The Battle of Smallville

I often feel of two minds about the Absolute Universe from DC. I like the stories that really feel like they take the concept of the darker universe seriously, the ones where they really try to reinvent the characters so that they aren’t just on the same path they followed in the Prime universe. This is a time for the characters to get reinvented, so the comic creators can explore what it really means to be these heroes, what parts of them are essential and what can be stripped away. The best of these volumes have managed to do just that.

But then we have plenty of stories that haven’t yet found their way, or rely too much on tropes for the characters that we know already. These books feel less like a reinvention and more like a parallel Elseworlds. We already have plenty of Elseworlds; we don’t need that in the Absolute Universe as well. The best books avoid that, such as in the case of Absolute Wonder Woman. The worst books give into temptation and fail to live up to the concept, like Absolute Batman.

Absolute Superman’s second volume weirdly sits somewhere in the middle. On the one hand, the volume carries on aspects of the first volume that I really liked, the way it threw out so much of the expected backstory for Kal-El but still finds a way to bring out the essential aspects of SupermanThe first big superhero from DC Comics, Superman has survived any number of pretenders to the throne, besting not only other comic titans but even Wolrd War II to remain one of only three comics to continue publishing since the 1940s.. But at the same time, the book leans more heavily into pushing this version of Kal-El towards the expected status quo, finding ways to turn not just this version of Superman, but so many of his characters, settings, and expected tropes into a normal Superman adventure. It’s not a bad book by any measure, and it does its job pretty well, but it feels safer and far less adventurous with the material than in the first volume, and I worry that this book is going to become much more staid and tired than when it started out.

This book continues the storyline set up in the first volume, with Kal-El taking up the fight against Ra’s Al Ghul, the Dragon. As we learn, Ra’s is the seemingly immortal leader of the Lazarus Corporation, the group responsible for so much of the destruction and damage this version of Earth has seen. Every time Superman has gone up against the Peacemarkers, every time he’s had to fight for the rights of the common man, it’s been because Lazarus has been on the opposite side of the battle, working to strip the world of its resources.

But it’s not just Ra’s working on the world. Brainiac, the extraterrestrial intelligence, has been on Earth for some time, and it’s an essential part of Lazarus. Ra’s wants Superman captured so he can be brainwashed into becoming Ra’s “Son of the Dragon”, and Brainiac wants Kal-El because he’s something new, something different, and Brainiac wants to tear him apart. Kal-El will have the fight of his life on his hands trying to keep his mind in order, but thankfully he’ll have help from Lois Land, former agent of Lazarus, and Jimmy Olsen, former agent of the Omega Men, backing him up.

I really liked the first half of this volume. That was the half that best focused on the battle of minds, and bodies, between Ra’s and Superman. It had twists and turns, and it both plays with ideas from traditional Superman comics, like the inclusion of Brainiac and Kal-El’s quest to do right by those less fortunate, all while putting it against a backdrop we aren’t familiar with. Ra’s Al Ghul is usually a Batman villain, so to see him here, with a different target, and a different quest for power, is actually interesting. It recasts both him, and Kal-El, in different lights, which is exactly what we should be getting from Absolute Superman.

But then, in the back half, the book has this need to shift towards classic Superman mythology. Kal-El ends up back in Smallville so he can refocus his mind. He meets the people of the town, who he has (not so) secretly been helping all along. He becomes allies with Lana Lang. Lois and Jimmy document the invasion of Smallville by Lazarus, with Lois becoming a reporter and Jimmy her photographer. And in the end, Kal-El gets his Clark Kent persona, and his classic costume, and settles into a life he’s always had elsewhere.

This is the same kind of reset towards tropes that Absolute Batman made, and I just don’t care for it as much. I liked Lois being a soldier, an army brat to an army general, so we could see the harder, darker edge to her persona. I liked Jimmy as a (hapless) agent for a deep state organization. I felt those were interesting reinventions of their characters that this volume throws away in the end. And doing all that, while forcing Kal-El back to Smallville so he can become Clark Kent feels lazy. We know that story. The Absolute Universe version should be different.

I like Kal-El as a character all on his own, freed of all the storytelling expectations from the Prime universe. He has (well, had) an interesting dynamic between himself and his A.I. “cape”, Sol, and I liked how it changed his perspective but still let him be a force for good. I also liked how his backstory on Krypton was handled, with more emphasis on his parents there, and more time spent for him to learn what it meant to be Kryptonian. The more the book shifts him towards Smallville and his Clark Kent persona, the more the aspects I liked are lost.

And I wonder what it’s going to be for. Most of the villains in this book, Ra’s and Brainiac included, are dealt with in some capacity, so it feels like the book is forcing itself to shift and change into something new despite the fact that the best aspects of the story were the parts it’s leaving behind. Kal-El here felt more alien, more isolated, more in need of his Fortress of Solitude (which he got from Sol). Shoving that away changes him and makes him more normal. Not at all an absolute version.

So I don’t know. I didn’t hate this book. I liked the story it told, at least up to a point, and the artwork, as ever, was great. It’s a solid volume for two-thirds of its page count, but it leaves me with a question mark about where it’s going to go from here. If Lazarus is defeated, and Brainiac is no more, then what exactly will this version of Superman even do? Go become Clark Kent in Metropolis, working for the Daily Planet? That feels like where the book is pushing him and, frankly, I don’t need that for Kal-El here.

I would prefer if Absolute Superman took the path of Absolute Wonder Woman, respecting where the character came from initially but knowing how to keep this version separate. Absolute Superman is starting to lose that aspect, and it’s what held me back from raving about this book again. Maybe my worries will be smoothed over in the next book, but for now I am left to wonder just what is going to happen and if this is going to stay a book I can recommend…