Superman: Red Son/Headscratchers


 * How does everyone live so ridiculously long at the end? I understand later generations living longer, but Luthor himself lived for over 2000 years.
 * I chalk it up to Luthor creating a Super Serum that grants near immortality, which he kept for himself and Lois.
 * Given that liberal estimates of medical technology's progress think we may achieve actual immortality (at least from ageing et all) within a couple generations, Luthopia or not, this troper finds the fact that he didn't just straight-up live until the end to be more bothersome, unless of course he calculated long ago that this would somehow go against his plans for the world and was satisfied enough with what he'd lived through already.
 * What was up with Batman? Awesomeness of his hat aside, this Batman drank, bombed museums with people in them yet refused to kill Superman, and acted very ASBAR-ish. Sure, it's a different Batman, but he's more like one of his regular villains than our normal "criminals are a superstitious and cowardly lot" Batman.
 * Simple: this Batman isn't Bruce Wayne.
 * You may chalk this one up to Mark Millar's writing. As suggested here, he tends to boil characters down to their "essences", but doesn't entirely think things through. Given all the work that's been done with Batman's motivations over the years, you'd think that Soviet!Batman would be a little more ambivalent over Superman's socialist utopia.
 * Soviet!Batman is nothing like "criminals are a superstitiously and cowardly lot" Batman because, for one thing, his motivations actually have nothing to do with fighting crime. Regular bats' parents were killed by a criminal, whereas Soviet!Bats' parents were killed by a law official. While Superman ended up reasonably the same (because let's face it, his basic ideals of truth and justice could mean almost anything and are completely non-contextual), Soviet!Bats ended up as an inversion of his regular motivations with the same personality, which would concievably result in someone very much like his regular villains.
 * Given Soviet!Bats' crushing hatred of authority figures as opposed to criminals, and the fact that instead of having a faceless and constantly changing group to 'correct', Soviet!Bats has one, easily identifiable figure that fuels his entire campaign, it makes sense that he wouldn't want to kill Superman, because his anti-superman crusade is the only thing that has sustained him all these years. Logically his position up to that point would demand that he kill superman but he probably found himself unable to because, even if he wasn't aware of it, he'd have no reason to keep living without someone to hate.
 * In regards to the 'bombing museums with people in them' thing, while regular Bats hates killing, and Soviet!Bats presumably did as well earlier in his career, operation outside the law in a totalitarian police state whose leader can see through walls and hear everything presumably requires harsher methods of dealing with anyone who finds out that something illegal is going on. If there's a reason he seems like a different character, it's because he IS.
 * To be fair, he does give them a warning to clear out the building before the bomb goes off. Not exactly philanthropy, still, but it's not nothing.
 * On a lesser note, fact that Soviet!Batman drinks alcohol could easily be attributed to the fact that Russia has a far more pervasive drinking culture than the US.
 * I always figured he may have used the alcohol as a pain killer. the poor guy probably got knocked around a bit, and i doubt he has access to proper medicine. i think the "real" Batman has trained in meditation to control his pain, but i doubt this batman ever had the time or the resources to do so.
 * The museum scene bugs me. There is absolutely no reason to make people move on after sixty seconds at each exhibit. Superman should know that. As a result, the whole thing comes across as a way to make Superman's empire look bad.
 * One Believe It Or Not segment had Jack Palance explain the "wondrous Egress" at a freakshow. It was the door out. The show was so good, the owners couldn't shuffle the attendees out fast enough to keep new ones (who bought tickets) coming in. The Egress trick was a polite way of getting people to leave without forcing them out. I have little trouble seeing "man of the people" red son supes as having no problem with limiting the viewing time of exhibits so everyone could enjoy a look. If you want more time, go get in line again. The "rigorous psych exams" threatened would, of course, be for "your own good" since anyone who doesn't understand how moving on in 60 seconds to let others enjoy the exhibits is good must not be right in the head.
 * That helps. Thank you.
 * How did Superman ending up in Soviet make Stalin care about his son? Also surprising that Superman is so pro-Soviet considering that he comes from a collective farm in Ukraine. Shouldn't he have been there for holodomor then?
 * That wasn't a universal belief.
 * IIRC, it's said Superman was whisked away and placed under the personal tutelage of Stalin as soon as he was discovered. He may not have actually been present for the Holodomor.
 * The Holodomor was in 1932-3, Superman landed in Ukraine in 1938.
 * How did Wonder Woman break the unbreakable lasso of truth.
 * The "unbreakable" lasso of truth gets broken all the time whenever a writer wants to show that someone or something is really super-duper strong. It's The Worf Effect applied to superhero equipment.
 * Why does Wonder Woman hate Superman after the incident with Batman and the red sun lamps? I mean, her dialogue after that and Superman's narration later seem to indicate that she regrets helping him and blames him for it. Okay, people are stupid, people do that, but in this case it's completely out of character. Or am I missing something?
 * He basically forced her to break her lasso of truth, which...damaged her somehow. It's unclear exactly what happened but apparently breaking the lasso either aged her several decades or turned off her immortality. Or something.
 * She loved Superman and he was too dense to see that - this is explicitly mentioned in the narration by Supes himself. Hell hath no fury and all that, so when Wonder Woman broke the lasso of truth and damage herself, she realized that Supes didn't love her and probably blamed him for getting hurt. To be fair to WW, it is pretty much Supes fault that she did get hurt. If the person I had a crush on didn't return the feelings and get me hurt - maybe even being responsible for a future death - I'd be pretty pissed as well.
 * The incident made Wonder Woman realise that Soviet!Batman was right in the end: Superman does care more about his authoritarian grip on the Soviet Union, than her. This is made clear when Wonder Woman something happened her after she snapped the lasso, and all Superman could think about his about Batman's revelation that Pyotr betrayed him.
 * How come the Green Lantern Corps were unable to kill Superman?
 * As it says in the comic, their rings are controlled by thought, but superman is able to move faster than the speed of light.
 * Also, the "Corps" had only one proper lantern in it sharing his power with a bunch of lesser lanterns who, while disciplined, didn't quite possess the extraordinary mental discipline required to wield a ring. One of these lesser lanterns even says he's having trouble keeping other thoughts out of his head while maintaining his part of the construct.
 * How was the russian government able to control superman?


