History YMMV / SupermanRedSon

** Invoked by Superman himself about Bizarro in-story. The creature's actions end up being food for thought for the remainder of Superman's life as he ponders why he performed his HeroicSacrifice. Did he actually know what he was doing? Did he inherit Superman's ideals and belief that all life was sacred? Or did he accurately predict Superman's coming regime and the sacrifice doubled as intentional suicide to prevent himself from ever witnessing a BadFuture from coming true? The nature of how Bizarro speaks also throws some wrinkles in. Were his last words ("Hello, everybody. Me very pleased to meet you.") ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin or, considering the opposite mindset Bizarro is usually hit with, a spiteful goodbye to the people who just begged Superman to kill him? Alternatively, it could be interpreted as "[Goodbye] everyone. Me very [sad] to [leave] you." bringing it right back to a heartfelt farewell. As usual with Bizarro, his [[ConfusingMultipleNegatives speech]] [[HulkSpeak patterns]] make his actual meaning very ambiguous.

* MoralEventHorizon: Luthor is portrayed as being a {{Jerkass}}, but basically an UnscrupulousHero... right up until he murders all his lab personnel because [[HeKnowsTooMuch they know too much]] about the creation of Bizarro.

** [[spoiler:Superior Man's death: While he wasn't as nice as the comic's Bizarro Superman, he's reduced to impotently crawling and mumbling about truth, justice and the American way, completely ignorant of why is he dying and reduced to a childlike behavior and speech. However, in his last moments, he ''does'' notice he's in a lot of pain and doesn't know why.]]

* MagnificentBastard: Lex Luthor is an amoral yet [[AdaptationalHeroism ultimately benevolent]] scientist out to stop the Soviet Superman. Making his opening move by sabotaging a satellite to crash on Metropolis, Lex collects samples of Kryptonian DNA from the wreckage when Superman predictably stops the catastrophe. At the same time, Lex has his wife Lois reveal the existence of the Siberian gulags, turning Superman against Stalin. Knowing he is incapable of killing the new Soviet Premier, Lex nonetheless persistently designs schemes over the decades to rattle the alien dictator, from the creation of the "Superior Man" clone, to providing Batman with red sun lamps, to reverse-engineering a squadron of Green Lantern fighter pilots. Eventually climbing his way to president, Lex ushers in startling progress to revitalize the tumultuous United States before goading Superman into an invasion. Instead of fighting the Man of Steel, President Luthor reminds Superman of the bottled city of Stalingrad, forcing him to [[HeelRealization realize]] his subconscious desire to put the whole world in a bottle and finally bringing the dictator to surrender. With the two subsequently teaming up to stop the rogue Brainiac, Luthor gracefully steps down as president to enjoy retirement with Lois, confident that what he has set into motion will see humanity lead itself to peace and prosperity for all.

%%* MemeticMutation:
%%ZCE** The Sexy Bat-Hat. You ''know'' you want to touch it.
%%ZCE** [[ArmorPiercingQuestion "Why don't you just put X in a bottle?"]]

* CompleteMonster: This version of ComicBook/{{Brainiac}} allies himself with ComicBook/LexLuthor until he is seemingly reprogrammed by Superman to become the USSR's chief scientist, and comes up with the diabolical idea to lobotomize all those who oppose the misguided Superman's rule. Attempting to push for nuclear war with America, Brainiac cares nothing for the millions of deaths, and when Luthor comes to negotiate, has him [[UnwillingRoboticisation roboticized]] to prevent questioning. When Superman calls off the attack, Brainiac attacks him, revealing he simply pretended to be reprogrammed to serve his own purposes and plans to conquer the world and then [[GalacticConqueror galaxy]] after killing Superman, and [[TakingYouWithMe rigs his ship to explode and wipe out humanity out of spite when beaten]].

* AuthorsSavingThrow:
** [[spoiler:Lex becoming horrified by what he's done and voluntarily giving up power nearly avoids the BrokenAesop]].
** Wonder Woman's portrayal in the original comic was considered rather unflattering and one of the weakest elements of the series, so her AdaptationalHeroism in the film was considered an upgrade. Specifically, the WomanScorned aspect of her story is completely omitted; instead of being hopelessly in love with Superman and blaming him for her injury, Wonder Woman is instead is PlatonicLifePartners with him and their friendship slowly deteriorates as he comes more of an authoritarian.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: A lot of scenes show the canon Superman characters doing random things to show how their lives are different without Superman, even though they have zero connection to the plot. Examples: the Kents, Lois Lane and the Daily Planet staff, etc.

