It is over one hundred thousand words full of action, characterization, and plot sculpting. Instead of Superman's rocket ship crash landing in the wheat fields of Kansas, Superman: Red Son details his landing on a Soviet collective farm somewhere in Ukraine.Instead of being , he is raised during the cold war with an appreciation for Karl Marx and a devotion to Comrade Stalin.The father and super-powered son are framed in front of a Christian church (note the cross on the tower or steeple in the background).Later on this same page, Superman mentions "the solid, moral foundation my foster parents gave" him. Maggin, an observant Jew who is one of Superman's most popular and influential contemporary chroniclers, stated in a 1998 interview that Clark Kent and the entire family are Methodists.Instead of making his big trip to the fictional New York of Metropolis, he makes his way to Moscow to become not only the darling of the 1950s communist elite, but also the country's primary defence initiative...Writing such a story, which starts with a simple high concept in the 1950s and brings us up to date (where Superman narrates the whole thing shortly before his suicide), was always going to be a laugh.For example, popular comic book writer Mark Millar () has written that Superman is a Methodist.Curt Swan, one of the best-known and most influential Superman artists, was raised Presbyterian but also attended Methodist churches while growing up (see:
Jonathan also raised his adopted son with staunch Protestant values, but Jonathan has never been much of a churchgoer.Of Clark's parents, Martha is the more devout churchgoer. While growing up in Smallville, Kansas, Clark Kent attended Sunday church services at the local Methodist church with his mother, Martha Kent, every week until he was fourteen years old.These aspects of the character are not speculative, but are canonical - established by in-continuity published DC Comics.Throughout all of his incarnations, Superman has maintained his rural Midwestern Protestant upbringing, although rarely have the words "Protestant" or "Christian" been explicitly attached to his background.Superman is sometimes spoken of as being "Jewish." This may be an attempt to honor the fact that the writer and artist who created the character were Jewish.