Leo Quintum is Lex Luthor

There have been a lot of explanations offered as to why and how All-Star Superman's benevolent super-genius, Leo Quintum, could also be its evil super-genius, Lex Luthor. I thought I'd collect and categorize the best clues right here - and, in doing so, I think I've inadvertantly compiled a pretty good argument as to why this series is so incredibly awesome.

The Morrisonian: Grant Morrison absolutely loves two things: drug-induced epiphanies and time-travel. Luthor experiences the former when he ingests the vial that gives him Superman's powers, and it's no small stretch to imagine that he could have subsequently traveled to the past in order to do something about his new perspective, thus fulfilling the latter.

The Superficial: They wear very similar coats. They like to clasp their hands behind their back. Leo looks young, but uses a cane, which would seem to imply that he's possibly older than appearances suggest - or it functions to change his posture and disguise his body language. (The age issue is also tricky, of course, since Lex's reason for trying to kill Superman in issue 1 had a lot to do with Lex getting old. So maybe Leo looks younger because a redeemed Lex has actually reversed the aging process?) Quintum has hair and glasses, but this also makes sense as a disguise: hair and glasses are what differentiates Clark from Superman, after all.

The Merely Suggestive: In Quintum's very first appearance, he throws out a comment that is never revisited but seems mighty suspicious: "I'm trying to escape from a doomed world too, Superman... It's called the past." And when Superman gives Quintum his DNA later in the series so that he can build new Supermen when Clark dies, Quintum's reluctance is similarly provocative, as he tells Superman that "I could be the devil himself for all you know." Since Quintum doesn't eventually betray Superman, this exchange serves no purpose unless Quintum in fact is the nearest thing that the DC Universe has to the devil, albeit a reformed devil.

The Suggestive as Supplemented by the Pseudo-Scientific: Superman's response to Quintum's comment about being the devil is, just as interestingly, "Oh, I think I'm a better judge of character than that, Professor. This is how much I trust you, Leo." We could take Superman at his word, that he can separate the good apples from the bad, but recall that Superman had just used his x-ray vision to write out his own DNA sequence. The dude can read DNA strands. Again, if this exchange is simply an admission of trust in a character that we had never met before this series and have been given no reason to distrust, then it's not a particularly moving or necessary scene; but if Superman has read Leo's DNA and knows that he's Lex, it's a staggering and moving display of confidence in his former nemesis.

The Textual: Leo's line about maybe being the devil is additionally ironic because Lex, especially in this series, has often been compared to the Miltonic Satan. A self-deluded narcissist who squanders his considerable powers in petty efforts to prove himself superior to Superman, Lex - to quote Superman in A-SS #12 - "could have saved the world years ago if it really mattered to [him]". But like Milton's Satan, Lex is more interested in power and proving himself deserving of power than he is with saving the world - he'll even risk the world's safety by killing Superman in pursuit of his self-actualization. Additionally, Leo's last name has a more direct connection to Milton's Satan, as Macon Cheek has suggested that Milton actually produced a literary precursor to his Paradise Lost Satan in an earlier poem. And the poem was titled "In Quintum Novembris."

The Numbers: For those who look for clues in seemingly conspiratorial patterns of numbers, there's a lot here to play with. "Quintum", in addition to having a certain phonic relation to "quantum" - and quantum mechanics are related to time travel, to tie this back to an older point - quite obviously has the latin number five imbedded in it. But where else do we see that number? Well, Lex's focus issue is #5, his prison jumpsuit is 221 (2+2+1=5), and at his trial he's situated as the fifth truly evil personality in a line that includes Adolf Hitler and Genghis Khan.

The Thematic: Thoroughout the series, Superman is resolute in his belief that humanity is capable of doing everything that he has done, that they will be no worse off without him if only they believe in themselves. Though he tells Lois that he's the only person strong enough to lift the key that opens the door to the Fortress of Solitude, he also hopes that "One day some future man or woman will open that door, with that key." His fortress, he explains, isn't a "museum", but rather a "time capsule" - not a record of some past age of superheroes but an example for the one that is yet to come. And this lesson is all the more meaingful if Lex Luthor himself, as Leo, is seemingly on the verge of creating the new man or woman who will be capable of lifting that key. Further to that point, Cole Moore Odell suggests that when Superman admonishes Lex in the final issue for wasting his genius we should read it as a challenge rather than a rebuke - a request that Lex, having seen the error of his ways with Superman's super-senses, will refocus his efforts and actually save a world without Superman. And he'll even do it in the way that Superman suggested: "years ago." His reformation, then, is Superman's greatest triumph - a moral victory that manages to touch even the most cynical and skeptical of us. (Which is to say: it reforms the Lex Luthor in all of us.)

