- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Yale University Press (3 Jun 2011)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0300171242
- ISBN-13: 978-0300171242
- Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 13.2 x 1.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,272,071 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
""Our Hero: Superman on Earth" is cultural criticism of the first order that strikes home like a speeding bullet. With the stylistic skill of the novelist, the authority of the scholar, and the passion of a lover of the comic arts, Tom De Haven explores and explicates with keen insight one of the world's favorite icons."--M. Thomas Inge, author of "Comics as Culture"
--M. Thomas Inge --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
--M. Thomas Inge --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Product Description
Since his first appearance in "Action Comics" Number One, published in late spring of 1938, Superman has represented the essence of American heroism. 'Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound', the Man of Steel has thrilled audiences across the globe, yet as life-long "Superman Guy" Tom De Haven argues in this highly entertaining book, his story is uniquely American. Created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in the midst of the Great Depression, Superman is both a transcendent figure and, when posing as his alter-ego, reporter Clark Kent, a humble working-class citizen. An orphan and an immigrant, he shares a personal history with the many Americans who came to this country in search of a better life, and his amazing feats represent the wildest realization of the American dream. As De Haven reveals through behind-the-scenes vignettes, personal anecdotes, and lively interpretations of more than 70 years of comic books, radio programmes, TV shows, and Hollywood films, Superman's legacy seems, like the Man of Steel himself, to be utterly invincible.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The writers, artists, editors, and actors who populate Tom De Haven's new book orbit the idea of Superman, reflecting how the tides of fashion affect the character and illuminating how the Man of Steel weathers the years as a resilient but ultimately unchanging pop culture icon.
De Haven, author of an excellent Superman novel published in 2005, takes us on a fascinating tour not so much of Superman's history as of the men who shaped it. Jerry Siegel (always his own worst enemy) and Joe Shuster, the character's co-creators, may have envisioned him as a Depression-era social crusader against crooked politicians and businessmen, but kids and servicemen loved it. After the war, television came along with George Reeves' hardboiled, no-nonsense Clark Kent, while comic book editor Mort Weisinger was responsible for expanding the science fiction universe of the Superman titles, giving us, among other things, Krypton as Paradise Lost (though De Haven reads the Krypton story as a variation on both Moses and Chicken Little).
Superman and Clark Kent are a Rorschach blot for writers and actors: which is the real guy, and which is the assumed identity? (Christopher Reeve played it one way, Tom Welling another.) Would Superman be Superman without Lex Luthor? (Well, yeah -- but not without Lois Lane.) Is Superman "relevant" to us in the twenty-first century? (This one's tough to answer: as the self-invented Superman of 1938, De Haven inclines to a "yes," but as the Kansas farm boy instilled with heartland virtues by his foster parents, not so much.)
The subtitle of this book is "Superman on Earth," and it's really about how Superman looks to us, the natives of his adopted homeworld. What we admire about him, overlooking the silly but iconic red-and-blue suit. How, if at all, he inspires us to do more than we thought we could.
De Haven, author of an excellent Superman novel published in 2005, takes us on a fascinating tour not so much of Superman's history as of the men who shaped it. Jerry Siegel (always his own worst enemy) and Joe Shuster, the character's co-creators, may have envisioned him as a Depression-era social crusader against crooked politicians and businessmen, but kids and servicemen loved it. After the war, television came along with George Reeves' hardboiled, no-nonsense Clark Kent, while comic book editor Mort Weisinger was responsible for expanding the science fiction universe of the Superman titles, giving us, among other things, Krypton as Paradise Lost (though De Haven reads the Krypton story as a variation on both Moses and Chicken Little).
Superman and Clark Kent are a Rorschach blot for writers and actors: which is the real guy, and which is the assumed identity? (Christopher Reeve played it one way, Tom Welling another.) Would Superman be Superman without Lex Luthor? (Well, yeah -- but not without Lois Lane.) Is Superman "relevant" to us in the twenty-first century? (This one's tough to answer: as the self-invented Superman of 1938, De Haven inclines to a "yes," but as the Kansas farm boy instilled with heartland virtues by his foster parents, not so much.)
The subtitle of this book is "Superman on Earth," and it's really about how Superman looks to us, the natives of his adopted homeworld. What we admire about him, overlooking the silly but iconic red-and-blue suit. How, if at all, he inspires us to do more than we thought we could.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4 reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Neverending
2 April 2010
Format:Hardcover
The writers, artists, editors, and actors who populate Tom De Haven's new book orbit the idea of Superman, reflecting how the tides of fashion affect the character and illuminating how the Man of Steel weathers the years as a resilient but ultimately unchanging pop culture icon.
De Haven, author of an excellent Superman novel published in 2005, takes us on a fascinating tour not so much of Superman's history as of the men who shaped it. Jerry Siegel (always his own worst enemy) and Joe Shuster, the character's co-creators, may have envisioned him as a Depression-era social crusader against crooked politicians and businessmen, but kids and servicemen loved it. After the war, television came along with George Reeves' hardboiled, no-nonsense Clark Kent, while comic book editor Mort Weisinger was responsible for expanding the science fiction universe of the Superman titles, giving us, among other things, Krypton as Paradise Lost (though De Haven reads the Krypton story as a variation on both Moses and Chicken Little).
