By Zack Quaintance — Future State - Superman vs. Imperious Lex #1 jumped out at me within the original DC Comics Future State announcement. There were two main reasons this book caught my one. No. 1, the creative team is fantastic, with writer Mark Russell and Steve Pugh having collaborated on a pair of modern classic comics in first The Flintstones and later Billionaire Island. No. 2, this was without question the most idiosyncratic concept within an event that promised total freedom from the DCU’s past.

Within a line of comics that featured new characters under familiar cowls mixed with old characters on unfamiliar planets or fighting unfamiliar foes, this book looked like something else all together. On the cover was Lex Luthor (personally one of my favorite villains in superhero fiction), his head rimmed with a halo as he extended a hand toward the sky, perfectly falling somewhere right between classically sacred figure and preening televangelist. That’s all well and good — we’ve seen faux altruistic Lex plenty — but what really sealed this as interesting to me was the robot and alien hordes hoisting anti-Superman flags behind him. Okay, I thought, I have an early contender for my favorite title of Future State.

And now that I have read all the new Future State #1s, I’m happy to report this comic did not disappoint (although it is in competition with Future State - Superman Worlds of War #1 for designation as my favorite). When I opened this comic, I expected Russell and Pugh to bring a number of elements to it: panels brimming with dense visual gags, satire of modern life, and smart poignancy around shared societal missteps. And that’s all in here. What surprised me a bit, however, was how well they splashed it across such a rich DC cosmic canvas, opening with a shot of the United Planets headquarters in a “not-so-distant future” Metropolis, and diving from there into scenes rich with fantastical DCU alien races, old and new.

Of course, what’s really for sale here though is the aforementioned satire and commentary. What we get in this comic is a story that is eerily timely, given the events of this tumultuous month. We get Lex Luthor wanting to join the United Planets, to which Superman and Lois Lane seemingly object, on the grounds that Luthor’s planetary corporation, Lexor, has been looting other worlds. In his own society, he spins this with the use of a propaganda machine masquerading as a new network (Lex News, ahem). What then emerges is a tension between a seedy exploitation of other populations, and a people who feel they’ve worked hard and deserve what they have, with Superman trying (somewhat futiely) to urge Lexor’s peoples to sacrifice in the name of compassion.

I am once again impressed at how well Russell and Pugh can translate the real world issues of the day onto goofy, long-running intellectual property, doing so in a way that never feels like a betrayal or condescension of the source material. It actually keeps Superman well intact, casting him as empathetic and wise. I’d even argue this is one of the best versions of future Superman we’ve ever gotten, so unwaivering is he in the values that have guided his long life (rather than conflicted, as often tends to be the case for gray-haired Superman — ahem, Kingdom Come). Past that, I won’t spoil where exactly this story goes or the points it makes in its second and third acts, but I will say that you 100 percent want to make sure you get in on this comic, with an even greater emphasis for anyone who loves Superman, satire, or the past works of Russell and Pugh.

Overall: You 100 percent want to make sure you get in on Future State - Superman vs. Imperious Lex #1 , with an even greater emphasis for anyone who loves Superman, satire, or the past works of Russell and Pugh. 9.5/10

REVIEW: Future State - Superman vs. Imperious Lex #1

Future State - Superman vs. Imperious Lex #1
Writer: Mark Russell
Artist: Steve Pugh
Colorist: Romula Fajardo, Jr.
Letterer: Carlos M. Mangual
Publisher: DC Comics
Welcome to Lexor, home of the greatest businessman in the Multiverse: Lex Luthor! After years of prosperity, Lex’s utopia is at last ready to join the ranks of the United Planets and promote peace among worlds. However, Lex has never done anything unless he had something to gain from it. What could he be up to this time? Sounds like a job for Superman and his wife Lois Lane, the Earth representative to the U.P.! It’s time the Man of Steel shut down this former Metropolis magnate once and for all!
Price: $3.99
Buy It Digitally: Future State - Superman vs. Imperious Lex #1

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Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.