The Silly: So we've touched on nearly everything right? Except for why he named himself "Leo". It's similar to "Lex", sure, and it could simply be that Morrison wanted to drive home the fact that they're mirror-reflections by opposing Lex's "X" to Leo's "O". (Get it?) But there's somethign else - Leo Quintum isn't the only Leo in this series. In a blink-and-you-missed-it moment in issue 5, Lex briefly introduces his Superman-costumed primate to Clark Kent. Its name? Leopold. It's a connection that's at once hilarious and convincingly self-effacing: if Leo is Lex, then Lex has genuinely swallowed his pride in naming himself after a monkey. No wonder Superman felt he could trust him.

All-Star Superman #12

I was recently at the Toronto Public Library's Merril Collection of Science Fiction, researching 60s Superman comics for a lecture I'm going to be giving in January. It's hopelessly hokey stuff, but I can sorta see what Grant Morrison was drawing from when he imagined All-Star Superman - a naive and hopeless optimism that was much-deserving of the mockery it's received in the past couple decades, sure, but one that has a certain charm nonetheless. And if that naive optimism could be lent some depth and recuperated somehow...

It's tough to know where or how to start whenever I have to reflect on each issue of this series - and it only gets harder with this being the final issue of the best Superman story I've ever read. (And yes, I've read "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?") Linking it to kitschiest bits of Superman and claiming that Morrison and Quitely have not simply embraced The Big Blue Boyscout aspect of the character but made it enjoyable, well, that's one way to do it. Another would be to note how the characteristic meta-moment Morrison slips into every ultimate battle scene is particularly effective here: Luthor, realizing that he's squandered his genius, stares out of the panel at us and explains that "it's all just us, in here, together. And we're all we've got." Hilariously, and poignantly, Lex precedes that revelation with "this is how he sees all the time, every day". "He" is ostensibly Superman, but could also be Morrison and/or Quitely or us. (Assuming, of course, that the reader is male.) And so what Lex, the would-be world conqueror, realizes is that he's a character in a comic book. (And maybe he thinks that he's "just" a character in a comic book. It's implicit that Superman realizes his fictional status, too, but he also seems to understand that he's not "just" a fictional character - that there's power in his existence - and that its fictionality doesn't necessarily diminish the meaningfulness of their battle. If Lex is made to feel insignificant by the realization, it's because he's a pessimist, a skeptic, and a megalomaniac.)

Perhaps the most impressive thing about this final issue is how Morrison and Quitely manage to meld the ubermensch, the proletarian, and the Christ into one figure - only to discard it. They deliberately invoked Nietzsche in issue 10, they give us this wonderful shot of Superman in the heart of the sun that I know is paying homage to a Communist poster that exists but that I just can't find**, and they have Superman die and be returned to life by his father to finish his job before finally ascending into the sun. And for all of this deification of the character, they tell us in the end that the world doesn't actually need Superman - that good super-geniuses like Quintum* already exist to oppose the evil super-geniuses like Luthor, and that humanity can achieve something super all by themselves. Further to that point, it's telling, I think, that the iconic image of Superman I described above is not the final page of the comic, but that Quintum gets the last word and the door to his Superman 2 project is the final shot of the series.

The "world without Superman" cliché has always indicated darkness and disaster when DC attaches it to company-wide events. But not so here. At the close of All-Star Superman, it simply presents an opportunity for humanity to show that it was worthy of his protection in the first place.

* (Added 9/25: In the comments, james provides a link to an excellent discussion of Leo Quintum, which parses some obscure textual clues that would seem to indicate that he's Lex Luthor, having reformed and traveled back in time. And this revelation only makes an incredible story even better. I won't repeat everything the article says or add much else - it probably deserves its own post - except to say that I'm going to have to re-read the whole thing with that in mind.)

