DC's All-Star line got off to a shaky start with All-Star Batman & Robin The Boy Wonder, which may have sold very well, but certainly wasn't any good.  Even those critics who actually liked the thing seem to defend it as some sort of vaguely-defined satire (of what?), which would still make it useless for its stated purpose as an entry-level comic.

Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely are not going to make the same mistake with All-Star Superman.  Morrison, of course, loves these iconic superhero characters.  He's wanted to write Superman for ages, and produced a pitch for the regular titles some years ago which DC bizarrely rejected on the grounds that they would never let him write the character.  Sanity has evidently prevailed since then.

It's very difficult to make Superman work in this day and age.  He's the archetypal superhero, but that has unwelcome side effects.  Most of the elements which make the character unique have been adopted and rehashed many times over by this point.  There is very little left to do with Superman that hasn't been done before.

But, on the other hand, that's precisely why he's a good character to use in a book like this.  Unlike his X-Men run, Morrison isn't making any attempt to offer a dramatic new take on the character.  Instead, this is an exercise in hitting all the key elements of the character and polishing him up for the 21st century.  It's not about revamping him, it's about doing a version of Superman which works in 2005 for the same reasons that he used to work decades ago - correcting the aspects that have become dated, not reinventing the wheel.

So nothing in the plot will come as a particular surprise - but that really isn't the point.  It's all in the treatment, which is brilliantly paced.  The origin story, which everyone already knows anyway, is neatly encapsulated in four panels.  The story is rapid, with enough material in the first issue to fill an opening arc for most modern writers.  There's a degree of shorthand in the characterisation.  The back story is filled in with extremely concise exposition.

But at the same time, Morrison makes sure that Quitely has room to breathe and to show off the character at his best.  A double page spread of Superman flying ought to be a cliche which we've seen a thousand times before, yet Quitely makes it look fresh and graceful again.  Compressing the necessary-yet-dull bits as much as they possibly can, the creators leave space for a comic that reminds us why Superman worked in the first place.  There's no cynicism here - it's a world where scientists are growing miniature humans, and that's just fascinating and swell.  At the same time, though, it never comes across as naive, but simply joyfully enthralled by the scope of the ideas.

A wonderful example of how to revive a tired character.

Rating: A+

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