Superman: Red Son, by Mark Millar

  Superman: Red Son, by Mark Millar, 168 pages

This is a comic I first heard about through another JCLReads reviewer, and he was on point- this was an excellent comic- a unique and well-executed take on a classic.  If Superman crashed to Earth 12 hours later than he did, he would have landed in Communist Russia.  How would Superman, an iconic symbol of all things American, be different if he weren't American?  I can't even express how much I appreciated this adaptation of the Superman mythology- it was well-written, fully formed, and the art was excellent, too.  Definitely an easy one for someone unfamiliar with the Superman mythology to read as a stand-alone.

Civil War, by Mark Millar

Civil War, by Mark Millar, 208 pages

Marvel Civil War was a crossover series within the Marvel universe, but this volume provides background to why it started.  When a group of untrained "superheroes" take on super villains way out of their league, they accidentally kill hundreds of innocent bystanders.  Tony Stark (Iron Man) sides with most citizens, the government, SHIELD, and some other superheroes (notably Reed Richards) in believing that superheroes should be licensed and trained, as well as registered with their true identities, in order to prevent rogue, untrained superheroes from future devastation.  Captain America, however, and many of the superheroes with secret identities, feel that it is an invasion of their privacy and that they are being asked to compromise the way they've been "heroing" for decades.  These two sides become even more polarized when superheroes are killed, traps are set, and prisons are filled.  It is thought-provoking, and references a great deal of characters that the average reader might not know or be familiar with.