Books : Superman: Birthright (Graphic Novel)

In association with Amazon.com

Rating:

- Better than I expected...
I am a big fan of the Superman world but it was only during this summer that I shelled out money to buy Superman products after seeing the latest movie. Two dvds of the Reeves movies snowballed into seven comic books. This was one of the seven. Out of all of them this one really stood out. I just love the first few pages. It is a given that it talks about his parents and how they sent him to earth in a pod. How they drew and colored and placed the panels and used them as part of the title and credit page and then a time transition....wow. Its like a openning title sequence for film... so beautiful. I'm like YES!!! THIS IS WHY I LOVE COMIC BOOKS! This story talks about a part of Clark's life that is rarely if never addressed. Life after Smallvile but pre Daily Planet. I like it for its youthful hip energy and the addressing of problems in a different country. Lois Lane is a big reason I follow this franchise. Seeing the many incarnations of her is watching the evolution of the independent modern woman. Some depictions leave more to be desired than others. The way they introduced her was refreshing. Her intelligence and her courage has a slightly new flavor. I'd like to see a follow up of this story arc. I recomend everyone pick up a copy and take a good look. I don't regret buying this one. I enjoy looking at it over and over.

Rating:

- A new perspective
Wow, this is an incredible book. I absolutely loved the graphics and the story never gets outdated. This book was perfect from from cover to the back. I highly recommend it.

Rating:

- Birth of a new king
I've never been much of a Superman fan but I've got to say, I totally loved this book! Mark Waid, Leinil Francis Yu, & Gerry Alanguilan did an oustanding job in bringing their vision of the veteran super hero to life. When they made the SuperMan Returns film they should've used this book as the screen play. A definate welcome shot in the arm to the super hero mythos. This was way better than anything I've seen come out of Marvel's *Ultimates* line. Also highly recommended are Superman's "Infinite City" & "For Tommorrow".

Rating:

- Grabbed and held
At 54, I hadn't read a Superman comic for 42 years, though I have a fine collection of several hundred. I saw the movie, missed the TV show, missed all the updates etc. My (US) kids, all born in the 80s, devoured my collection of 10- and 12-cent comics.

Then a teenager from Ghana urged me to try this comic novel reconsideration of Mr. S. I found this to be very operatic and heart-rending. The artist/observer's POVs were fantastic and each panel seemed frameable, making the oldies I remember seem so quaint and camp. Operas get updated in similar ways, and it's risky, but this team pulled it off to one reader's complete satisfaction.

The process of updating/adaptation/re-imagining reminds me of the saying: ''If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.'' --Tancredi, the young aristocrat in Giuseppe di Lampedusa's novel, ''The Leopard"

Rating:

- It's a bird, it's a plane, it's... yawn
If anything shows how tired the comic book version of Superman has become, this is it. Waid, a talented and prolific writer, simply doesn't do much of anything with this retelling of Superman's origins. The redesign of Krypton is superfluous, as is the de-aging of the Kents. The mid-80s reimagining of Superman had its faults, but it also had a lot of character; twenty years later we're stuck with a new origin that could just as easily have been of any other superhero. Clark has very little character, except for his continuous feelings of displacement, and he seems to only to adopt his superhero identity as a way of fitting in (he ends up with dual roles, one as a distanced protector, and the other as an unremarkable Everyman--are either of these really fulfilling?). Also, the opening bits of Clark pursuing both heroics and journalism in Africa smack of political "relevance."

Luthor's insertion into Smallville seems to just be a nod to the TV show, and it unfortunately appears to have erased a violent and dramatic character who rose to corporate power through some very dark means. The "Lex Luthor: The Unauthorized Biography" TPB was a great noir-ish reinvention of what had previously been a nutty and ostensibly evil scientist. Waid tries to make him a brilliant scientist who attempts to prove the existence of alien life while at the same time retaining the business suit. It doesn't quite work. You can see Waid explain his changes in the back of this collection.

Unfortunately, Superman is a character that has been used and reused more times than King Arthur, and he's wearing thin. Also unfortunately, he's DC Comic's highest seller, and there's something just vaguely mythic enough about him that people keep coming back to a well that's creatively dry, both in the comics and in film. They would do better to recreate Superman entirely, to take a risk and start again from the ground-up. They made a half-hearted attempt at doing this in the 80s, and a quarter-hearted attempt with "Birthright." For instance, try making Superman the last in a line of alien knights, who follows a code of chivalry among the relatively weak Earthlings even though he's lost from his homeland. This would retain the moral core of the character, and also many of the mythic undertones.

But please, let Jimmy Olsen rest in peace.

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