From Publishers Weekly
A focus on Clark Kent's high school years only makes comparison to the popular WB show
Smallville all the more inevitable—and intentional. De Haven, whose
Derby Dugan trilogy beautifully reimagined 20th-century American history through a pleasant sheen of media-tized irony, presents the man of steel as a sullen Depression-era teen, a bad WII-era reporter and as ambivalent about his super powers throughout, all with a kind of knowing that reflects a deep immersion in pulp. De Haven drives his coming-of-age tale toward Superman's first showdown with Lex Luthor and his robot "Lexbots" in the middle of (the real!) New York City—prompted, of course, by the need to save Lois Lane. He gets knocked off his feet by the Lexbots and temporarily dazed. He doesn't want to continue, doesn't think he can win. Suddenly, in an echo of recent Batman and Spiderman film adaptations, a disembodied voice rings out: "Now get off that silly chair and go do something. Doesn't matter what. Just do something, Clark." (It's his mother.) If that's not over-the-top enough, plenty of short chapters begin with lines like "Despite Lex Luthor's savvy and sensitive draft report on the Harlem race riot...." De Haven gives readers X-ray vision for determining when his tongue is in his cheek here; using it is great fun.
(Nov. 1) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
De Haven's Derby Dugan trilogy--
Funny Papers, 1988;
Derby Dugan's Depression Funnies 1996;
Dugan under Ground, 2001--presaged Michael Chabon's
Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000) and outdid it by encompassing the history of comics from early newspaper strips to the undergrounds of the sixties. De Haven now undertakes an authorized re-imagining of the early years of Superman. De Haven convincingly and touchingly depicts the young Clark Kent's apprehensions and insecurities as he comes to terms with his extraordinary abilities in 1930s rural Kansas. Concurrently, he tracks Lois Lane's beginnings in journalism and the plotting for power of New York City political boss Lex Luthor (no "Metropolis" masquerade here). While hewing to the basic outline of the venerable Superman mythos--his intergalactic background, his straight-arrow upbringing in Smallville, and his blue-and-red costume--De Haven finds ways to make even its more outlandish elements work. If it doesn't quite transcend its origins, De Haven's novel shows that, nearly 70 years after his creation, the Man of Steel still has plenty to offer.
Gordon FlaggCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
