Superman Treasury 2025: A Hero For All

I am running around this week with so much material I want to cover so I am behind the times. Two weeks ago, DC released Superman Treasury 2025: A Hero For All written by Dan Jurgens with art by Bruno Redondo and Jurgens as well. 

This was a fun story for a number of reasons. 

This is set some years in the past prior to Jon being aged up in the Bendis run. Seeing that young Jon, still learning and wanting to help, was almost worth the cost of the book. I miss that kid. 

This is a sort of primer on Superman, showcasing his leadership, his mentorship, his ethics and goals. But it also includes a sort of quick history of his. In the midst of the story are a number of pages drawn by Jurgens reviewing Superman's life and timeline. 

We get the return of two of the more recent villains in Superman's long history, villains who have stuck around and stood the test of time. 

The art was very slick. I like Redondo's sort of minimalist approach, somehow bringing so much visual information with the art he provides. And, of course, seeing Jurgens on art even for a few pages is always great.

But the real fun of the book is the format. A new DC treasury is on the shelves! Seeing such big art in my hands reminded me of my youth. It has some publicity pages for the movie in the back matter. It is too much fun. 

On to the book.

We dive right into action with Metropolis under attack. A large robot, surprisingly resistant to Superman's powers, is tromping around. 

Again, big format means big art and seeing Superman turn into a human bullet and blast through the robot was fantastic.

During the fight, Superman complains of a headache, a subtle clue that there may be more to this fight.

Now this is where things get a little tricky. Unfortunately we have gone through so many reboots that even I don't 100% know what is true to continuity or not.

Through a series of flashbacks, we see Pa die in a tornado attack. (Nice pieta riff here.) We see Lana want Clark to stay in Smallville as a farmer. We see young Luthor convincing Clark to join him in Metropolis at college.

At the very least, Pa's death stood out as something completely new. Was this another reboot?

Outside the flashbacks, we see an alien armada destroy the JLA satellite and swarm the planet. Our heroes are doing their best but are barely holding their own. (Nice to see Redondo get to  draw so many of DC's stable.)

And then we see a very much alive Ma and Pa Kent trying to get a young Jon out of Metropolis to safety. The aliens seem to be targeting him. Thankfully Steel arrives.

Pa alive and dead?

Then things get really wonky.

In another flashback, we see Lois calling Lex 'Smallville'. We see Lois and Lex being in a relationship, married, with children.

Okay ... now I get it. That headache Superman had with the robot was some sort of mental infiltrate and he is being fed a false history.

And then the reveal.

Maxima wants to take over the Earth. And if she can't have Superman as a consort, she'll get the closest genetic thing she can ... the Cyborg Superman!

Amazing these two and there army are able (at first) to have their way with the heroes and even Lex who joins in. 

We get a brief origin page on both villains, including a spiffy homage to Maxima's cover on Action Comics #651.

I like Maxima as a sort of wild card, the sometime hero/sometime villain/always entertaining. 

We finally see Superman in a sort of sensory deprivation tank in the very robot he defeated earlier, being fed telepathic memories by one of Maxima's flunkies. Spurred on by his rejection of these false memories and Jon calling out for help, he breaks free.

And then we get those Jurgens pages giving us the true history. His coming to Earth, falling in love with Lois, becoming Superman. We see pages of his allies and enemies. All gorgeous. And all sorts of splash pages worthy of the giant format. 

Beautiful.

Freed from the prison, Superman springs into action and shows why he is the preeminent hero on the planet.

In one swoop, he bashes through Maxima's fleet.

Great big art again by Redondo.

After that, it just sort of ends.

Superman rallies the heroes of the world. (Incredible double splash by Redondo. Fun to have Lois shoulder to shoulder with the supers. And finally, a Supergirl sighting!)

The Cyborg Superman is defeated, more easily than I have ever seen. In fact, this is the most sedate I have seen the Cyborg who usually is spewing villainous rhetoric.

Maxima gets taken down.

Maybe it wraps up too quickly?

And then this sort of odd but satisfying sort of coda.

Despite saving the world, Superman wonders if he could have done better. He is always striving. Always wanting to do good.

Now I do have a couple of quibbles.

Supergirl is almost nowhere to be seen in the book despite being his cousin, part of the family, and (spoiler alert) in the new movie. She is left out of those Jurgens' pages probably because they seem to focus more on the Triangle era when Supergirl was Matrix. But seriously, the lack of Kara was palpable for me, especially when the Bat family, Steel, Green Arrow and Black Canary, and others get a moment to shine.

Second, this would be such a good book to give a kid just discovering Superman from the movie, a giant book with great art and action, a toe dipped into the DCU, and solid Superman history. But I wonder if the false memories might be confusing to a new reader. This is a minor issue, and one I may be creating.

But overall, I thought this was smashing. 

And lastly, I picked the Scott Koblish variant with a front cover of friends and a back cover of villains.  How thrilled I was to see the Sterling Gates/Jamal Igle Superwoman in the corner. Any time that run is brought back is appreciated.

Big summer fun!

Overall grade: B