The Man of Steel by Brian Michael Bendis

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Man of Steel isn't a bad book, but its a book that doesn't quite seem worth the title. It evokes images of John Byrne's classic mini-series which re-imagined Superman for the post-Crisis era. This book doesn't do that. Instead, Man of Steel is a prologue to Bendis' run on Superman and Action Comics, setting the stage for a new status quo.

Bendis' decision to have Krypton destroyed by a genocidal madman is the biggest innovation in the book and I don't think the book justified this big change Superman's origin 80 years in. The rest of the story sets up a less happy, more brooding Superman and changes the status quo in ways that seem to suit Bendis rather than serving to provide better stories. This is also a book where it could have been twenty pages shorter.

So overall, this is an obligatory read, but a somewhat mediocre one.



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