** (Added 9/26: A post at Comicboards' Superman MB suggested a similarity to Soviet artist Evgeniy Vuchetich's "Let us Beat Swords into Plowshares", which is displayed at the UN in New York. There's a certain similarity, though I'm not sure it's what I had in mind. The sentiment, though, totally works.)

Comic book round-up...

I have two weeks of comics worth to blog about - and an unusually busy two weeks, for me at least - but I've put off making any comment at all until now. (Too busy, and so on and so forth.) So I'll make some brief comments here, which I'll eventually get around to expanding into longer reviews on comicboards.com. (Which is, incidentally, where every blog I write about a comic ends up anyway.)

Astonishing X-Men #23 - I've pointed out a number of times that Whedon's individual arcs have largely the same structure. I won't belabor the similarities that I've drawn out in other posts, but there are some more worth mentioning: Cyclops' resurrection after last issue's suicide marks the second time that the Breakworlders have brought an X-Man back to life; more to the point, this is the fourth time in four arcs that Cyclops has either been killed or recovered from being near death, which seems a bit excessive; as well, his break-out and bad-ass pose on the final page bears much familiarity both narratively and visually to the similar "you've taken your best shot, bub..." poses at the end of AXM #10 (Xavier) and AXM #15 (Kitty). Whedon also continues with his habit of borrowing tropes from old X-Men comics, though the "Cyclops actually can access his powers" swerve is less obscure than those he made in the last couple issues. (Jason Powell notes that this turning point is also featured in Uncanny X-Men #134, #150, and #272, to which I also must add also add X-Factor #39.)

Whedon does manage one repetition with a much subtler and cleverer variation to it, though. In the opening scenes of the issue, two of the rebel Breakworlders discuss the likelihood of an X-Men victory against Kruun. One expresses optimism and Aghanne, their leader, suggests that she has been driven mad by the "hope" that the X-Men have brought with them. It's an interesting choice of words - the mutant cure in the first arc was, we should recall, also called "Hope".

The Order #4 - There's something very Lost-ish, I think, about the frame narrative 'interviews' (job interviews? or therapy sessions? we're not entirely sure) that are probably the most distinctive feature of this comic. New books written in total sincerity and full of characters we don't know are a tough sell, and this quirk shoot straight for the heart every time in trying to compel us to like these people. It's probably not working quite as well for me as I would hope: the first issue's interview was able to integrate Apollo seamlessly into the Marvel Universe and cleverly critique Tony Stark at the same time, making the entire notion of the Order feel somewhat discomforting. The subsequent interviews just haven't cut that close to the bone.

I'm also ambivalent about Barry Kitson's art. He's ideal for the interview panels, where his raised eyebrows or smirks are perfectly expressive without ever being too explicit. But his entirely generic face designs are often confusing, making it difficult to tell one character from another, and there's very little dynamism to their movements. (This is my same complaint of Jim Lee, whose characters similarly seem to be posing when they are ostensibly fighting.)

All-Star Superman #9 - All of the comments I've seen from other fans of this series - I tend to not bother reading actual 'reviews' - seem to agree that something is missing from this issue. Perhaps its the heart. Superman seems weak and whiny in this issue, (and the reason for the weakness, which actually leads to his victory in the end, comes from out of nowhere) and the villains' motivations are cliché but without serving any redeeming metatextual purpose. We certainly don't learn anything about these villains as we did about Lex or Zibarro in their issues, nor do we learn anything particularly interesting about Superman.

Even the political commentary (or what passes for a criticism of Superman's seeming apoliticism, anyway) is rather confused and superficial: the Kryptonians criticize Superman for being at the beck and call of the humans while refusing to release the miniaturized inhabitants of Kandor into the sunlight, but nothing more comes of this potential exploration of Superman's alienness. He meets their complaints with some empty-sounding platitudes and we hear nothing more of it.