 * They weren't controlling him. At first he was raised by Stalin and he loved and respected him, and if you notice if Stalin tried to get Superman to do something he didn't want to (Like sit and enjoy the parade) Superman would basically tell him to fuck off and go do what he wants. In later chapters Superman WAS the government.
 * On the subject of Sovet!Batman, how did he even come to exist? From what little we see of his past, he definitely doesn't come from a rich family. He wouldn't have had the resources needed to get the equipment and training that Bruce Wayne recieved, so how did he manage to get as skilled as his US counterpart?
 * He is not as skilled as his US counterpart. You can see the differences on his modus operatis, his ugly Batcave and his ways of attacking. Plus, US!Batman defeated Superman almost every single time they had to fought. Soviet!Bats killed himself in the first time because he had failed. Soviet!Bats is less prepared, less treined and is not as smart as US!Bats, which led to his doom.
 * Why did Luthor never think to use the red-sun lamps ever again? They worked perfectly when Batman tried them, so why didn't he just hand one to Hal Jordan or Diana and say "Hey, this thing can remove his powers. You might wanna' try it".
 * Luthor didn't know. He had no contact with Soviet!Batman at all. The only reason Batman knew was because he made a bit of a logical leap, one Luthor would probably be unlikely to do since he's so, you know, full of himself.
 * On that topic, how the hell did Soviet!Bats discovered about the red sun radiation? He said that, because Superman was "The Last Son Of A Dying Planet", it made sense, but... there were literally hundreds of other things that could have been making the planet die. And how did he manage to recreate perfectly the radiation of a red dying sun with lamps? Before the 2000s? Working under the Earth possibly alone?
 * He's the goddamn Batman, that's how. (Alternatively, because the plot says so.)
 * I was under the impression that /lex Luther somehow managed to give the red sun lamp tech to the Batman.
 * Lex DID give the tech to Batman. He was using Batman as another pawn to kill of Superman, and so was giving him the Red Sun tech to give him the advantage. But after it didn't work, Luthor simply moved on. He's Lex Luthor, he's never reused a trick in the comics before, why would you think he'd try it this time?


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