Superman’s strength has always been remarkable, yet few incarnations of the character will ever possess the raw power wielded by Red Son’s Superman. This formidable depiction of the beloved Man of Steel had all the powers readers would expect, but with a few glaring differences. It's these differences that make Earth 30’s Soviet Superman considerably more powerful than most of his American counterparts.
Mark Millar’s Superman: Red Son was a limited series based on the premise that Superman’s iconic rocket ship escaped the doom of Krypton, however, instead of landing in Kansas, the ship ended up in 1960s Ukraine. As a result, the Kal-El of Earth 30 grew up to adopt the Superman persona and became the champion of “Stalin, Socialism, and the expansion of the Warsaw Pact.” The Lex Luthor of this world quickly began a rivalry with the Man of Steel, and forever altered the development of this parallel Earth.
While Red Son’s Superman shares most of the powers other interpretations of Superman possess, his threat is elevated by his superhuman intellect, which he regularly uses to great effect. While Superman has previously possessed above-average intelligence, in Red Son he utilizes that intellect to run the Soviet state while simultaneously responding to the standard “mundane” crises of runaway trains, stranded cosmonauts, and Lex Luthor’s meddling in Soviet affairs. Superman’s raw brainpower is revealed to the reader in Superman: Red Son #1, where Earth 30’s Bizarro beat Lex Luthor at chess, despite being a clearly inferior version of Superman in every regard.
This Superman’s advantages over his American doppelgangers do not end there, however, as he appears to be far more resilient than most other versions of the Man of Steel. In his final gambit to bring Lex Luthor’s plans to an end, Superman fights his way through an army of Green Lanterns and the full forces of Themyscira led by Wonder Woman. He does all this without breaking a sweat and arrives in Washington D.C. to take the White House from Luthor. In the end, the only reason Superman is unable to defeat Luthor is that Lex showed Superman the error of his ways, and how the Kryptonian had no right to meddle in Earth’s affairs to the extent that he did.
Before the end of Superman: Red Son #3, however, the reader is shown one final tidbit of just how powerful Earth 30’s Superman is. Before cooperating with Luthor on a way to “fix” the world following Superman’s meddling, Superman must save the Earth one final time as Brainiac’s ship begins to self-destruct, threatening to atomize the entire solar system. The Superman of Earth 30 carries Brainiac’s ship more than fifteen million miles away from the planet, where it detonates with the force of six imploding black holes, seemingly killing him. Superman survives the explosion and quietly returns to Earth to live out the rest of his life as a quiet observer as mankind rebuilds.
Superman has always been one of the DC universe’s most powerful heroes, yet how powerful he is exactly has fluctuated between different interpretations of the character. Mark Millar’s Soviet Superman, however, is undoubtedly one of the most powerful depictions of the Man of Steel ever, as it combines an iconic set of powers, a razor-sharp intellect, and a seemingly elevated indestructibility. Needless to say, Red Son Superman could easily give other interpretations a run for their money in a straight fight.
