Superman: Birthright the Deluxe Edition

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.

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"

I read all of the bad reviews before picking up this trade, believing that it would pale in comparison to the John Byrne modern-age revamp of the character back in the 80s. I was almost tempted to tell the clerk at the store as she was ringing up the trade that I had changed my mind on buying it, thinking it might be a waste of $20. I sat down for a couple hours and read it front ot back, which is something I usually don't do for something 12 (comic) issues in length, and I found this instantly became my definitive origin for the Man of Steel, despite my love for Jeph Loeb's interpretation in his "Superman: For All Seasons." He wasn't instantly accepted by society as a savior, instead having to prove himself the hard way, against the machinations of a (for once) truly menacing Lex Luthor. This was the first trade in a while that I felt compelled to pick up again to flip through on the same day I read it. I'm generally a Marvel fan, but in these handful of instances such as with "Birthright" and "Batman: Year One" where DC publishes a gem that shines above the rest, at least within my opinion.

As I wrote in my previous review for "The Kingdom", Mark Waid is THE child of the Silver Age. There is an obvious love for the imaginative, dream-like and child-like stories of heroism from the Silver Age in all of Waid's writings. That's the reason Grant Morrison credits Waid for ending the all-pervasive grim-and-gritty mood that dominated comics since the mid-1980s. "Kingdom Come" (and "The Kingdom") is very much the last word on the Silver Age. In "JLA: Year One" and "The Brave and the Bold", Waid takes us back to the Silver Age to revisit that era one more time and to be inspired once more by the heroic spirit of John Broome and Gardner Fox one more time. And if you're looking for more of that here in "Superman: Birthright", you'll be sorely disappointed... Waid does with "Birthright" in 2003/4 what Frank Miller did with "Dark Knight Returns" in 1986. It's a statement about an icon to fit the times. And we all know that Silver Age is really in the past. We live in different times altogether. Miller told us that in the late 1980s. Waid is trying to do that for today. I can't read "Dark Knight" these days without a backward glance to 1986. In the same way, I think future readers will say that "Birthright" is really a product of the early 21st century, the post-9/11 world of camera-phones and real-time news media. Therefore, like Miller's "Dark Knight" it shares many of its strengths - "Birthright" attempts to be the DEFINITIVE statement on "who Superman is and why he does what he does". The whole thing reads like a philosophical inquiry into the Superman-mythos and is much like an amalgamation of everything that makes Superman great (from the Siegel/Shuster activist to the Fleischer animated champion of humanity to the Mort Weisinger sci-fi Kryptonian to Christopher Reeve and, of course John Byrne's "Man of Steel" and the current "Smallville"). However, the book also share many of the flaws of "Dark Knight" - it comes off more as a definitive VERSION of the character than a true representation of the timelessness of the original myth. Like I said in the above, "Dark Knight" is so '80s and in the same way, this work is sooooo 2003/4! Also, there is also the feeling that "Birthright" at times tries too hard to be great - even at the expanse of the story! All in all, despite its flaws, the work is noteworthy for its sharper redefinition of the young Superman trying to find his place in the universe (for can "our" world, whether it be Smallville or Metropolis, truly contain him?). It gives us a Kal-El who honors his Kryptonian heritage as much as it gives us a Clark Kent who believes in his Smallville upbringing. Much has been made about how Waid ignores established continuity as well as accusations of trying to plagiarise the "Smallville" Lex Luthor. My opinion? Sometimes a comic work comes along that's so big that it transcends "smaller" (I say that as a continuity-freak myself) things like "continuity". After all, the Superman myth is more

I am surprised by the other, less positive reviews, because I thought this book was superb. I am not a huge Superman fan, I don't get excited by "Smallville," and in general my comic book shopping cart is mostly filled with Marvel titles, but I think this has got to be the best Superman book I have ever read. It does a little of what Jeph Loeb did in "Superman For All Seasons" and picks up the clumsily discarded torch of "Smallville" to create a beautiful, modern Superman. The art is definitely among the most striking Superman art ever drawn, taking the best elements of manga and American comics to make a brightly colored and appealing book. For those of you familiar with "Invincible," it has a similar look except with more sheen, and more primary colors. This Superman is certainly a different Superman, and some people will take issue with the fact that he is, among other things, a vegetarian. This discrepancy Mark Waid makes up for it by his awesome portrayal of Clark, a confident and popular guy who has to hide his talents under the false guise of a wallflower in order to maintain his secret identity. Best of all is the ending, which is poignant, ironic, and will quite possibly make you cry.