Jupiter’s Legacy #4 – Review

By: Mark Millar (story), Frank Quitely (art), Peter Doherty (colors)

The Story: Introducing the super-yuppies…

The Review: Say what you like about Superman, but there is no denying his deep influence on all comics, whether one intends to show it or not.  He embodies so much of what we consider a superhero, and he came into being so early on at the start of the superhero age, that it’s hard for other superheroes to escape the gravitational pull of his origin story, his powers, his core values, even his costume and quirks.

But what we see in Legacy is more than just an influence.  Millar directly poaches elements of the Superman story.  Don’t take my word for it; it couldn’t be more obvious once Chloe recounts how Sheldon proposed to Gracie with a diamond he made himself, by crushing a piece of coal in his fist—one of Superman’s classic party tricks.  The parallels also cross generational boundaries, from Chloe’s glasses to the tortured lengths her son Jason goes to conceal his own massive superpowers.  Millar’s clearly saying something about Superman, but what?

Actually, the generational differences in the Sampson family may provide the answer.  As the original superheroes of this world, Sheldon and Gracie were the purest embodiment of the Superman archetype, completely devoted and faithful to the values of their time.  Chloe and her peers were just the opposite, displaying the superficial, corrupted, and flawed traits of the modern superhero.  Jason is a return to form, pure in his ideals (“There’s nothing crazy about wanting bad guys brought to justice.”), eager to get into costume and do good in the world.

Surely it’s not a coincidence that these changes follow the development of superhero comics in general, from the innocence of the Golden Age, to the dreary realism of the Modern Age, to the nostalgia for earlier times you seen in current comics.  In a different context, the Sampson family also represents the major generation gaps: the wholesome baby-boomers, self-centered Gen-X, and retro-obsessed Gen-Y.  Or, put in even another way, the family is simply responding to the cyclical rise and fall of nations: Sheldon and Gracie dragged the country out of hard times, Chloe and Hutch grew complacent in the prosperity their parents created, and Jason is determined to push back against yet another dark age.

You might think it couldn’t have gotten darker than the pre-Sampson administration, but as Chloe says, “They’d managed to fix a couple of problems but things on the whole had been pretty catastrophic.”  It’s not just the “setbacks with jobs and homes,” as Walter admits; the world seems to have become militarized, under curfew and constant surveillance.  What have Brandon and Walter been getting up to?  Well, at the moment, Brandon’s celebrating “nine years in power,” so the two-term system has gone out the window, which isn’t surprising since Walter’s hard at work “overturning an entire constitution here.”

Clearly, with things having gotten worse since the last issue, superpowered (de facto) dictatorships aren’t the answer.  But what is?  When the aliens originally gave Sheldon and his friends their powers, it was to “make everything right” in “our country,” but that didn’t quite happen, either.  At this point, Millar hasn’t given us an answer as to whether Sheldon’s determination to let things be was right, or whether both he and Walter were wrong about how to save the country.

But with Jason, perhaps we now know where the answer will come from.  I think it’s kind of marvelous that Millar, writer of some of the most twisted characters in comics, can create such a great, well-adjusted kid.  Blessed with the grounded experience of his parents and a legacy of heroism, Jason is growing up with the best of both prior generations.  That just might make him the eponymous legacy of this title, especially since it’s his future voice narrating the issue.

Quitely is quite restrained in this series, at least compared to his All-Star Superman work, but he still has the chance to evoke some amazingly gorgeous panels.  The sequence where Jason puts out a massive factory fire shows that Quitely is still capable of drawing Superman-like feats with the same gusto and splendor he used to: the massive smoky funnel rising into the sky, coalescing into a lightning-jagged storm, punctuated by a close-up of Jason raising a victory fist as a flash of lightning glows on his triumphant face.

Conclusion: Rather couched in old superhero tropes and without a clear idea of what kind of message it wants to deliver, but still a rather layered, strong issue.

Grade: B+

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: – So Hutch’s dad was actually Sheldon’s best friend once upon a time, until “girls and adult stuff” got in the way.  Intriguing.

– Actually, Chloe and Hutch’s enthusiastic cheers for their son’s pretended failures are pretty cute:  “Yay!”

“Well played, Jason, well played!  That’s our boy down there!”