Scott Pilgrim #4 - Of all these books, I've read the latest Scott Pilgrim most recently and so given it the least thought. It's easily the most melodramatic of the four books, which doesn't immediately strike me as a good thing. One of the pleasures of the early books is that the heavily stylized art, often esoteric (or, rather, geeky) allusions, and ironic tone have affected a comfortable distance for the readers from the characters: the stories have a kind of magical realism (as opposed to superhero stories which, while featuring fantastical elements, are typically aimed at approximating realism) that borders on the absurd, with dialogue that's too self-conscious and, accordingly, characters that are hilariously adept at meeting our expectations of their type. O'Malley seems to have made a habit of delivering more of everything with each new volume, and this one takes a misstep by turning up teen angst (which is particularly bothersome, for me at least, because these characters are very nearly my age): discussions about the 'L-word', the introduction of new-old love interests just for the sake of complicating things, misunderstandings that could easily be cleared up if the characters weren't sometimes idiots...

Perhaps worst of all, I suddenly realized that Ramona is entirely out of Scott's league and I have no idea what she would see in him. (Which is to say that the consequence of humanizing your characters and giving them real emotional problems is that we begin to regard them as real people and question their decisions accordingly. And there's no question in my mind that their relationship makes no sense.) A recurring exchange perhaps illustrates this best of all - Scott makes repeated mentions of how Ramona's age is "unknown", as if she's some sort of villainous 80s wrestler. And despite this being a cute quirk of the book's style, O'Malley turns it into some sign of their communication problems before finally revealing her age at the book's end as a way of patching things up. (Spoiler: She's 24.)

All this said, O'Malley also continues to widen his range of always entertaining geeky references: that Scott's dreamscape resembles a Legend of Zelda game, complete with a "forest elf", is priceless. It's a wonderful escapist moment in a book that, despite its previous successes in eliding flirtations with the mundaneness of too much realism, seems aimed at demystifying precisely what's made it so interesting.

All-Star Superman 8

As All-Star Superman: Year 2 hits its second issue, it seems evident that Morrison is moving the book in a slightly different narrative direction. Where the first 6 issues were only loosely connected, each issue in this next movement would appear to lead directly into the next. And if issues 7 and 8 are any indication, this isn't an entirely good idea: in the grand, kitschy tradition of the golden and silver age comics that Morrison is emulating, an argument on the second page is little more than expository dialogue aimed at refreshing the reader's memory. "I already explained..." says Superman, to which Zibarro replies, "And I explained to you..." It's cute, I suppose, but unavoidably awkward. Issues 1 and 2, as well as 2 and 3, were also somewhat linked and yet Morrison never resorted to this sort of cheesy recapping.

Morrison actually increases the campiness of the comic as it progresses, though his subsequent choices seem better reasoned. The Ancient Bizarro Anthem is as strange as it is unsettling, and Superman's manipulation of the Bizarros is simultaneously clever and obvious. The Bizarro speech should also get old - and maybe it would have if issues 7 and 8 had been released four weeks apart - but Morrison manages to keep the joke fresh, with Bizarro Wonder Woman's appearance in the Unjustice League providing a particularly absurd and wonderful moment.

The real star of this issue, though, is Zibarro. Recalling that all the best issues of this series have been focalized through some other cast member - Lois in 2, Jimmy in 4, Lex in 5, and young Superman in 6 - Morrison again pulls away from Superman and makes Zibarro the center of the story. In many ways, Zibarro seems to stand for the incredulous reader who has no time for infantile Bizarro-talk and feels above the material to which Morrison is paying homage. At first insufferable, Zibarro grows on us. He's drawn with incredibly sensitivity by Quitely - just look at him in the pages where he realizes there's only space for one on the ship, and then when he ties Superman to the ship - and he comes to stoically accept a tragic end as Bizarro World returns to the Underverse. It's not on par with the funeral for Pa Kent, sure, but it'll do.

The funny thing about mediocre issues...

I’ve delayed writing about All-Star Superman #7. Not because it’s a masterpiece that defies description, and not because it’s an unmitigated disaster that I could spend a dozen paragraphs unpacking. No, it poses a much subtler difficulty: it’s just sort of mediocre. Granted, a mediocre issue of All-Star Superman is still much better than a mediocre issue of nearly anything else, and even very good by another book’s standards. So where does it go wrong?

