Mark Millar Red Son Literary Analysis

What is the point behind Mark Millar’s Red Son? Hint: it’s not what you think. Well maybe it is but there are a lot of opinions out there. Mark Millar himself states that it is to vilify America’s foreign policy but he also admits to writing it because Superman needed publicity. There is also the opinion that it is simply for entertainment, just a cool story. But could it be that this tale is about Superman returning to his roots as a character, showing that the old Superman could never have panned out? All of these elements are present in Red Son but the main lesson that should be learned is that Superman has grown away from his beginnings and has learned that power isn’t his calling, Superman needs to be seen as the icon he is now. No better

In the same review from “Pulp and Dagger” they state later that “…despite the obvious high-minded intentions, it seems, first and foremost, entertainment” (Superman). Comic books are entertaining and Red Son is entertaining, it definitely sold well with “…orders for Red Son have doubled normal sales…” (Boztas). But comic books also have morals they are supposed to teach a lesson. There is simply too much with this story to just be about entertainment. Superman spends a whole mini-series worth of comic books making mistakes, trying to control the Earth, and then realizing the horrible truth behind that concept and that’s just entertainment? There’s nothing greater to be learned? Even Superman learns something from his own story and plainly narrates “…he successfully made me realize that the human race could thrive without me” (Millar, Johnson, Plunkett), he could see a future without him controlling everyone and let it

“Millar said he changed the storyline, created by Jerome Siegel and Joseph Shuster in 1934, to create a modern commentary on ‘unethical American foreign policy’” (Boztas). Millar says it is so, so it must be; but Millar also admits, in his article in the Sunday Times, that DC wanted him to radically change Superman to sell more comics. It is feasible that both could be true and the vilification came with the writing process as Millar was given this task. America learning that they can’t take control wherever they want to might have been the point Millar was trying to get across and it is there but a larger point emerged while this mini-series was being created. “Yet in many ways, by mixing up Superman with real world politics, Millar is helping to return the character to his roots” (Heer). Superman used to solve every problem he came across and then some. He could kidnap Stalin and Hitler, make them face justice, and successfully end World War II but no one would learn anything from the horrors of war. If no one makes mistakes, if there is always going to be someone there to fix everything, yes we would achieve utopia but we would lose our agency in the process. We could no longer be trusted to make our own choices because we could choose the wrong, we would have to be controlled. Red Son is entertaining, it can be about America’s foreign policy, or it could have just been a publicity stunt to sell more Superman