It's Superman!

by Tom De Haven

Book Overview

Coming of age in rural 1930s America with X-ray vision, the power to stop bullets, and the ability to fly isn't exactly every boy's story. So just how did Clark Kent, a shy farmer's son, grow up to be... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345493923
• ISBN13: 9780345493927
• Release Date: August 2006
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 417 Pages
• Weight: 0.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Fantastic!! (I didn't want to say Super!)

This was a great read! I'm not a huge fan of Superman stories, and have always found the character (as portrayed in movies and recent comics) to be quite one-dimensional and boring. This book definitely added life to the character and helped me understand where he came from. Written as if Smallville (the television show) had continued past Clark's high school years and taken place in the 1930s, this book establishes the relationships of Clark, Lois and Lex in the setting of a murder mystery or crime novel. Lex is the manipulative politician and businessman who begins to show signs of his mad scientist phase. The characters (including those who did not appear in the comics) were interesting and likeable. I actually cared what happened to these people. I would highly recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys sci-fi/fantasy/superhero tales, as well as to anyone who loves the feeling of 30s noir and pulp stories. It really made me feel as if I was in the 30s, watching as a superhero developed.

"...he will go on out and do the best that he can, like everybody else. Just like everybody else."

I am a huge Superman fan, and I loved everything about this novel. I also enjoy the 1930-40s as a historical setting, so it's like this book was tailored for me. I cannot recommend this novel enough. While it was admittedly very important to me that De Haven get the iconic core of the character "Superman" right, I also think this book could be enjoyable to someone unfamiliar with all the Superman lore. There's a lot of American history intermingled with the story of Clark Kent growing into Superman. This works no two levels: illustrating why two boys during this real-life era felt the need to invent a character like this, and what about Superman makes him, to this day, a sort of American institution. In this novel, Clark Kent is only one of several characters who grows into themselves. Characters like Lois Lane and Lex Luthor parallel original characters like Willi Berg, who becomes a unifying element for the individual threads to the story. One of the things I really loved about the book was that every single character, from major to minor, seems to work extremely hard to "become" who they are by the end of the novel. While their upbringing contributes, and so too do their circumstances, somewhere in their life-journey is the definitive choice or choices that sets them on the path they lead. If you believe in an old-fashioned American ideology that reinforces ideals like the fundamental power of choice, the possibility of struggling toward a better future, the self-made man, and the capacity of each of us to be extraordinary in our own ways, I recommend this novel. It's both a richly layered and an entertaining read.

Gritty and Full-Bodied

This is an alternate retelling of Superman's life. It is set in the first third of the last century. It's dirty and unpleasant at times. It also paints a believable picture of a less than perfect Clark Kent and his road to enlightenment. Much like the movie "Batman Begins" only far more down trodden and scruffy. I was an avid Superman fan from the late 60's and every once in a while I try to get into all the modernizations that have been perpetrated on Supes but the newer versions either tend to drop the humanity for the sensationalism of his awesome powers or they try to focus on his Clark Kent side and make him weak and less than he used to be. This novel tries to do neither and yet does both surprisingly well. To me it is the best book written of Superman since Elliot S. Maggin wrote a couple of noels in the late 70's and maybe better than those.

Welcome to the 1930s in America, Clark!

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.

It's a New-Old Superman! And It's Wizard and Keen!

I want to heartily urge everyone to read ITS SUPERMAN by Tom DeHaven, but also want to "warn" you that its a very different type of Superman story...in some ways. Its basically Superman's "origin" but set more in the "real world" than ever before. You will find much, much more Clark Kent here than the Big Blue Boy Scout. There's real people populating this novel, real emotions, real actions, real personalities, and really wonderful, quirky characters and situations. DeHaven veers off from the comic book Superman mythos at various points but these diversions are worthwhile and fascinating. One of the most interesting characters in the book is Lex Luthor. DeHaven paints him as the train wreck you can't look away from, evil and calculating, but intriguing and deep. He's a combination of the out-and-out villainous Luthor of legend and the more-recent crooked-businessman from the modern comics. The dialogue is crisp and multi-faceted and the scenes are poignant and...humorous. Yes, there's humor here, but this is definitely not a "comedy" novel. DeHaven's fans will know what to expect. The situations are sometimes so outrageous that you may laugh and smile at the same time you cringe and feel the horror. Its not a pristine world this Superman lives in. Its a sweaty, often soiled world and all is not clean and bright. But is is captivating and literary. Bravo, Mr. DeHaven. A truly unique novel. Jim!