In 2005 or 2006, I bought the novel
It's Superman! by Tom De Haven. And, I never read it. I don't know why. I read the first couple of chapters and then loaned it to Judy (my mother-in-law) and when it came back a week later, I just never finished the book.
Truthfully, I didn't really understand the point of the book. Who was Tom De Haven? With television, comics, movies, cartoons, etc... all spinning their own take, why go to the media where Superman hasn't had as much success as elsewhere? Why start over?
After listening to the novel as an audiobook from Blackstone (delivered via audible), I'm still not exactly sure. Yes, the novel provides angles and insights movies and comics might not. It follows inner monologues, switches points of view with tremendous regularity, but it also seems to lack a certain insight into Superman, the sort of insight that I think has been understood by others in recent media, from Mark Waid's
Birthright to Paul Dini and Alex Ross's
Peace on Earth to Morrison's
All Star Superman to bits and snippets of
Superman Returns. And, again, I think I'm seeing it in Grant Morrison's
Action Comics.
Between buying the book of
It's Superman! and listening to the audiobook (thank goodness for long car rides), I read De Haven's follow up to this one. The follow up, however, wasn't another novel. Instead, it was a meditation on Superman entitled
Our Hero: Superman on Earth. It was a nuanced read but it also informs some of what I think De Haven struggled with in writing
It's Superman! and where he and I might part ways in our opinions of what's going on with the character.
