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If you're a boomer who raptly watched the original Adventures of Superman television series with the late George Reeves in the title role, you need to read this book. If your after-school reading list included 10-cent DC comics featuring the Man of Steel, you need to read this book. Even if you think you're "grown up," and if you stopped paying attention to Krypton's most famous son decades ago, you especially need to read this book.
Tom DeHaven's novel "It's Superman!" is, in a word, fabulous. Covering nearly three years (May 1935 through February 1938) in the life of teen-aged Kansas farm boy Clark Kent, it takes us along on his coming-of-age journey of self-discovery that leads him away from his home in Smallville, first to Hollywood and then to New York City. Found by Jonathan and Martha Kent as an infant, Clark still does not know that he came to Earth from another planet. They have hinted at his origin, but have not yet told him the whole truth. All of his super powers have not yet emerged; nor can he consistently control the ones that have. He can be injured--he gets a small, quickly healed cut from the explosion of a bomb that would have vaporized an ordinary person. He sometimes suffers from headaches, and his eyes get "gummy" every time he uses his "heat vision." His "costume" is a circus performer's castoff that doesn't fit well and invariably gets shredded in the course of a day. In short, despite being "a strange visitor from another planet with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men," Clark Kent/Superman is only too human, with all of the associated insecurities, self-doubt, clumsiness and vulnerabilities.
This is a fascinating idea, and Mr. DeHaven handles it superbly. "It's Superman!" is clever, witty, articulate, fast-paced, exceptionally well written and brimming with well-researched details of life in small-town and big-city America in the mid-1930s. Young Clark Kent, newly hired "Daily Planet" reporter Lois Lane and evil criminal mastermind Alexander "Lex" Luthor come to life in "It's Superman!" Mr. DeHaven fleshes out these famous characters that, for many of us, were literally never more than two-dimensional comic-book figures, making them seem as real as today's headlines.
My only complaint about "It's Superman!" is that, at "only" 425 pages, it ended too soon. I don't know if it's a "one-off" project for Mr. DeHaven or not, but I will be among the first in line to pick up a copy of the sequel if he ever decides to write one. I most enthusiastically give it the highest possible rating.
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I absolutely loved this book. It is easily the best written, most three-dimensional and sophisticated portrait of the Man of Steel and his world in any medium -- and I say that as a lifelong Superman fan. In fact, it's not merely a great Superman story, it's a wonderful book regardless of whether or not you're a fan of comics or the Last Son of Krypton.
The review that described the book as "Steinbeck meets Smallville" is dead on. This is Superman as he's never been seen before -- as an awkward and not particularly bright, talented or good looking young man in depression-era Kansas struggling to find his place in the world.
I wish Bryan Singer had read this book and used it as the basis for his relaunch of the Superman movie series. And someone from DC Comics really needs to contact Mr. De Haven and offer him an ongoing Superman comic book series set in the unique, completely believable and utterly engaging world he has created. Barring that, I hope Mr. De Haven either intends to write a sequel or possibly hopes to perform a similar reimagining of the origins of some of DC's other heroes.
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I'm a fan of Superman, but haven't ever been a huge Superman comic geek. This book is a fantastic read in general, completely separate from the Superman references (which are actually quite few). This is a story as much about Lois Lane and Lex Luthor as about Clark Kent.
The most impressive thing to me was the amazing job the author does setting the scene of the 1930s. With character language, narrative style, and all over description, you feel like you were actually IN 1935!
This is a great book, even for people who aren't into superheroes.
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First of all, anyone could find this book a fun page-turner. You'll never miss the first dime if you order it.
Also, you'll enjoy Dehaven's treatment of the character enough that some other Superman renditions will start to seem a little corny. Hopefully we can look forward to some more work from Dehaven in the actual comics.
So enough generic praise- "It's Superman!" is worth your 15 bucks.
Like my title might indicate, I picked up "It's Superman!" shortly after reading Steinbeck's classic novel.
