I’d attempted to read this several years ago and gave up, because of the density of the cussing, right in the prologue. I tried it again now because I’m currently re-watching “Lois and Clark,” one of my favorite series from back in the day, and I couldn’t quite get enough Superman. I got past the cussing this time and discovered that was just the “action” up front. There was more cussing in the rest of the book, but not nearly as intense as it was at the beginning.
The story follows Clark as a teenager in Smallville, before he’s Superman, and before he even knows he’s not human. He knows he has strange powers, but they’re popping up almost unbidden, and he’s almost frightened of them, as he doesn’t yet know what they are and doesn’t entirely have control over them either. It’s like they’re showing up with puberty or something, except that he’s almost 18 by this point. This is the part of the story that most intrigued me, though the depiction of Clark as a teenager is really not classic “Superman”–he’s more of a moody teenager in this one, though I think that was realistic and believable. He also had a crush on a girl named Gloria, even though Lana Lang (supposed to be his high school sweetheart) was a character in the story, and he had a brief moment of attraction with her; she’s otherwise just his best friend.
The actual plot was a bit woke, though. It was very heavily focused on racism, in a superficial way that no one could possibly disagree with, but it painted a lot of complicated political issues with a very broad brush, as if there was only one moral high ground: the “racist” and the “not racist” position. But of course; the book was written in 2019. The author (or maybe his publisher?) couldn’t resist erecting a “straw man” and then having Superman beat the everliving tar out of it.
My rating: ***1/2
Language: moderate
Sexual content: none
Violence: present but not gratuitous
Political content: moderate to heavy
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