Absolute Superman is one of DC’s best ongoing books right now, and it’s super easy to see why. The series follows Superman as he is chased across the Earth by enemies and potential allies alike, almost all of them wanting to use Superman to further their own goals, while he is just looking for a place to belong and a way to help people. The new origin has massively reinvented the character of the Man of Steel, but despite how radically different his circumstances and background are from his main universe version, he’s never acted more like himself. Superman has changed a lot as a character over the years, evolving with the world around him, and yet somehow Absolute Superman manages to roll each and every version of him from across the decades into one beautiful package.
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Superman’s Changed a Lot
When Superman was first introduced, he wasn’t fighting living blackholes or pulling planets away from dying stars. Instead, he fought injustices that existed in the real world. Superman’s first ever story saw him solving a murder to save a woman who was wrongfully accused, and dropping the real perpetrator outside the governor’s house with a signed confession. His first ever epithet was Champion of the Oppressed, and he fought for the rights and safety of the disenfranchised everywhere. Of course, as he defined what the superhero genre was he also got into more classic adventures, like dealing with mad scientists and alien bugs.
By the time Superman became popular countrywide and World War II raged at its worst, Superman became a symbol to inspire the American public. Post WWII, that connection between Superman and the American Way stuck, and Superman shifted from being a force to fight against the system to being the system itself. While he still ostensibly fought for the people, this was a time period where he moved away from fighting to change the world to beating villains to restore the status quo. However, it’s also undeniable that during this time Superman was written as a bit of a jerk. He was far more self-centered and pulled some legitimately cruel pranks on those he was supposed to be close with, occasionally straight up bullying them. A lot of these stories are definitely products of their times. He would grow out of that attitude into the 1960s on. Also importantly, a large part of this interpretation of Superman was that Clark Kent was an act he put on to keep his true identity secret, which leads into the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths era.
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The modern version of Superman was born following DC’s first multiversal rewrite and laid the groundwork for how he is portrayed today. Now, Superman and Clark Kent are both somewhat exaggerations of who he is, but Clark is the heart of his character. Superman is also the kindest person to ever live, the living embodiment of a better tomorrow here today. He is the man who will always find a way and will never stop believing. As much as Superman has changed over the years, that dedication to fight for the people who need help has always remained consistent.
Absolute Superman Is Everything
Absolute Superman is first and foremost a character who is trying to fight social injustice to save the oppressed. He is the son of farmers who were kicked to the bottom dregs of society because they dared to speak out against the corrupt regime that ruled Krypton, who fought to save as many people as they could when they learned the elites were planning to leave everyone else to die on the exploding planet. Since arriving on Earth, he has done everything in his power to save people from the same elite-run type of society that ended Krypton. And in becoming the champion of the oppressed, Superman constantly comes into direct confrontation with supervillains like Ra’s al Ghul and Metallo. The supervillains and societal injustices have been formed into one entity for Superman to fight.
Along with that, Superman’s true identity is both as the hero Superman and the person underneath. Superman is all that he is, as he never was Clark Kent and has chosen to throw away his Kryptonian name Kal-El, yet his mission as Superman is still so clearly driven out of the heart of the man beneath the S-crest. Another way that the versions meld perfectly in these pages is in how Superman’s powers are portrayed. Similar to his original appearances, he is much weaker than the usual versions of Superman, and yet like today he is powered by the sun and objectively the strongest being on the planet.
Of course, the best way that the different eras of Superman come together into the Absolute one is in how he acts. Superman fights for the disenfranchised because he so deeply cares about them, as he always has, but he also is a bastion of undying hope, even as the world continuously tries to beat it out of him. He is angry and disgusted with the world, like his mid-history self and more cynical versions, but he never lets hatred take him over, and he fights so hard to stop himself from going too far. Superman is fighting to find a way to save everyone, even his enemies, but he’s afraid that he won’t be able to. He might not even believe it’s possible, but he’s still trying. What version of Superman wouldn’t?
Superman has changed a lot over his nearly ninety years of existence. And yet through them all, he has always been a hero trying to make the world a better place. How he’s done that has varied based on time and place, but he never gives up on that mission, even when it seems hopeless, even when everyone tells him it can’t be done. Superman is the man who does the impossible and saves everyone, and Absolute Superman is going to do his darndest to embody that hope for truth, justice, and a better tomorrow.