Superman and Clark Kent are a Rorschach blot for writers and actors: which is the real guy, and which is the assumed identity? (Christopher Reeve played it one way, Tom Welling another.) Would Superman be Superman without Lex Luthor? (Well, yeah -- but not without Lois Lane.) Is Superman "relevant" to us in the twenty-first century? (This one's tough to answer: as the self-invented Superman of 1938, De Haven inclines to a "yes," but as the Kansas farm boy instilled with heartland virtues by his foster parents, not so much.)
The subtitle of this book is "Superman on Earth," and it's really about how Superman looks to us, the natives of his adopted homeworld. What we admire about him, overlooking the silly but iconic red-and-blue suit. How, if at all, he inspires us to do more than we thought we could.
De Haven, author of an excellent Superman novel published in 2005, takes us on a fascinating tour not so much of Superman's history as of the men who shaped it. Jerry Siegel (always his own worst enemy) and Joe Shuster, the character's co-creators, may have envisioned him as a Depression-era social crusader against crooked politicians and businessmen, but kids and servicemen loved it. After the war, television came along with George Reeves' hardboiled, no-nonsense Clark Kent, while comic book editor Mort Weisinger was responsible for expanding the science fiction universe of the Superman titles, giving us, among other things, Krypton as Paradise Lost (though De Haven reads the Krypton story as a variation on both Moses and Chicken Little).
Superman and Clark Kent are a Rorschach blot for writers and actors: which is the real guy, and which is the assumed identity? (Christopher Reeve played it one way, Tom Welling another.) Would Superman be Superman without Lex Luthor? (Well, yeah -- but not without Lois Lane.) Is Superman "relevant" to us in the twenty-first century? (This one's tough to answer: as the self-invented Superman of 1938, De Haven inclines to a "yes," but as the Kansas farm boy instilled with heartland virtues by his foster parents, not so much.)
The subtitle of this book is "Superman on Earth," and it's really about how Superman looks to us, the natives of his adopted homeworld. What we admire about him, overlooking the silly but iconic red-and-blue suit. How, if at all, he inspires us to do more than we thought we could.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
A bit too earthbound
3 April 2010
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
An enjoyable read, but I was hoping for greater insight into the cultural context and iconography of Superman over the changing American decades and mediums. Much of the book is spent chronicling the stories of the men who wrote or published the comics rather than the character himself.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
The Lure Super Heroes? Let's Start with the Original: Superman
16 Mar 2010
Format:Hardcover
It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's the red-yellow-and-blue rocket fuel that has driven most of the Top-20 grossing movies of all time to global success! Of course, I'm talking here about comic-book superheroes collectively. And, specifically the American archetype is Superman.
The visitor from Krypton is the focus of the latest volume in Yale University Press' "Icons of America" series. If you haven't discovered this rich collection of books, then you're in for hours of cool reading! Previous volumes invite readers to think in fresh ways about: Fred Astaire, the American hamburger, the Empire State Building, "Gone with the Wind" and one-room schoolhouses, among the dozen earlier titles. To get your toes wet in this series, I can particularly recommend: Frankly, My Dear: "Gone with the Wind" Revisited (Icons of America) and Nearest Thing to Heaven: The Empire State Building and American Dreams (Icons of America)
Tom DeHaven, whose alter ego is as an English professor by day, wrote this book-length meditation on Superman. DeHaven is a perfect choice after writing an earlier novel about the early Superman, It's Superman!: A Novel, as well as other comic-related books. As he points out in this new book, DeHaven was all over the news media a few years ago when "Superman Returns" was released in movie theaters--as a go-to guy to answer journalists' questions about Superman.
If you're reading this review, you may very well be a true fan of comics and graphic novels--and, trust me if you're in that camp of readers, this guy's the real deal. Yes, DeHaven has logged his time, over the years, standing outside of comic stories in the early morning waiting for the doors to open and certain key issues to be released.
This book, like others in this Yale series, invites us to read along and "think through" this caped superhero's enduring role in our culture. A cool experience, indeed!
The visitor from Krypton is the focus of the latest volume in Yale University Press' "Icons of America" series. If you haven't discovered this rich collection of books, then you're in for hours of cool reading! Previous volumes invite readers to think in fresh ways about: Fred Astaire, the American hamburger, the Empire State Building, "Gone with the Wind" and one-room schoolhouses, among the dozen earlier titles. To get your toes wet in this series, I can particularly recommend: Frankly, My Dear: "Gone with the Wind" Revisited (Icons of America) and Nearest Thing to Heaven: The Empire State Building and American Dreams (Icons of America)
Tom DeHaven, whose alter ego is as an English professor by day, wrote this book-length meditation on Superman. DeHaven is a perfect choice after writing an earlier novel about the early Superman, It's Superman!: A Novel, as well as other comic-related books. As he points out in this new book, DeHaven was all over the news media a few years ago when "Superman Returns" was released in movie theaters--as a go-to guy to answer journalists' questions about Superman.
If you're reading this review, you may very well be a true fan of comics and graphic novels--and, trust me if you're in that camp of readers, this guy's the real deal. Yes, DeHaven has logged his time, over the years, standing outside of comic stories in the early morning waiting for the doors to open and certain key issues to be released.
This book, like others in this Yale series, invites us to read along and "think through" this caped superhero's enduring role in our culture. A cool experience, indeed!
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