Solaris & The Superman Dynasty

[mrosa]

DC 1,000,000 my favourite crossover ever! For me it's one of the rare - perhaps the only - where all tie-ins were worth reading, because they were plotted by Morrison, excepting for Garth Ennis' Hitman. Sometimes I think of it as DC's most creative months; each issue was just crammed with awesome, funny, twisted concepts, redesigns and revamps. If it hadn't been for this crosoover, I probably wouldn't even be much of a DC fan. It was this love letter to its rich history that showed me just what an amazing universe the DCU is.

One of my favourite tie-ins was Superman: Man of Tomorrow 1,000,000, which tells the origin of Solaris and the history of the Superman dynasty:

So Superman is stranded in 853rd century Earth, unable to teleport due to an interference imposed by Solaris. He decides to learn why Solaris holds such a grudge against him and his descendants. Enter Plantium, from the Metal Men, whose robotic memory allows her to narrate all major events from the 20th century onwards:









Supermen continue to fight Solaris for centuries, until one of them sacrifices himself to change its artificial program in order to serve Mankind. Solaris even becomes a superhero, but in The Authority vein, leading preemptive strikes against planets that were potentially dangerous to Earth.

Then the Superman returns:





At this point Solaris interrupts the story, claiming that Platinum has only been spouting lies about him. Superman tricks the vain Solaris into lifting the planetary block and he departs to join the other stranded Justice Leaguers.



And I confess I got all weepy with Platinum's final words. And how did Grant Morrison make this pay off! Love story indeed!

Comments

[bradygirl_12]

I like the epic scope of this but it's heartbreaking about 'our' Superman and everything he went through. :(

[nightauditguy]

Of course given the reboot, this may or may not happen now.

[pyrotwilight]

Perhaps but despite continuity changing and stories going back and forth it's always seemed that DC One Million is a story that really can't ever go out of continuity. Just perhaps come about in a slightly different way. Plus the Legion's future hasn't been changed despite the Flashpoint barrier not allowing time travel to that point in time (the dcNu present) thus the 853rd century is likely unscathed as well.

[mrstatham]

I liked the way Morrison worked Solaris into All Star and tied it with this, personally. It's almost like he understood things were always going to change, and if 1,000,000 couldn't be tied to the regular DCU, he'd have it tied to All Star.

[arbre_rieur]

ALL STAR actually doesn't jibe with ONE MILLION in one pretty big detail: In the former, Superman enters the sun in modern times (with the implication that he won't exit until the 853rd century), while in the latter, he spends 639 centuries sojourning across the universe first.

[mrstatham]

Huh. For a big continuity guy like Morrison, you would've thought he would pick up on something that big in terms of flaws.

[glprime]

Morrison's JLA run was a big part of my entry into comics (along with JMS' Spider-Man). Loved the long game he played with characters and plot lines. I'm one of many who keeps asking, "When do we get to see Solaris stories?"

[mrosa]

The writer of Atomic Robo pitched a story for the Firestorm revamp in which he'd be battling Solaris; and Solaris would have evolved from Tyrant Sun to Tyrant Galaxy!

http://www.atomic-robo.com/2011/08/29/brainstorm-on-firestorm/

Sadly they went with Gail Simone and Ethan Van Sciver's pitch, and it seems no one's enjoying their run. She's even leaving it.

[thatnickguy]

As awesome as that sounds, I'm not sure I'm crazy about the idea. For one, Solaris as a character/villain hasn't been explored very much. Two, I feel giving him to Firestorm takes away the fact that Solaris is a great Superman villain.

[jlbarnett]

yeah, I'm surprised there's been so little talk about the number of DCnU books that are switching creative teams after the first arc

[eyz]

Wait...the METAL MEN are in there? *didn't know..*
I need to get this!