Superman (Red Son)

Superman
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Superman: Red Son (2003)
Created by	Mark Millar
Voiced by	Jason Isaacs
In-story information
Alter ego	Kal-LSuperman
Species	Kryptonian
Place of origin	Krypton
Team affiliations	Soviet Union Superman of the Multiverse
Notable aliases	Red Son, Comrade of Steel
Abilities	See Powers and abilities of Superman

Superman of the Red Son universe is an alternative version of the fictional superhero Superman, who appears in American comic book written by DC Comics. The character hails from an alternate reality in which Superman was raised in the Soviet Union rather than Kansas.

History

Red Son

Kal-L of this reality follows much of the similar known reality of being rocketed to Earth from a dying advanced culture.

The rocket trajectory results in the ship landing on a Ukrainian collective farm in Soviet Ukraine, under Josef Stalin's government. The baby is immediately taken in and recognized as an alien with advanced powers and abilities that will be used for the greater good of the country. When Superman reveals himself to the world it is noted that a 12 hour difference in the flight path would have had him land in the United States.

Growing up as a Soviet citizen, the future Superman is basically shown as a good person who dedicates his abilities to the safeguard of Soviet citizens and some of the people of the world as he spends most of his time detecting and preventing accidents. Over the intervening years, Superman becomes a member of Stalin's inner circle and is used as a propaganda event to bolster Stalin's regime. It is not until the United States CIA prompts S.T.A.R. Labs lead scientist Lex Luthor to develop a plan to destroy him does Superman begin to openly and actively support the arms race between the United States and the USSR.

Lex Luthor chooses to create his own version of Superman through cloning to combat and overcome the original. Luthor decides to crash Sputnik into Metropolis which will bring Superman to the event and hopefully allow Luthor to gather genetic material of Superman. As planned, Superman arrives in time to stop the deadly crash. The United States government claims the probe and Luthor gets the samples he needs in order to create his copy which proves to be defective and is named Bizarro. Luthor sends his Bizarro off to engage Superman who is attending a state party which Wonder Woman is attending. Bizarro crashes the party and the two fight. Their battle is so aggressive it accidentally causes a nuclear missile to launch. Bizarro proves himself to be a true genetic descendant of Superman as he sacrifices himself to save millions from the nuclear explosion. Superman tries to distance himself from the potential destruction he has caused and the power battle of the two governments but it spurred to actively change the world when he meets with Lana Lazarenko, his childhood sweetheart who is suffering along with her children. Deciding to actively lead the government, Superman assumes leadership of the country to transform it into a utopia after Stalin is poisoned by his son, Pyotr Roslov.

Over a period of twenty years or so, Superman and Wonder Woman worked together to bring about a better world with Superman unaware of Wonder Woman's attraction to him. Though Superman has advanced the Soviet Union to almost world wide control without resorting to war and virtually eliminated poverty, disease and the like, his plan was starting to control the populace directly. But the extent of that direct control is not known until revealed to be done by brain surgery techniques that pacifies dissidents into obedient slaves, or "Superman Robots". The Batman developed as a direct result of the horror of the true state of Superman's society as he was orphaned by the disgruntled son of Stalin, Pyotr who was pushed aside by Superman. But Pyotr's ruthlessness serves him well enough to become the head of the KGB. Batman works against the system of Superman who views the safety and good at the cost of human free will as too costly and seeks to overturn Superman regime.

Luthor, still scheming against Superman over all these years, was involved in supporting Batman's activities as well as developing a computer core called Brainiac that is created to seek out a plan to defeat Superman. Superman overcomes both, but at the cost of Wonder Woman's health who is badly injured in a kidnap plot and Brainiac shrinks down Stalingrad and its citizens to a bottled city neither of which Superman is able to restore to normal. While not completely defeating him, these events deeply affect Superman, turning him ever so much more dark in his need to safeguard the innocents around him, even at the cost of the individuals' freedoms. Superman takes the Brainiac computer into protective custody to prevent anymore such attacks and supposedly reprograms it to be a subservient robot-making-slave for the good of the Soviet Union.

At the beginning of the new century, the Global Soviet Union is a world-wide country with the notable exception of the United States of America. The USA has suffered a second civil war while the Soviet Union has no crime, no poverty, no unemployment, and no freedom of choice. The conversion brain surgery is now a public punishment for the dissent and open opposers of the government. Superman is still trying to operate as a good person and repeatedly refuses Brainiac's suggestions of openly invading the USA and ending its destructiveness. Superman's primary failure of Stalingrad has become even worse as the shrunken city is ravaged by a microscopic germ.

After an almost lifetime of failed events, Luthor decides on an open attack plan by openly controlling the United States as an active platform of attacking Superman and his regime. Luthor runs for and wins the American presidency which he basically turns into a dictatorship to grant some prosperity to the once defeated country in getting the people to support his ideology. Luthor confronts Superman in the Siberian Fortress of Solitude and declares open war against Superman. Superman relents in accepting the terms of war upon seeing Luthor's open attack force of the Green Lantern Marine Corps which are led by Colonel Hal Jordan and comprise of Privates Scott, Stewart, Rayner, and Gardner and supported by the Amazon forces commanded by a highly disillusioned Wonder Woman and other superpowered beings.

