Superman Archives, Vol. 3 by Jerry Siegel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book contains full color reprints of 1941's Superman stories and it's a blast. There's nothing monumental here, though Lex Luthor puts in a couple of pretty good appearances. In 1941, Siegel was gearing up for World War II by putting Superman up against obvious stand-ins for the Germans.

There's Clark Kent acting weak and cowardly to protect his secret identity while Lois gets herself into one terrific danger after another. There's weak characterization on part of many of the one time use villains. There are problems and repetitiveness.

However, any book with Golden Age Superman is a good book. He's at his scrapping best as he fights evil and takes on some pretty good mysteries. Siegel's solution to the inherent problem of Superman's strength: give him a mystery that requires some brain power. These are good-sized stories particularly with the number of panels per page in these 14 page stories.

This book was also nice for showing some of the other features including the less than stellar text stories and some amusing short comics including strange facts and one liners. A big highlight for me was the inclusion of two newsletters from Superman trying to teach kids good citizenship. It's great stuff and an enjoyable read.



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