected into two trade paperbacks and I can’t recommend them enough.
So, strap on your cape, pick up your red boots on the way out the door, make sure your headphones are paired and let’s go enjoy some sunshine while we listen to this epic tale! (Just not too much sunshine.)
Book Stats
- Author: Grant Morrison was the original author with Frank Quitely on illustration, but this version that
we’re looking a today was adapted by Meghan Fitzmartin..
Formats: Audible.
Price: $17.72 for Audible.
Length: 5 hours and 4 minutes.
Narrator: A full cast!
Number of books in the series: It’s a standalone work.
Basic Premise
You know how this story starts, right? Doomed Planet. Desperate Scientists. Last Hope. Kindly Couple.
Superman.
Dr. Leo Quintum and his team are on a manned mission to the sun! Many of his team are made up of bio- engineered people who perform specific scientific tasks… until they don’t. Unfortunately for these brave souls, one of these bio-engineered team members has been hacked by none other than Lex Luthor! That’s right, the greatest criminal mind of our time has managed to infiltrate this manned mission and has rigged this unfortunate genetically engineered fellow to explode, destroying the ship and killing everyone aboard. Not only that, but he has a neural link set up to gloat about it using the human bomb’s own voice. Superman makes it just in time to save the day, flying into the sun and rescuing all aboard except, unfortunately, the fellow rigged to blow.
One thing I should mention here is that this was Luthor’s plan all along – to over-expose Superman’s cells to solar radiation. That’s only really a thing in this continuity, though, so you may have seen or read other stories where he can survive in stars before and come out unscathed – not so on All-Star. Think of it like Vitamin C. It’s healthy for you in regular amounts but you CAN overdose on it if you’re not careful and it can be a really serious problem.
Dr. Quintum, after running a battery of tests determines that the amount of solar power Superman absorbed is lethal but not immediately so. He has about a year to live as the raw energy in his cells breaks them down. The upside? There now seems to be no end to the increase in strength, speed and new powers that Superman has access to. His entire system is in massive overdrive for the time has has left.
And that’s for the best. He’s told by a time traveling Atlas and Samson that he has 12 feats to accomplish before he dies – they show him a copy of the Daily Planet that details his death from the future.
He confesses his secret identity to Lois. She doesn’t believe him. This is Silver Age continuity, after all – she’s seen all the various ruses Superman has put in play to distance himself from mild, meek Clark Kent. (Most of them involve robots or Batman subbing in for him.) Still, she lets him take her to his Fortress of Solitude for a Birthday dinner. He gives her a serum made from his Kryptonian DNA that allows her to gain his powers for 24 hours. He shows her an orb that allows him to speak through time with a variety of his descendents – all wearing his S emblem and taking up the role of Superman in their time. He shows her how he feeds his pet Sun Eater. All in all? A pretty nice Birthday!
And that’s only one arc of the story. He interviews Lex Luthor and allows him to escape Stryker’s Island while saving his life from a massively powered up Parasite. He becomes a monster after helping discover black Kryptonite in the Underverse, he travels to a square Bizarro planet and meets a poet who’s works he promises to share. He meets and eventually mourns two Kryptonian astronauts who found their way to Earth, hoping to turn it into a new Krypton.
He does amazing, miraculous things to help both Earthlings and the few remaining Kryptonians, all the while battling a deteriorating body and the knowledge that his own death is imminent.
I’d tell you more, but I don’t want to ruin too many surprises!
My Take
I’ll be really honest – it took a while for All-Star Superman to resonate with me when I initially picked up the trade paperbacks in 2009. I never really got a lot of exposure to the wackier era of Superman stories this is a love letter to so I did feel a little lost. I enjoyed it, of course! No matter what else was on those pages, it was still Superman doing Superman stuff so there was still a lot for me to like! I will say this, though; I’ve grown a much deeper appreciation for it as I’ve gotten older. As my own body starts to show signs of wear and tear and my mind turns towards what I might leave behind when I do eventually go (Hopefully no time soon but I’ve hit at least the half-way point!) I see the essential, raw humanity on display in this story. Even Superman, the guy with all the power anyone could ever want, winds up having to deal with the idea that he, too, shall pass.
Not only that but he has feats to accomplish! People who need him. Things he always thought he’d have more time to do. Connections he didn’t maintain as well as he should have, hands he should have tried harder to reach out. There’s a moment where he, as Clark, beseeches Lex Luthor that he and Superman could have, maybe should have, been friends. That they could have, together, accomplished so much good. I can’t help but hear the guilt in those words. If only he’d spent more time trying to crack Lex’s code, taken more pains to diffuse the hatred in Lex’s heart, taken the time to work at it just a little harder… but we always think we’ll have more time.
Having said that, there’s a massive amount of fun to be had here as well! It’s not all maudlin, I promise! Jimmy Olsen is especially wacky and wild – his bits were some of my favorite parts. And the Bizarro Justice League is also a highlight!
I think the most famous page of this story’s comic version is his saving and comforting of Regan. Throughout the earlier chapter he hears little snippets of a phone conversation between a doctor and his patient. The doctor has been held up at the worst possible time and it could cost someone their life. The patient, Regan, stands atop a tall building and drops her phone, steeling herself to follow it. Suddenly, Superman lands behind her. He doesn’t grab her, or force her back. He doesn’t judge or belittle her. He just talks to her, then hugs her, reminding her that she’s stronger than she thinks. I think this scene really lives up to its fullest potential in the audio version. The kindness in Marc Thompson’s voice is exactly what you want to hear in a scene like this. He sounds like a friend.
Speaking of! The cast! As mentioned, it’s a fully voice acted production with more than ten different actors lending their talents. (Including Scott Brick! Remember him from our July Book Spotlight? Marc Thompson is a wonderful Superman bringing warmth and fun to the story. (He’s a fairly prolific voice actor – he does a lot of Star Wars books!) Kristen Sieh makes a compelling and engaging Lois Lane, able to match Superman’s energy all throughout. Christopher Smith voices Lex Luthor and does a masterful job of making him sound, despite Clark’s hand-wringing, absolutely irredeemable! The entire cast is fantastic.
This is one of those stories that reminds us that besides flight, strength, speed and all the different kinds of vision Superman has, his key superpower is kindness. The best part about that is that, unlike all the other ones, this is a power we all have the capacity for. We can work at it (Because, oh boy, it often IS a lot of work! Meanness and cynicism are extremely easy but kindness? It generally requires mindfulness and effort.) develop it, display it and focus on it. The best Superman stories focus on who he can help, not who he can knock down. This is one of those.
(Though he definitely knocks a few bad guys down as well.)
I was worried at the idea of a comic re-worked into an audio format. The adaptation by Meghan Fitzmartin does a great job of adding dialogue and sound effects to keep things easy to understand without that visual element.
If you, like me, are in a Superman mood, I highly recommend this as a quick listen!
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