The battle against Superman does not stop him as Superman enters the U.S. White House in triumph where Lois Lane-Luthor defeats Superman with a simple note that reads "why don't you just put the entire world in a bottle, Superman?" Reminded of his greatest defeat and the reason for his open domination of humanity, Superman relents and orders Brainiac to end the invasion and return home. Brainiac openly defies Superman and reveals that he will control humanity for his own purposes. But Luthor deactivates the rampaging robot which overloads the nuclear power source of the invasion ship into basically a bomb. Superman pushes the invasion ship into outer space, where it blows up supposedly killing Superman in the offworld explosion.

Seemingly rid of the open control imposed by Superman's beneficial society, Lex Luthor reforms the planet and its governments into a new philosophy of "Luthorism" that paradoxically uses several of Superman's ideologies. Luthor relents his complete control and develops an age of peace and stability. Luthor retires to scientific pursuits which includes colonizing the solar system and curing all known diseases. Luthor extends his life to reach over two millennia. It is at Luthor's funeral that Superman finally reappears, revealed to be apparently immortal with no age in all the intervening years.

Centuries later after Earth's sun turns red and weakening him Superman wonders if Luthor's latest descendant, Jor-L, is mistaken about his findings that Earth will fall into its own Sun. Jor-L sends his son into Earth's past moments before it is destroyed and the rocket lands in "The Ukraine, Russia, 1938" (sic) effectively causing a predestination paradox.

Convergence

Moscow of Earth-30 was plucked by Braniac and Telos, along with other inhabitants of its world including him and placed inside a dome which negated any superpowers with him being powerless for a year.

After he dome went down, Superman would end up fighting Nightwing and Huntress of Earth-Two. Helena attempted to kill him, but failed. They are interrupted by his world's Batman.

Powers and abilities

Powers

• Unique Physiology: Originally thought to be an alien, in fact Kal-L is a human whose cellular structure has evolved genetically because he was born under a red sun in Earth's distant future. Under the effects of a "yellow" sun, Kal-L possesses the same powers as Kryptonians. These include:
  • Solar Radiation Absorption: Under optimal conditions, this is the main source of Kal-L's super powers as they are contingent upon exposure to solar radiation from a yellow sun star system. His biological make up includes a number of organs which lack analogues in humans and whose functions are unknown. It is believed that between one or more of these and his bio-cellular matrix, "yellow" solar energy is stored for later use. This allows for the use of these powers to fade when yellow solar radiation is not available instead of immediate failure.

• Heat Vision: Kal-L can, as a conscious act, fire beams of intense heat at a target by looking at it. He can vary the heat and area affected.
• Superhuman Senses
  • Superhuman Hearing
• Super Vision
  • Electromagnetic Spectrum Vision
  • Telescopic Vision
  • Microscopic Vision
  • X-Ray Vision
• Flight: Kal-L is able to manipulate graviton particles to defy the forces of gravity and achieve flight. This ranges from hovering to moving in any posture, in any direction.
• Invulnerability: Due to the interaction of his dense molecular structure and supercharged bio-electric aura, Kal-L is nigh-invulnerable to extreme energy forces. In addition, his extends this protection against toxins and diseases.
• Superhuman Stamina: Kal-L is able to maintain continuous strenuous physical action for an indefinite period of time. This based on his body converting yellow solar radiation directly to energy, but is limited by physiological and psychological needs to eat, drink, and sleep
• Superhuman Strength: Kal-L strength is augmented by yellow solar radiation interacting with the greater than human density, resilience and biological efficiency of his musculature. His strength is more an act of conscious will on energy fields than actual physical strength. It is this act of conscious will that enables him to perform physical feats that are beyond the mere application force, such as moving a mountain top without said rock crumbling under its own mass.
• Superhuman Speed: Kal-L is able to move at incredible speed by sheer force of will. This extends to his perceptions and allows for feats such as catching bullets in mid flight as well as covering vast distances in little or no time. This also confers:
  • Superhuman Agility
  • Superhuman Reflexes
• Longevity: Kal-L can potentially live indefinitely with little to no ageing to his being, so long as he continuously retains enough yellow solar radiation in his body.
• Super-Breath: Kal-L is able to create hurricane force winds by exhaling air from his lungs. He can chill the air as it leaves his lungs to freeze targets. He can also reverse the process to pull large volumes of air or vapor into his lungs.

Abilities

• Xenobiology
• Template:Multilingualism: Kal-L was able to speak at least english and russian.

Weaknesses

• Magic
• Lead: Kal-L cannot see through lead with his x-ray vision powers.
• Solar Energy Dependency: His abilities will eventually weaken without replenishing his energy reserves with normal (yellow) sun radiation, especially if he doesn't have any direct contact with yellow sunlight. When exposed to the same red solar radiation as Krypton's red sun Rao, it causes Kal-L to lose his powers within a large amount of exposure until the exposure to yellow sunlight will reverse this effect.

Notes

• Superman does assume a non powered persona similar to the original format of Clark Kent being a meek and retiring personality, but this persona is not specifically named as it is considered a national secret.

• It is revealed that the Earth-1598 Superman is not Kryptonian like his other counterparts but actually Lex Luthor's own descendant from Earth's distant future that has evolved genetically because he was born and lives under Earth sun that turns red. As a result no Kryptonite exists in that reality. It is unknown if these features are true of the Earth-30 and Earth 30 variants.

• While this Superman appeared as part of hypertime in The Kingdom Vol 1 2 details of his life would not be revealed until Superman: Red Son Vol 1 1.

• See also Earth-30 for the 52 Multiverse version.

Recommended

• Superman: Red Son
• Countdown: Arena

Trivia

• Kal-L is also known as Man of Steel or Comrade of Steel.

This article uses content from the DC Comics wiki.