... is it as good as the comic? Of course not!
Next!

Well, the First Men have finally fallen, and the book has become more interesting as it has moved out of (what is now) alternate history and into more speculative areas. You have to admire Stapledon for attempting to tackle the social implications of technological change – more Wells than Gernsback.

As with the earlier geopolitical “predictions”, Stapledon’s sociology gets eeriely close to the truth in places – albeit that the timescale is vastly overstretched. Among the more obvious parallels, I picked up beats on such “modern” phenomena as time-poverty and racial tokenism; but elsewhere there is a distinctly Thirties feel: an almost mystical emphasis on atomic power and aviation, plus some slightly unnerving between-wars thoughts on racial “weakness”.

Still, it’s getting better. Next we move on to the Second Men, and outright speculation. Interesting.

For 85 quid, you get: Wagyu beef, fresh lobe foie gras, black truffle mayonnaise, brie de meaux, rocket, red pepper and mustard confit and English plum tomatoes.

Slightly bizarre choice of presenter, but refreshingly direct exposé of the 1995 “alien autopsy” film. Ray Santilli and accomplices detail how it was faked, but gamely insist that it was a “reconstruction” of a genuine, badly-damaged film … Yeeeees.

Where all my music lives: what I’m listening to and what I think about it. I just wish there was an easy way to tie it to AllConsuming …

What happened to late-night television? Once upon a time, you could count on turning on the tv after midnight and finding the Open University, a nature documentary, a foreign film, some post-pub zoo TV or an eccentric soap opera. (And Channel 5 working its way through the oeuvre of Shannon Tweed.)

Now all that’s on during the wee hours is worthy educational programming for public service workers and schoolchildren, hours of bloody poker, the monumental waste of license fee money that is BBC News 24, marathon dial-in quiz shows and obscure foreign sports (what is this baseball that you speak of)? Insomniacs deserve better!

No wonder Richard Hatch was so desperate to get in on a Battlestar Galactica remake.

Showing in repeat-repeats on Channel 4.
I admit it, I’m a giant sap.
Irritating that the last six episodes (will) never get shown.

I didn’t warm to Brian Azzarello’s run on Superman. Azzarello’s an excellent writer, but something about the plot — Supes joins a priest in soul-searching as each suffers a crisis of faith — didn’t quite gel. In particular, the dialogue-heavy nature of the story was difficult for me to track over the series (a problem I also have with Azzarello’s 100 Bullets). That’s one problem avoided with this trade paperback, which collects Azzarello’s 2005 miniseries about Superman’s nemesis: Lex Luthor.

Like the Superman arc, it reframes one of the central characters of the DC Universe, and does so by examining a power dynamic. The dynamic is reversed between the two storylines, however: Superman compares his situation – impotent despite his godlike powers – with that of the comparatively feeble, but perhaps (therefore?) more human, Father Leone. Luthor, on the other hand, is physically powerless compared to the Big Blue Boy Scout – but he understands how Superman’s power can be made meaningless by exposing his (supposed) lack of humanity.

Azzarello does a smart job of delineating Luthor’s character, both through the first-person narration and his interactions with other characters. For much of the book, Lex seems positively admirable: he’s neither megalomaniacal nor callous, the two characteristics that we’ve grown used to seeing applied by lazier writers. Instead, he’s presented as a thoughtful, humane individual who simply fears that humanity is heedlessly giving away its birthright to an unknowable, godlike alien. Only the measures he’s willing to take to prevent that situation, and his conviction that the ends justify the means, mark him out as a monster.

And even then – the only reason we really think he’s a monster is our implicit, privileged knowledge that Superman really is a good guy. In the context of this book – realised superbly by Lee Bermejo’s art – Superman could equally well be all the things Lex fears. And that means that perhaps his calculation of the greater good is not so many decimal places out of whack, after all. The other characters are similarly well-drawn — particularly Bruce Wayne, whose “millionaire playboy” guise is depicted more convincingly here than I recall having seen before. And they all move in arcs that converge in a dazzling climax that confirms just how sophisticated Luthor – and Azzarello – really are.

It’s interesting that this is the second unsympathetic portrayal of Superman that I’ve read in recent months. Steven Seagle’s quasi-autobiographical Like A Bird also plays on Supes’ detachment from the mankind he supposedly protects, the impossibility of empathizing with someone who can effectively do almost anything. And it’s tempting to go one step further and suggest that this represents a coded critique of The American Way as it stands today. In some ways, the Luthor of this book — a philanthropic, self-made success story — is more representative of the traditional American Dream than Superman’s overwhelmingly powerful global policeman. Perhaps he really is the Man of Steel.

For the avoidance of doubt (as legal types say), I recommend this as worth consuming ONLY if you are a frustrated heterosexual teenage boy. Otherwise, don’t touch it with the proverbial bargepole.