** SPOILERS ** - "It's Superman" Novel

[Superman Forever]

Finished reading this week. Interesting, for sure, but not fantastic.

The inicial description of Clark and Lois was brilliant. Loved Clark as a young journalist, interesting in science fiction, writing his own stories and feeleing alone. I missed Lana e Pete, tought. Lex Luthor not being the scientific genius - and De Haven creating a new character fot the role - was a big mistake.

The political and crimes scenes, with that useless characters berod me to tears. Willian Berg was a cool character, and his interaction with Clark well done. The reinvention of the uniform origin and the name, did't care, but didn't hate it, either. The final confrontation relationship with Luthor were OK. But honestly, the journey of Clark Kent becoming Superman was done much better in a lot of other media, the movie, Maggin books, Birthright, Superman for All Season, Action 800, even Smallville, so this novel brought nothing really new.

[NotSuper]

I recently read the story and enjoyed it very much. In fact, I did a joint review of the novel for the Superman Homepage (which should be up soon).

DC should release more original novels of Superman--maybe the next one could feature a Superman in the sixties?

[Gangbuster]

I liked the historical fiction aspect of it. Superman has never really been approached that way before, except in that 60th anniversary comic in 1998 when he battled the Nazis.

The author did a good job of making you hate Luthor...which was a bit of a problem for me, since I don't want to hate Luthor. Superman has that sort of rogues gallery that is the fictional kind of evil, and you hate to see them being really evil.  I could also see Lois as a flapper, but Clark was dumbed down too much for my tastes.

Overall, I thought the whole thing was very original, though.

[NotSuper]

The author did a good job of making you hate Luthor...which was a bit of a problem for me, since I don't want to hate Luthor. Superman has that sort of rogues gallery that is the fictional kind of evil, and you hate to see them being really evil.

I'm divided on the evil issue. On the one hand, the best villains are the ones that make you see things from their point of view. But on the other hand, the fact that they are villains--and not just misguided-- shouldn't be lost.

I've always thought that Dr. Doom was a good mix of both.

[Gangbuster]

I think what I meant is that Superman's villians ARE villainous...they're greedy, or cocky, or thieves, or warriors, or just plain insane.

But they're not evil in the real-world sense of it. It's ok for the Toyman to ruin Christmas, but not for him to be a child murderer. It's ok for Luthor to try to usurp governments and take over the world (with cool inventions) but not for him to take a pistol and murder people in cold blood, as we'd expect the Joker to do.  These villains have flaws, and they are criminals, but they are not murderers.  Except in the nineties.

[NotSuper]

I think what I meant is that Superman's villians ARE villainous...they're greedy, or cocky, or thieves, or warriors, or just plain insane.

But they're not evil in the real-world sense of it. It's ok for the Toyman to ruin Christmas, but not for him to be a child murderer. It's ok for Luthor to try to usurp governments and take over the world (with cool inventions) but not for him to take a pistol and murder people in cold blood, as we'd expect the Joker to do.  These villains have flaws, and they are criminals, but they are not murderers.  Except in the nineties.

I don't know about that. Villains like Luthor were extremely ruthless in the Golden Age and had few redeeming qualities. It's not really a recent trend to have Superman villains being really evil. Darkseid and Mongul were known to regularly kill people and even destroy whole civilizations. Even the Toyman had his darker moments--I believe he even killed the skinny Toyman. Heck, Metallo stole the hearts from people while they were still alive. All of these things happened before the Iron Age, too.

But I think there's a big difference between evil and exploitation. Just look at horror movies and you'll see that. We obviously don't look at Psycho as being the same as Last House on the Left--one is horror, the other is exploitation. It's the same with the past ages and the Iron Age. You brought up the example of the Toyman killing children, which is a good example of having a character become "dark" instead of writing a good story about him that shows why he's a threat to Superman. I think a better approach would've been to have the Toyman hate everyone EXCEPT children, who he would never hurt or abuse. It would've shown that even villains have good sides.

That being said, I do think there are certain kinds of things that we shouldn't see often in Superman. Stories that are too dark destroy the mood and theme of the stories.

Basically, I don't really have a problem with Superman villains killing, just as long as it isn't exploitation. Which means no killing for the "shock factor," too. No women in refridgerators.