★★★★★ 5
This is a Superman I can believe in
Format: Paperback
This is the original Superman, the one who made the character a hit. His powers have limits - a fire threatens his life! - and he uses them for the little guy, against social injustice. One of the best stories, from Action #5, has Supes fighting a breaking dam and flood, but mostly he's fighting human crookedness - crooked lobbyists, crooked football coaches, crooked mine owners, crooked taxi rackets. This Superman is a law unto himself, dependent on nothing but his strength and his personal sense of right. He's a lot more like Samson in that way than he's a Christ figure, and the result is stories in which he lightheartedly smashes slums so the government will have to build decent housing for the poor, smashes cars of reckless drivers, smashes an oil well to bankrupt the crooked promoters. Private property means nothing to him. Neither do legal rights. He's not here to fight for law and order, he's here to fight for justice as he sees it. The police? the government? They're feckless at best, and more often they're part of the problem. There's a strong Progressive sensibility here: if institutions don't benefit the people, the people need to take charge and change things. That's the Superman we see here, and it's the Superman I like best - the original Superman with brute vigor, a passion for justice with no subtlety, and no taking himself too seriously. It's not art, but it's what made comic books. And it still stands up.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 16, 2014