Dwayne McDuffie Retrospective: All Star Superman

DWAYNE MCDUFFIE

February 20, 1962 – February 21, 2011

This week we lost a tremendous figure in comic books.  Dwayne McDuffie passed away on February 21st of complications from heart surgery.  I loved a whole lot of McDuffie's work, including his revolutionary runs on superhero TV shows Justice League and Static Shock, two Saturday Morning staples for me.  For all the attention he gets for his work in animation, and his tendency to be one of the most honest men in comics and push the boundaries for Multi-Ethnic superheroes (I mean have you seen his satirical pitch of black comic book characters in the 80's, The Teenage Negro Ninja Thrashers?  Someone call the fire department because those are some SICK BURNS) he doesn't get much attention for his great comic book writing.

So in a series of posts I'm going to go into the time warp and look through some of my favorite comics of Mr. McDuffie's.

But first let's look at his last work: his animated adaptation of Grant Morrison's beloved All Star Superman.  (If you haven't read it SPOILERS AHEAD. Also if you haven't read it yet put everything down immediately and do that right now because what is wrong with you)

I got to see All Star Superman a day before McDuffie passed away, just a day later.  He wrote the adaptation for the critically acclaimed 12 issues series.  While I didn't hate it, I did have a few problems in the movie including voice acting and some of the way that it was written.  I had my criticisms for sure, but mostly with TWO glaring mistakes. 

The first one was the prison scene in which Parasite has just been strolled into a room with Clark and Lex and all hell breaks loose.  They approached the scene a little differently in this one, with Parasite being in an actual cell ("Th...Those aren't lined with cells a-are they?" Clarks stutters), but the real problem was that Parasite pretty much starts to kill off prisoners and prison guards.  Superman just stumbles around ineffectually before actually saving Lex and a guard or two, but the damage is already done, more than just a few people have either died or sustained life threatening injuries.   

But prooker, you ask, we don't know that for sure do we?  Well no, but a second later we sure do.  As Lex and Supes start to skedaddle out of that death pit about ten prisoners start to chase after them and  just as he does in the comic book Clark uses his patented Ice Breath to stop the prisoners cold in their tracks (forgive me for that, I could not resist).  The problem lies when a monstrous Parasite proceeds to trample through them and SHATTER THEIR FROZEN BODIES.  In a comic book about Superman being the largest and brightest of humanity's heroes it just sends a wrong message to have Superman not only letting people die, which is bad enough, but KILLING THEM.  It also means that Superman cares about Lex's life than some dudes he never had an archrivalry with.  This could of well have been an err on the animation department's side, but it's a huge problem nonetheless.

That's gonna leave a mark

The second mistake comes in the climax of the fight with the sentient solar super computer Solaris.  Solaris has just blown up Superman's pet the Sun Eater from the inside and he is of course a little angry.  He fights Solaris down to earth as the ineffectual sun bounces like a toy until he stops and hits a building.    

Supes reveals that he knows that in the 853rd century Solaris will be alive and reformed, and as he lifts up his fist he says:

Pretty cool right?  That Morrison guy sure can write.

Superman takes out his frustration and sorrow over his pet's death in a way that he knows will eventually make the rogue reform; he know that Solaris will live through this.  But in the animated feature, as Solaris is on his figurative knees begging for mercy, Superman spouts, "I'm all out of mercy."  Now I understand that at the end of the day DC treats this as an action movie, and in action movies the hero always has some devastatingly stupid one liner, but this is Superman we're talking about.  He is ALL ABOUT mercy, and he does not kill (well except for that sometimes in 1939).  People always get huffy about Batman killing, but it's kind of just intuition that Superman doesn't.  Maybe Solaris ends up living, but this is totally contrary to everything All Star Superman is about and it had me cringing. 

Now this may seem like I'm getting unfairly critical on McDuffie's work on this movie, but other than those two gaffes he did a really commendable job.  He managed to fit in a whole lot of the series into such a short movie running at just over an hour long, and he gets most of the essential plot into the story as well as some fun things like the Atlas and Samson issue. 

 And then right at the end of the movie with the story wrapping up, he does something absolutely amazing: McDuffie does it better than Morrison.

As the film's last minutes start to roll, we are taken to Lex Luthor's jail cell, opening his eyes and reciting the now famous first words of All Star Superman, "Doomed Planet.  Desperate Scientists.  Kindly Couple.  Superman."  The shot pans out and we finally see Leo Quintum outside his cell who has been completely absent from the movie except for the very first scenes.  "We all know the story Luthor.  Why did you ask to see me?"  Luthor in a quiet voice tells Quintum that this is just a confession.  "Forgive me doctor, for I have sinned.  A lot." This is a huge departure from the original comics ending, where Superman had already given Quintum his DNA code and samples to reproduce a second Superman and more, a race of Supermen and women.  

I wasn't quite sure where this was going but at this point I was extremely intrigued.  

"You killed him."

"And my death bed claims that I've seen the error of my ways can't change that.  But there is one thing I can do to honor his memory."

Luthor then slides a large stack of books and notes through his prison door slit.  Quintum opens them and his eyes widen.  Luthor gives Quintum Supermans genetic code to sustain his genes, and effectively creates a world where there will always be a Superman.

The same man who committed his whole adult life to ridding the world of a Superman finally finishes the job, and what does he do?  He makes another one.  I had always thought that after seeing what Superman sees all the time (after stealing his Super Serum, and Superman using the gravity gun to speed up his genetic metabolism) that Luthor would finally get it.  He would finally understand that Superman is all caring, ever loving, always trusting.  That the most important thing in the world, in the universe, is everyone else.  Morrison has Superman punching  Luthor out in their big final fight but McDuffie just has him fall at his knees from a few words. "If you cared you would've saved the world years ago."

Wouldn't Lex Luthor having seen the way Superman's sees things have realized that he was always wrong?  After having cried while reaching a temporary transcendence?  That the only real thing that was ever in his path to greatness was himself?  And wouldn't he, even in jail facing death row really try to do anything in his power that he could to help humanity in his final hours?  Yes.  He would.

With his final work Dwayne McDuffie achieved something that no writer has ever been able to do.  He redeemed Lex Luthor.

That's the first post in this retrospective, come back soon for a look into McDuffie's short run on The Demon Etrigan and his quest to become the President of the United States.