Superman: Space Age

Starred review from May 15, 2023
Space Age blasts off in the early 1960s, and while intrepid reporter Lois Lane investigates the Kennedy assassination and segregation, an uncertain Clark Kent stumbles awkwardly into the role of hero. Narrowly averting a nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union, a hopeful but unsure Superman makes his way into the larger world and, over the subsequent two decades, suffers loss, gains love, acquires familiar allies, accumulates wisdom, and frets over warnings of an unavoidable cosmic cataclysm. Like a superhero who saves prostitutes from their knife-wielding pimp on one page, then deflects a giant purple asteroid on the next, Russell's decades-spanning epic rests on the unruly balance of specific reality and mythological fantasy. As he did with the comedic, melancholy Flintstones, though, he navigates this uneasy space to ask big questions and tell an unusually mature and fatalistic Superman tale. And mainstream superhero stories of crashing Armageddon have seldom looked so distinctively stylish, thanks to Allred's solid, squared-off figures and lush era-specific details, which define these decades with Silver Age panache. The ultimate message here is timeless, though perhaps particularly relevant now: dangerous fools like Lex Luthor might value winning above all else, but heroes understand that sometimes you lose--and that's okay, as long as you manage to preserve what matters.

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