A review of All-Star Superman #9 By Neil Shyminsky (neil) November 17, 2007 Rating: 6.7 / 10

Writer: Grant Morrison
Artist: Frank Quitely

"Curse of the Replacement Supermen"

Some of the magic is missing from this issue. I've found some bloggers who agree with me and plenty of review sites that wholeheartedly disagree, but I can't help but feel that something was left out of the latest All-Star Superman.

The pieces are all there for a great story: Superman confronts his past in two amoral Kryptonians who have arrived on Earth and judged him to be weak and ineffectual, foolish to work with humans when he should be ruling them. But nothing more than a plot with loads of potential manages to emerge: an entirely coincidental and incredibly convenient case of Kryptonite poisoning weakens the other Kryptonians and inexplicably changes their minds about everything, and suddenly they're able to understand Superman's philosophy.

Or what passes for philosophy, anyway. What looks to be a good set-piece for a discussion of Superman's politics - in addition to merely helping the humans when asked, Superman is (rightly?) asked why he keeps the miniaturized Kandorians in their bottle and away from the light of the sun - devolves into villainous clichés about absolute power with no redeeming metatextual value. And we certainly don't learn anything about these villains as we did about Lex or Zibarro in past issues, nor do we learn anything particularly interesting about Superman. Superman meets their complaints with some trite platitudes that the Kryptonians are only willing to entertain when it looks like they'll die. As for the Kandorians, Superman's responsibility to Krypton, and any real discourse about the ethics of his larger behavior? We hear nothing more of it.

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