All Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank QuitelyAll Star Super­man Vol.1 by Grant Mor­ri­son and illus­trated by Frank Quitely and Jamie Grant, pub­lished in hard­cover April 2007 by DC Comics where vol­ume 1 col­lects issues #1 to 6. Here is the very brief description:

Two of the comics industry’s top cre­ative tal­ents, writer Grant Mor­ri­son and artist Frank Quitely, the acclaimed team behind JLA:EARTH 2, reunite to rede­fine Super­man based on the time­less, essen­tial iconic ele­ments that every­one knows about the Man of Steel. In the first vol­ume, the World’s Great­est Super-Hero res­cues a doomed group of astro­nauts on the sur­face of the sun when he’s exposed to mas­sive amounts of solar radi­a­tion no one could pos­si­bly antic­i­pate how he’ll be affected — except Lex Luthor!

These col­lec­tion of sto­ries fea­tur­ing the Man of Steel is deftly cre­ative, re-imagined and cen­tered in a world that is clas­sic, time­less with a con­tem­po­rary touch. The art­work in here is very detailed and the sto­ries at times are emo­tion­ally poignant with a spot of humor. The Man of Steel faces many chal­lenges where he is con­fronted with his mor­tal­ity, faces down his old neme­sis in Lex Luthor and gets the girl in the end.

Super­man is one of my favorite comic book super­heroes. The action sequences were nicely drawn and one of my favorite story arcs was where Super­man tells Lois Lane who he really is while Lois is ever the skep­ti­cal reporter. For her birth­day, he gives her his super pow­ers for a day and then has to bat­tle Samp­son and Atlas for her affec­tions in Episode 3: Sweet Dreams, Super-Woman.

Another favorite was with his arch neme­sis, Lex Luthor who has tried and failed to be a “model cit­i­zen” and has thereby devised a way to kill our hero with mas­sive amounts of radioac­tive par­ti­cles from the Sun that he is exposed to while on a res­cue mis­sion. What will the future hold for Super­man? We’ll just have to wait and find out. All Star Super­man was a quick read at 160 pages and a strong rec­om­mend for comic book fans. I really liked Quitely portrayal’s of Clarke Kent as the bum­bling, clumsy reporter with a heart of gold. My grade, B+.

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