I was impressed with how seamlessly Clark Kent fit into Tom Joad's decade. How interesting to read one and then the other... it is fascinating to see a Superman before Hitler, before the bomb, before big budget movies and giant "S" insignias appearing on t-shirts and soda cans every few years or so. We're lucky to live in a world with a Superman in HDTV, but "It's Superman!" reminds us that America is not so shallow as that. Our hero has an older soul than that.
Here we get Superman growing up WITH our country, not as a freak show side effect of our prosperity. Dehaven's Superman is more organic now that he's free of the kryptonite trappings of marketing campaigns. It trades flashy new Reagan/Clinton America for old honest Lincoln's ghost America.
If modern pop songs make you long for pre-1965, acoustic Dylan albums, then you'll like this book.
If 2006's Superman movie made you miss Tom Welling's Clark a little, then you'll like this book.
Here Clark isn't Jesus, he's just a kid who would probably be a little intimidated, jealous and suspicious of Bruce Wayne, Lex Luthor, Jack Kennedy and Justin Timberlake. Clark here has more in common with Forest Gump than the all-powerful Superman we know today.
The verdict won't be out until long after we're all dead. Future societies will have to debate for themselves whether or not a "Superman" really existed on their own superstition ridden verison of the History Channel, but if Providence intervenes, then this will be the FINAL Superman. It may be "the one" that will eventually live on as America's conflicted Jesus, (certainly more than "Neo"). Although THIS Clark Kent may someday be forgotten underneath a mountain of McDonald's wrappers with Superman sequel advertisements etched in grease, it is for now our best chance to read the real deal about the America's definiative good guy. God Bless America! God Bless Superman!
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Let me just get this out of the way first.
I really loved this book.
I am a huge fan of the two Elliot S! Maggin Superman novels and this novel by DeHaven is better than both.
John Prine has a great song entitled "Jesus, The Missing Years". It kinda, tangentially, touches on one of the great mysteries of western religion/history/literature. Where was Jesus during those years between his childhood with Mary and Joseph and the moment he stepped forward to be baptized by his first cousin, John? I often thought of that while reading It's Superman.
This novel, and make no mistake, it is a fully-realized novel, covers three years...1935-1938. While we start the book with Clark in Smallville...and a clever opening, "Our version of the story begins...", the real central character is a small-time con in Metropolis (here always New York) named William Berg. Will is dating a young journalism student named Lois Lane and he's decided to try to go legit by becoming a crime scene photographer. Through a series of circumstances, he finds himself in the right/wrong place to discover up-and-coming New York alderman, Lex Luthor, has a lot more ambition than anyone dreams. While on the run from Lex and his quickly organizing forces in Manhattan, Will (now using the last name Boring...wink, wink) finds himself in Kansas where he meets a young, hungry reporter for a small town newspaper. Clark, knowing there is more he should be doing in this life, decides to travel on with Will to California. There he will find true love for the first time (not Lois!), get work in the movies as a stuntman (somehow, he's never hurt!), and learn more about his developing powers. Eventually, Will will be witness to the coming together of three of the biggest fiction icons of the 20th century...just in time for 1938 and the public debut of a certain caped wonder.
What really intrigues me about DeHaven and this book is how well he makes 30s America come alive. This Clark Kent, while as good-hearted as we all know he is, is truly a kid from the post-dust bowl midwest. He's very different from the silver age master of all he surveyed. This kid becomes the rough and tumble Superman from Action Comics ..1...the superhero who spent more time going after exploitive employers and wife beaters than aliens and monsters. There is a touch of scifi that creeps in near the end, but it is definately more Startling Stories than Star Wars.
If all that wasn't enough...DeHaven has all of the characters come together at the end for an event in 1938 that is personally near and dear to my heart. He already had me, but those last few pages had me smiling and weepy.
I'm looking for DeHaven's other books now and am heartened to hear (from the author himself on the Comic Geek Speak podcast) that he is working on a book covering the cultural impact of Superman.
I'll be looking up in the sky for it.
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