I bought a copy of this in paperback back when it was released and still own it today. Maggin showed how to move from comic writing to novel writing very well. One of the benchmarks of Superman novel fiction to date. ( )

There’s one of two things I’ve come to expect the typical Superman novel weakness to be – cheesiness that’s hit-or-miss with its blatant quirkiness, or dryness which makes characters too distant if the author doesn’t dampen the moment every so often. It’s obvious there’s going to be some cheesiness; after all, it’s a novel about superheroes, just goes with the territory, but you can establish a setting which stays true to the legend while holding enough intellect, enough fun, to keep it worthy.

In this case the novel came highly recommended. I checked the reviews on Paperbackswap, Goodreads, and Amazon, surprised to see the three sites united on raves (not common). I hadn’t read a Superman book in awhile, thought why not, so ordered it and then waited in (almost embarrassed to admit) impatience and dorky eagerness. I first opened it to be a bit glum at the size, pretty thin for the 270 or so pages. The writing is a slightly small so there’s a decent amount of story in there, just not something that’s going take long to read if you get absorbed.

Even though the book totes that Superman is now a motion picture, and includes photos from the first film in the center of the book, the story has nothing at all to do with the movie. In fact, it’s very important to note that the Superman/Clark Kent persona is the older almost pre-Crisis type, and the Lex Luthor is the complete opposite of the comedic movie role. Here they go to the roots – in between plot points a flashback or so occurs telling a little about the younger Luthor in Smallville, a friend of sorts with the Kent/Superboy, but more absorbed in his scientific endeavors. These backflashes fascinated me, and it was a different take - some of the common things were there just sketched out and altered slightly, while other things were changed pretty dramatically (such as what happens with Clark's adoptive parents.)

Of course Lois Lane is in the novel but it also should be mentioned that nothing at all is brought up about any romantic interest on Clarks part or hers. The author chose to not focus on that at all apparently. Clark is working for a TV station and they do not even work together any longer; Superman is of course still her savior and hero when times heat up. This includes a scene that surprised me and almost seems anti-Superman as he melts a gun and gives a mans hand third-degree burns. I've already said Lex is different, and they focus more on the mental illness aspect of youth and then the theories as an adult that he is the perfect balance for Supermans heroics. Clark is more interesting when he's Superman and it finally shows more thought later on. At first he just seems so distantly sketched but I felt more toward the ending with the character and think it was easier to then see him as more realistic.

Pacing was pretty swift, a good deal happened. The story turned a surprising 180 in that it changed course midway through the book in a way. The first half was between Superman and Lex Luthor and their rivalry, while the second half they had to work together of all things to leave Earth and solve a situation on another realm. While the author made the man of steel and the villain super-geniouses, I sadly was unable to keep following along with some of the scientific, mid-dimensional stuff later on. There was plenty of it, and that keeps my interest little, so I didn't focus on much other than the action.

Apparently I keep rambling, so I'll start wrapping this one up. Rather than cheesy, this book took itself as seriously as it could. It really tried for a very different type of backstory and intriguing plot that stands out and had it complex with other characters (Green lantern system, etc.) The author chose to concentrate solely on Lex and Clark rather than anything with Lois besides a few saving scenes, and the writing style was easy to follow and well-penned. I have to say I agree with the reviews on the other sites -- it was a worthy, unique story that actually had a real story, not just a scene play-by-play with the characters. My least favorite was the very beginning, where it was less captivating than the rest and almost slightly full for a chapter or so. Besides occasional dryness it was the best I've read yet in this genre.

And yes, the pictures were fun to look through!
( )

It was this novel's good reputation that prompted me to begin my entire sub-undertaking of journeying through prose fiction based on superhero comics. Well, I'm happy to report that it's as every bit as good as everyone says, and definitely up there with the best Superman stories in any medium. Elliot Maggin just gets Superman and everything about him.

I was a bit skeptical about the book's opening, which begins with the destruction of Krypton and prophecies of doom from Jor-El-- we've seen all that a million times by now, not the least in the only previous Superman novel. Thankfully, this is only a small part of the novel, and it turns out to be necessary, because then we get three chapters of Clark's life in Smallville being set up by a very unlikely person. I thought it was goofy when I first figured it out, but I soon came to love the idea. And that person's influence turns out to be key to the plot of the second half of the novel.

