Customer Reviews

Original Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes, Volume 3: Superman

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This is a wonderful volume for any Superman fan, and I'm glad to see it back in print. My acquaintance with this book dates to its original publication in the late '70s. The story behind it, if I remember correctly: Michael Fleisher, apparently a longtime comics fan, was employed churning out Encylopedia Britannica entries, when one day, as a joke, he wrote an entry for "Kent, Clark." It amused the gang at the office, and it started him thinking -- why not an entire book of that sort?

Apparently he launched an ambitious effort to catalogue and encyclopedize the entire DC superhero lineup, under the title, "The Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes." I remember seeing the first volume of the series, on Batman, in my local bookstore, in something like 1977. Of course I bought a copy. Still have it somewhere, too. A page toward the front outlined the entire ambitious project -- a dozen or so volumes, right down to some of the most minor characters in what comics fans sometime later started calling the 'DC Universe.' Pity that it never was completed. Only the first three volumes were published -- Batman and Wonder Woman, and then, after a considerable delay, Superman. The third volume came under a much different binding and title -- "The Great Superman Book" -- and it was issued by a different publisher, Warner, which by then was a corporate cousin of DC Comics. This suggests that the idea of a multi-volume encylopedia had already been abandoned by the time the Superman volume was published. And it stands to reason. In the late '70s, how on earth could a project like this one make money? This was, you have to remember, a time when comics basically were sold in grocery stores for 20 cents a copy, and the national network of comics specialty shops was still 10 years in the future.

The book covers every Superman story from the beginning of the series in 1938 through the mid-sixties, offering capsule descriptions of every story and encyclopedia-style entries on some of the more important elements of Superman lore, like the Fortress of Solitude and so forth. Fleisher points out the contradictions in the Superman saga that cropped up over time, as comic-book writers made it all up as they went along. And he does it in the pseudo-objective style of the encyclopedia writer, reporting the made-up world of Superman as genuine fact.

At the time of its publication, it was really the only way to find out what had gone on in some of those early Superman comics -- it wasn't as if anyone was bothering to reprint them, and the older stories were really inaccessible. And over the years, whenever I pulled one of those dusty paperbacks off the shelf, I found myself wondering what posessed Fleisher to attempt such an obviously non-commercial project. My guess was that, like me as a teenager, he just wanted a chance to read Superman from the beginning, he happened to be in New York, and he invented an excuse to gain access to the DC archives. One of the more amusing passages in his preface indicates that over time the whole thing seemed like such a delight at first, and then it started to get a little grueling. And I find myself imagining what must have happened. Just imagine reading thousands of comic-book stories in, oh, a couple of months. You have to think the charm would begin wearing off. He starts noticing that many of the Superman stories have pretty much the same plot -- Superman behaves strangely, and it turns out to be an "elaborate ruse" to capture some lawbreaker or supervillain. But he's got an advance from his publisher, he's committed to finishing the project, and so he just keeps plugging away, writing his synopses, no matter how bored he gets. I think he uses the term "elaborate ruse" a couple hundred times. And then, for some reason, he runs out of gas in 1965 or so. Maybe his publisher told him enough, already. Or maybe he decided the same thing himself.

Anyway, the result was something very cool -- three books that catalog the adventures of DC's three greatest heroes during the first 25 years or so of publication, written in a dry encyclopedic style that nevertheless shows flashes of wit. The volumes are considerably more interesting than the later official "encyclopedias" of comic-book "universes" that Marvel and DC published in the '80s and '90s. And it's wonderful to see these three obscure volumes available for sale once more, at what I would consider bargain prices.

I must say I was very dissapointed when I received this. It says inside that it was originally printed in 1978 under the name "The Great Superman Book." Thus, the presentation leaves much to be desired. It's pretty much the same way it was originally printed, in newsprint with old fashioned lettering. While the encyclopedia is very thick and full with information, you would think that a Superman Encyclopedia being printed in 2007 would include EVERYTHING from his first appearance in Action Comics #1 in 1938 to the present. Well, no, it's not updated at all, you won't find any reference to events that took place after 1978... and a lot has happened in those 30 years... among them several continuity altering Crisis, a re-inventing by John Byrne, and can any Superman fan own any kind of encyclopedia that does not at least state that Superman is currently MARRIED to Lois Lane!?

Another draw back is that there are very little images and comic panels featured, and in a medium that is so visual as comics, this detracts greatly from the book's appeal. For the same reason, lack of color is also a downer.

In all, if you are a Golden Age and Silver Age Superman fan, and own many older Superman comics or Archives compilations (and odds are you are probably over 40 years old), this book would probably will be of interest to you. If you are a more modern or younger comic fan and aren't interested in older books, skip this item and move along.