Edited by John Darowski
Published by McFarland & Company
This is a tough one. Unfortunately, Adapting Superman—Essays on the Transmedia Man of Steel, a recent book from McFarland & Company edited by John Darowski, suffers the same problem as other anthologies and that’s the fact that not all chapters are created equal.
Darowski himself serves up some of the best parts with his detailed Introduction and his chapter on the US, UK, and Australian radio adventures of Superman (written with Joseph A. Darowski).
Sixteen other writers—not a one of whose writing I have ever run across before now—proceed to offer their detailed takes on Smallville, Lois and Clark (including fanfic!), Man of Steel, a little-known Superman Euro-comic, the movie Brightburn, and a couple of chapters on Lex Luthor.
I could have done without those last three. Brightburn, of course, while it wouldn’t exist without Superman, is NOT Superman, nor technically related. And Lex, while certainly important to the mythos, really doesn’t need two whole chapters here. In fact, a whole book of essays on Luthor might prove interesting but two chapters here seems at least one too many.
And why is there a chapter on Tintin?
Some of the more interesting sections of this volume include the one on the legendary Superman vs. the KKK story, Superman in videogames (including Injustice, the movie of which I recently reviewed), and the George Reeves television series. Surprisingly under-represented in coverage, though, are the Christopher Reeve movies, the various post-Fleischer animated versions, and especially the off-Broadway musical play from 1966.
As with any collection of essays on one basic subject, there’s bound to be some repetition and that’s certainly true with Adapting Superman. In fact, the chapters, “The Dawn of the Man of Tomorrow” by William J. Lorenzo and “Forging an S into a Myth” by Liam Webb, cover much the same ground, right down to similar footnotes. But they’re also the best chapters in the book, attempting as they do to put our hero’s development into context, showing that the basic character that has become THE iconic superhero, was not created whole but rather took a bit from the newspaper strip, added some from a novel, adapted bits from the radio and movie serials, as well as the gorgeous 1940s cartoons and more.
Eventually, Superman transcended Siegel and Shuster’s creation to become something new. There’s no denying that they gave the character the spark of life, using their own pulp and fitness backgrounds, but Superman at his best, due to his worldwide appearances in all media, has come to represent a type of hope that Jerry and Joe never even imagined. That comes across well in these sections.
I mentioned footnotes and I’m on record as not liking pretentious, “scholarly” examinations of unscholarly subjects. This book is not like that. All the chapters are readable and the footnotes here—required, I believe, by McFarland for all their publications as they’re generally aimed at a smaller, specialized audience—are often more informative than the text to which they refer back.
In the end, I think I have to pass on fully recommending Adapting Superman—Essays on the Transmedia Man of Steel, as I feel the repetitiveness, incompleteness, and the lesser sections outweigh what’s there in the better chapters, but I must admit I did learn some things from the latter and you might as well.
Booksteve aaaaalmost recommends.
