All Star Superman, Volume 2 by Grant Morrisson and Frank Quitely

Superman is dying, having absorbed too much solar energy from the Earth's Yellow Sun from a trap set by his nemesis, Lex Luthor. Luthor has been sentenced to death, but meanwhile, Superman must fight against a world of Bizarros as the Bizarro planet slowly gets sucked into the Underverse. The planet, apparently somehow sentient, is infectin the earth with its Bizarro-ness, and even the people working at the Daily Planet seemingly aren't immune.

But in his attempt to help both planets, Superman gets stuck on the cube-shaped Bizarro world, and his powers are disappearing as their sun goes red like that of his homeworld. But Bizarro world is also mutating as it enters the Underverse, and has spawned a mutant Bizarro version of Superman who is more like the people of earth, thinking straightforwardly and looking like a real human, not an imperfect duplicate. He calls himself Zibarro, and while he helps Superman get the Bizarros together to build a rocket powerful enough to take Superman back to earth, he also wants to go with Superman. But is that even possible, when Superman can barely save himself?

When Superman arrives back on Earth, he finds that months have passed, and he's been replaced on earth by Surrogates: two Kryptonian Space Explorers who went into Cold sleep to survive the journey into space. But they have begun making Earth into the image of Krypton, and they are frankly dismissive about the talents and worth of humans over Kryptonians. But when they run into trouble, will Superman save them, or let them handie their own problems after the way they have treated him.

Lex Luthor, meanwhile, has his own plans for getting out of jail free, and it hinges on duplicating Superman's own powers through the miracles of science. And with Superman dying, he not only has to face down Lex, but a renegade sun that wants to supplant Earth's own star and be worshipped by Earth's people. And with all the problems Superman has had making clones of himself, is there any hope that human genetic researchers can help him before his inevitable end comes?

I thought the stories in this volume were really good, but the art just didn't do it for me. This is a throwback to the art of the 30's and 40's, and while Superman looks appropriately large, he doesn't always appear muscular so much as... bloated. I mean so much so that at one point, with his head in profile, his adam's apple seems more like a goiter. I had a very hard time getting past the art to the story, because I found the art very distracting.

But the stories are good, and the costumes of the two Kryptonian spacefarers who replaced Superman for a time are excellent and reminded me of Android Maria from "Metropolis". But is Superman really dying? Will they really kill him off? Even if I hadn't read the book, I'd have only to look at the Death and Resurrection of Superman story to have my answer. No comic book icon ever really truly dies: they get resurrected, someone with similar powers takes over the name and costume, or it turns out they never really died at all- they got translated to another dimension, it was a decoy, a clone... you get the idea. Even Captain Marvel, the first Superhero to really die and stay dead (for a really long time), was recently brought back.

This book will draw you in for the stories, but for the art? Well, let's not go there. I realize that not everyone dislikes this style of art, and YMMV, but I prefer more modern art drawing styles.