Superman the Silver Age Newspaper Dailies Volume 3: 1963 1966 by Jerry Siegel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This volume collects the last twenty-two Superman Daily newspaper strip stories. There are some pretty fun stories in here, "The Man Who Stole Superman's Secret Life" is actually a sequel to a previous Superman amnesia story. "Lex Luthor, Daily Planet Editor" has both Superman and Luthor travelling back in time to 1906 San Francisco, "Lois Lane's Anti-Superman Campaign" is a very amusing tale that has Superman running for the Senate and Lois eventually running against him in a fun story that has a bit of a cop out ending to maintain the Status Quo. And the final, "From Riches to Rags" has Superman assuming a variety of identities to fight iniustice. The reason for this is a bit silly but it's still fun.

While I found most of the book enjoyable, it's easy to see why it's popularity was waning. There were far too many repetitive storylines. (Amnesia, Red Kryptonite) I had to laugh when I saw the story titled, "When Superman Lost His Memory." As if that hadn't happened a thousand times before. The tone of the story was also a bit more juvenile than would appeal to the general newspaper reading public, and as was pointed out in the introduction, most of these stories that were adapted were second features in the comics which meant they were lesser stories to start with.

Still, this book offers a lot of fun for readers who are young at heart and expanded versions of several comic stories that many a Superman fan would find delightful.



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