Superman: Birthright Author: Visit Amazon's Mark Waid Page | Language: English | ISBN:
1401202527 | Format: PDF
Superman: Birthright Description
From Booklist
Superman's origins have been imagined and reimagined over the years. Here is a new take on the character's roots.
Superman: Birthright retells the early chapters of Superman's story, from escape as an infant from the doomed planet Krypton to arrival as reporter Clark Kent at the
Daily Planet and his first public exploits. Writer Waid puts his own spin on the legend, rethinking nearly every aspect of the venerable character while remaining respectful of his established history. Waid wisely integrates ideas from the popular TV series
smallville but doesn't slavishly follow its innovations; for instance, a young Lex Luthor befriends Clark in high school, but unlike in the series, his sinister nature is clear even then. Waid similarly tweaks the rest of the well-known cast, from Lois Lane and Clark's other
Planet colleagues to Ma and Pa Kent. Ironically, though he updates the character, Waid evokes Superman's pre-World War II incarnation, whom his Depression-reared creators kept engaged in righting society's ills. Leinil Francis Yu's stylized artwork is expressively dynamic to the point of caricature, but this larger-than-life visual approach befits the retelling of a myth.
Gordon FlaggCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
"Birthright has everything a Superman fan could want...Mark Waid was born to write Superman."—BrokenFrontier
"...a rich retelling and revamping of Superman's origin."—The Fourth Rail
See all Editorial Reviews
- Paperback: 314 pages
- Publisher: DC Comics (October 1, 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1401202527
- ISBN-13: 978-1401202521
- Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7 x 0.5 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
"People know now, it stands for courage. It stands for hope. It stands for SUPERMAN."
What makes the Man of Tomorrow take his stand? What goes through a young boy's mind that causes him to don tights and a cape and a big red "S" and stand up to fight for truth, justice, and the American way? These are questions that get asked when the real question is, "Why should we care about a man who cannot be hurt?"
These are the questions that Mark Waid and Leinil Francis Yu set out to answer in Superman: Birthright.
This book was the big effort from DC to bring the Man of Steel into the 21st century, and it was the job of the writer, artist, and the rest of the collaborators to accomplish this while keeping true to the spirit of the character created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster. A new view of a familiar origin was needed, a new perspective on characters that had been loved for over six decades, and Superman Birthright accomplishes all that and more.
We first see Superman as Kal El, infant son of Jor El and Lara during Krypton's last dying hours. The familiar elements are there - his parents will send him to earth where his Kryptonian biology will gain incredible powers from the radiation of Earth's yellow sun, but before he goes, he is wrapped in the Flag of Krypton and given a recordings of its history. This is where Waid and Yu really start to dig into the mythology and explore some new motivations. The "S" symbol is not just the El family crest, not just a sign on a blanket sent with the last son of Krypton to his new home - it is a reminder of his heritage, a symbol of his people and what they stood for, and something that Clark Kent will always carry with him.
When Mark Waid and the editors at DC Comics first announced their plans for Superman: Birthright, I was excited. From all accounts, it looked like it was going to be the continuation of the Smallville Superman, taken out of the TV show and moved forwards eight or ten years, and the story of how that Clark Kent first came to put on the costume. Which I was quite excited for; the tying in of this newest part of the legend back to its original format seemed like a very good idea. By the end of the first issue, it was somewhat obvious that it was more Ultimate Superman than Smallville; while taking elements from the TV show, it was clearly set in its own universe.
But then came the big news; the sources from on high had ruled that, after seventeen years, Superman's origin had grown stale and needed revision - and that Birthright would henceforth be the origin of the one, true Superman. For a while, it seemed like the entire Superman universe was in limbo; was the S-man about to be rebooted? Were nearly two decades of history about to be written over? Well, yes and no.
It ended up that this story was designed to be a sort of prequel to the current Superman's history, that they were rewriting his history from the present but that it was actually to take place in the past. Unfortunately, either someone forgot to get Waid the memo or the story was too far along to change, as the entire run seems more like the first 12 issues of a new continuum than the rewriting of Superman's past in a way that would make sense in today's continuity.
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