Two things catch my attention, one relating to Morrison’s half of the storytelling (if we can ever so conveniently separate a story into ‘halves’ like that) and the other to Quitely’s. As far as the writing goes, this issue stands out as a curious sort of failure for the same reason as issue 3. That is, Morrison forgets that what makes Superman interesting – and what’s made the rest of the run so great – isn’t Superman himself, but rather the way that his supporting cast provide us with all sorts of wonderful paths into and through an otherwise clichéd archetype. In issue 2, we feel Lois’ paranoia and her doubts; in number 4, Jimmy’s desperation to preserve Superman’s quasi-mystical aura is tragic and sweet, especially since it serves to reminds us just how human and fallible Superman really is. This sort of absence of any humanizing frame is ‘Thing No. 1.’ Instead, we get a fun but fairly mindless battle that depends even more than usual on Quitely’s ability to sell the story. And while Quitely is almost always more than up to the task, he stumbles on this issue.

This is ‘Thing No. 2’, and at least three scenes caught my attention immediately and for all the wrong reasons. I can’t, for the life of me, tell determine just what the hell is happening on the first page. I don’t know what or why a contorted body is floating in space and I don’t know what Quintum is crashing into. This isn’t all Quitely’s fault, of course, but it doesn’t get any better on the second page, where Superman is releasing his adolescent Sun-Eater into space. We don’t really know this until he explains it later in the issue, though, and so we’re all on our own in determining exactly what’s happening in 5 dialogue-free panels where Superman may or may not be fighting with the octopus-like creature, since it has no face, there's no dialogue, and so there's no conventional way to express what's occurring to the reader. Retrospectively, it seems like this should be almost akin to a foster-parent saying goodbye to a child, but I shouldn’t have to complete the entire issue in order for the scene to work. While theoretically a given moment could be purposefully vague or difficult, there's no reason that it should simply be left incomplete. But the final error is the most egregious: Steve Lombard throws a bizarro-mutated Allie out a window but the dialogue clearly indicates that it should have been the bizarro-clone that took the faceplant on to the street below. That’s not a lapse into poor storytelling, as it was in the first two instances – that’s just sloppy.

Funny enough, these failings actually help to call attention to the near-flawless execution of the first story arc. (Especially since I bought the hardcover collection on the same day.) It’s easy to harp on about the bad stuff while missing the good simply because you expect or demand it. Little steps backward like this issue remind you that you can’t take great comics for granted.

Now THIS is Superman...

To this point in Morrison and Quitely’s fantastic take on Superman mythology, Superman has been mostly viewed from afar, or at least indirectly – issues have focused variously on Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, or Lex Luthor, but we have yet to see events unfold from Superman’s particular perspective. This issue, the last in what will be the first collected trade of All-Star Superman, finally allows us the opportunity to see Superman’s world as he does himself, albeit from the distance of a story set in the past. “Look at you!” exclaims Pa Kent to his young Superson. “You’re destined for great things Clark…” But like every great epic hero, this Superman must overcome tragedy before he can realize that destiny. And that tragedy is as beautiful crafted as it is devastating – for Clark and the reader alike.

Though it is easily the most sentimental and heartfelt issue of Morrison and Quitely’s run to this point, “Funeral in Smallville” stays true to the larger format of the series through its surprisingly appropriate and seamless incorporation of both touching and absurd tributes to the confused and contradictory mass of the Superman mythos. Both Krypto the Superdog and Superman-Prime – the latter from Morrison’s own DC One Million alternate future universe – make appearances, as well as Ma and Pa Kent and a host of time-traveling Superman’s descendents known as The Superman Squad. But the seemingly mundane and sentimental plots elements – Ma and Pa Kent’s only plot point is their preparation for the harvest – and the utterly fantastic – the Superman Squad are chasing the time-warping Chronovore – meet under the auspices of a theme that is all too underdeveloped in Superman lore: that of family.

Perhaps surprisingly, Morrison is at the height of his abilities in this unabashedly sincere context, and his dialogue has never been so subtle and affecting. Given that we know from the cover of the comic that Pa Kent must die, the exchange between Pa and the Mystery Superman hits a pitch-perfect bittersweet note in Jonathan’s final moments. Equally powerful are Quitely’s contributions. There’s a treasure trove of beautiful wrought scenes from which to choose, but I’ll focus on the moment in which young Superman takes flight after realizing that he can no longer hear Pa’s heartbeat. It must have been tempting for Quitely to devote half a page or even an entire splash to young Superman’s desperate attempt to save Pa’s life, but he and Ma – who is also rushing to Pa’s aid – are given equal-sized panels in the bottom third of a single page. The artistry is sublimely expressive in even this one small instance: where Ma is a tiny figure running across an endlessly gigantic field, the teenaged Clark fills the panels and flies so quickly – his hair actually catches fire – that he seems poised to burst out of the panel. He is forever poised, though, and ultimately unable to accomplish the feat and save his dad. That Clark cannot extend beyond the panel is a visual reminder that even Superman is not without limits. For all his ostensible power, he is still only one person, just as human and flawed as any other. A stunning contribution and new high-point for a series that manages the impossible and outdoes itself with every issue.