The plot actually takes its time showing up, but that's okay, because I was having such a good time in the interim. Superman is portrayed how I love him best: a really good guy trying to do his best because he believe the best of everyone, bothered but not overly so by his inability to do everything for everybody. Clark is a bit of a wimp, but not overly so, and the interactions with Steve Lombard show how to carry that kind of thing out perfectly: you'd like Clark even if you didn't sympathize with him because Steve Lombard is such a jock.

Though everyone, down to Jimmy Olsen (as goofy as ever) and Lois Lane, gets their moment, Lex Luthor is the other standout character here. There is a lot of interspersed backstory here about Clark and Lex growing up together in Smallville, which is something I normally dislike because it turns Superman into someone whose presence is harmful and Lex into someone too obsessed with a single vendetta to be interesting. But Maggin does a great job with here, all because his character-work is very fine: the presence of Superboy is just one of many incidents working on Lex's mind, and though Lex might not have become a supervillain without Superboy, he didn't become one only because of Superboy, either.

What really makes it work, though, is all the stuff Luthor gets up to in the present. He's still in his Silver Age "mad scientist" phase here, but he's verging into being the corporate mogul: he has quite the criminal empire here. Maggin's Luthor is usually the smartest man in the room, but he also always knows what to do when he's not. My favorite passage is definitely this one, about when Luthor is in prison, allowed only a ballpoint pen and pad of legal paper:

One night, in a loose moment, Luthor figured out how to melt the plastic cap of the pen, let a certain amount drip into the ink refill, extract a substance from the glue that bound the legal pad, wrap it all in half a sheet of yellow paper and make an explosive powerful enough to blast out a wall of his cell. Luthor would never do that, of course. If he did, the next time he was in jail the warden wouldn't give him his pen and pad. (138-39)

Hilarious and genius. Perfect Lex.

It's not all about Luthor, though, as Superman just manages to keep his counterpart from stealing the show. There are some fantastic depictions of Superman's powers in action; sometimes you might think he's got too many of them, but as in All-Star Superman, who cares? What keeps Superman grounded isn't his powers (or lack thereof), it's his ethos. (The epilogue is particularly good in this regard.) My favorite moment is a late one in the book, so I won't spoil it, but suffice it to say that while Superman is trusting and always willing to give a second chance, he's nobody's chump... and he knows how to scheme with the best of them.

I can't wait to read Maggin's other Superman novel, Miracle Monday; this was a book of sheer joy.

I really like Superman. I really did not like this book.

The story had potential but it seems Maggin ran out of room for the plot because he was too busy talking about how awesome Lex Luthor has been his entire life. The book turned into a stroll down memory lane about Lex and Superboy growing up together with a little bit of poorly planned alien intrigue thrown in at the last minute. I hate to throw in spoilers, but Superman wins the final battle by doing something he can't remember and isn't explained, but because he is Superman we are told it was awesome and we should feel really good about it.

However, even bad books have good moments. Maggin writes a lot of garbage with plenty of sentences that make no sense, but here and there are good lines that actually do rise to the level of the characters. Especially with Lex Luthor. Even though the reason for him to be in the story at all hangs on the barest of threads, Luthor is made into a very good character. The title of this book should have been Lex Luthor: The only character I bothered to spend time on. I realize the book was written before the original Superman movies came out, but looking back from this end of the time line, if you enjoyed the personality of Gene Hackman as Luthor, then you will be able to pull the good out of this book. ( )

This excellent novel, expanding the origins of Superman, was written a decade before the big changeover to Superman in the late 1980's. I felt that this was the best way at the time to handle writing about a long-established character with an origin story everybody knows: expand upon the established story, rather than change or drop everything you find inconvenient. I may have been wrong, but nevertheless Elliot Maggin has written a Superman novel using my preferred method in the best possible way. It adds new depth to a character I thought I had known well, and in a way that makes the Superman character even more noble and admirable, and somewhat less two-dimensional. A fine work, with Luthor as I had always pictured him too, a man who has greatness in him and could have just as easily been a hero himself. The use of Albert Einstein, one of my heroes in real life, in the origin story is icing on the cake. ( )