** Issue 1 ends with Superman resolving to solve the economic and societal problems of the USSR singlehandedly. In real life these problems, such as logistical failures leading to shortages or economic waste, were so systemic that attempts to solve them arguably caused the break up of the Soviet Union. A story that recognized this could have followed Superman realizing that even his powers and good intentions aren't cabable of making a bad system work and recognizing the practical and ethical importance of letting people make their own decisions. Instead the story has him create a utopia, albeit at the expense of free will and economic calculation problems being ignored.

* WhatAnIdiot: Pyotr is totally confident of his ability to defeat Batman [[spoiler: once their plan to overthrow Superman is complete, right after Bats ''kidnapped him from his own private car'']].

* MemeticMutation:
** The Sexy Bat-Hat. You ''know'' you want to touch it.
** [[ArmorPiercingQuestion "Why don't you just put X in a bottle?"]]

** Invoked by Superman himself about Bizarro in-story. The creature's actions end up being food for thought for the remainder of Superman's life as he ponders why he performed his HeroicSacrifice. Did he actually know what he was doing? Did he inherit Superman's ideals and belief that all life was sacred? Or did he accurately predict Superman's coming regime and the sacrifice doubled as intentional suicide to prevent himself from ever witnessing a BadFuture from coming true? The nature of how Bizarro speaks also throws some wrinkles in. Were his last words ("Hello, everybody. Me very pleased to meet you.") ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin or, considering the opposite mindset Bizarro is usually hit with, a spiteful goodbye to the people who just begged Superman to kill him?
*** Alternatively, it could be interpreted as "[Goodbye] everyone. Me very [sad] to [leave] you." bringing it right back to a heartfelt farewell. As usual with Bizarro, his [[ConfusingMultipleNegatives speech]] [[HulkSpeak patterns]] make his actual meaning very ambiguous.
** Another one that's invoked by Roslov onto the Lana Lang counterpart Lana Lazarenko. In part 2, she is shown to have been rescued from poverty and given a well-paid job as a guide in the Superman Museum. But is this Superman helping out a childhood friend out from a bad spot and giving her a job outside of government or, as Roslov believes, Superman essentially bribing Lana with a nice cushy life to prevent her from spilling anything about his classified childhood?

* HarsherInHindsight: [[spoiler:The "Lost Superman Cartoon" {{Creepypasta}} centers around an allegedly lost Superman cartoon from the [[WesternAnimation/SupermanTheatricalCartoons Fleischer era]] where , among other things, Superman kills Stalin with his heat vision. Now we have such a sequence in a bona fide Superman cartoon, specifically Stalin getting incinerated by the Soviet Superman, although its less graphic than in the Creepypasta as Soviet Superman simply kills Stalin right where he stands]].

* {{Narm}}
** "Me no feel so good!"
** "Think Green thoughts!"
** "Not all men."
* NightmareFuel: [[CreepyMonotone Brainiac's voice.]]

* HarsherInHindsight: [[spoiler:The "Lost Superman Cartoon" {{Creepypasta}} centers around and allegedly lost Superman cartoon from the [[WesternAnimation/SupermanTheatricalCartoons Fleischer era]] where , among other things, Superman kills Stalin with his heat vision. Now we have such a sequence in a bona fide Superman cartoon, specifically Stalin getting incinerated by the Soviet Superman, although its less graphic than in the Creepypasta as Soviet Superman simply kills Stalin right where he stands]].

* BrokenAesop: While the story is clearly intended as a TakeThat to Stalinist communism, a reader could easily conclude that communism and fascism are only superficially similar, because apparently fascism will create a utopia if the dictator is just really, really smart like Lex. Since all real-life tyrants claim to be geniuses (since none dare contradict them), this may not be the best idea to be tossing around. That said, the ending implies that Luthor's utopia isn't as cool as it's cracked up to be. [[spoiler:As Earth begins collapsing into the sun, Jor-L accuses the government of being overly satisfied and complacent about having their entire planet blow up, having inherited "a world with nothing left to conquer". In fact, Jor-L's last wish for Kal-L is to change the past so the future doesn't end up as bad as he believes it to be.]]