Analyzing the Man of Steel

On Grant Morrison/Frank Quitely's All-Star Superman #5... (written September 8, originally posted to Comicboards.com)

Lex Luthor explains that “We all fall short of that sickening, inhuman perfection, that impossible ideal.” Lex’s diatribe is familiar, but his situation is uniquely dire. Having charged himself in Morrison’s first issue with the mission of “getting serious” about killing Superman, Luthor is now on death row. This is a particularly uncontrolled Lex as well, his obsession having surpassed the neurotic and become a full-blown psychosis. The line separating the ice-chilled logic of Luthor and the lunatic genius of the Joker has never been so thin – and it’s certainly never been so gleefully fun to try peeling back the layers and parsing those minute differences.

To my mind, the rather uncomplicated relationship of Lex to Superman – “It’s all very simple” Lex naively declares. “If it wasn’t for Superman, I’d be in charge of this planet!” – has always disappointed when compared to the depth of the relationship between Batman and the aforementioned Joker. Morrison would appear to agree, and the Luthor/Superman relationship under his pen is more psychologically engrossing and entertaining than ever. Enacting a sort of quasi-Oedipal mission to not simply destroy Superman but to replace and become him, Lex’s final interview with Clark Kent – his “Gospel of Lex” – is less an autobiography and more a rant about his attempts to refashion himself in Superman’s admittedly unattainable image. Lex charges recklessly into a confrontation with the Parasite – oversaturated with energy after greedily siphoning from Clark the same power that’s killing Superman – screaming and beating on the super-villain in a heavily symbolic and uncontrolled rage. It’s with just a little bit of irony in mind that a frantically note-scribbling Clark gently asks Lex to calm down, as his “shorthand can’t handle the volume”.

Irony and pastiche at both the textual and aesthetic levels have been the touchstone for Morrison and Quitely’s All Star Superman. Clark saves Lex’s life numerous times through acts of seeming buffoonery, adding a degree of campiness to the issue that’s evocative of Superman’s Silver Age comics (not to mention dialogue and images that recall even the more measured campiness of Christopher Reeve and Gene Hackman). The visual gags don’t end with those slapstick exercises, but it would be a crime to reveal some of the most unexpected and absurd moments of incredible campiness. The best of these serve to remind us that Quitely is not simply providing wonderfully detailed and well-laid storytelling, but is also an active contributor to the book’s meanings and messages – the humor in the acts through which Clark saves Lex, for instance, rely entirely on Quitely’s delivery. While a good penciller directs the reader’s attention and avoid distracting from what’s happening in the text, an artist like Quitely builds on the words and adds a depth and texture that encourages and rewards close re-readings.

Perhaps the most interesting ironic commentary is directed at the issue of Lex’s genius and his adequacy as an intellectual, if not physical, replacement for Superman. Morrison’s Lex, after all, is a blowhard who admits that he’s never succeeded in his life’s one ambition (that is, to kill Superman), a man who sucker-punches a defeated Parasite and claims victory, who can’t read Clark’s shorthand (though he brags that he can decipher any code), and even comically misuses the word “ironic” in conversation (!). That he also declares Clark to be the exact opposite of Superman and totally fails to realize they’re the same person is a given – the comic is, as I said, very much an homage to the Silver Age. But Lex actually intellectualizes and acknowledges Clark and Superman’s striking similarities – “You have the eyebrow shape beautician’s call the ‘Superman swoosh’” – and still bafflingly fails to make the connection. Such an inept villain is hardly worthy of beating Superman, much less replacing him. One has to wonder whether the final irony will be that Lex has known Clark’s secret all along, and that his interview and his Gospel is just one more knife-twist in the stomach of a distraught Superman on his last legs.