Not sophisticated for modern tastes, but a fun retro to a lot of the classic Superman stories. A lot of the inner monologuing and some of the jokes are pretty corny and lack depth, but still enjoyable. Looking forward to more contemporary Superman stories, hopefully they're more like Red Son. ( )

I've never been a big fan of Superman. For me, he's simply too powerful, with no real weaknesses. He's an interesting character study, but for the most part, he's always been far too much of a boy scout to really capture my imagination.

But then, along came Byrne, who promised to shake things up and give us the Superman we deserve.

Instead, he mostly told us things we already knew, just making the telling a touch prettier. Over the first 27-ish years these six issues span, we're treated to some average storytelling, some pretty art, and the rest is rather vacuous.

We're introduced to Ma and Pa Kent, Lana Lang (who really gets a short shrift in her very few pages), Lois Lane, Lex Luthor (Christ, what's with all the L alliteration in this series?), and Jimmy Olsen. We get a bit of Supe's real parents, and a whiff of Perry White, and a frankly dumb and insulting issue starring Bizarro. And he did something I didn't think Byrne was capable of...he made Batman boring.

Byrne's better than this. But he seemed reluctant to stray too far from what had already been done before. Superman is almost sickeningly moral.

I remember, 34 years ago, when my buddy Allan had purchased the first issue or two of this, and I was flipping through it. There's one scene where Clark is seen sitting in the dark in his bedroom back in Smallville. His parents come in, and he says something like, "They all just wanted a piece of me."

I remember how excited I was at that single panel. That, to me, spoke volumes. How do you humanize and de-power someone like Superman? By taking it all for granted. By wanting to stretch him so thin, by pulling him in different ways, by turning him into a brand instead of a man...that angle could have been interesting to read about. But, nope, Ma and Pa helped make him a suit, and he learned to put on glasses, and everything was great again.

Considering, at the same time, from the same publisher, a little title called Watchmen was being unleashed, this little experiment fell really flat for me. ( )

Kiddo dove into this the moment I handed it to him - and he's just as eager as I to read the next volume :) ( )

John Byrne and Dick Giordano's The Man of Steel collects the first six issues of the post-Crisis Man of Steel comic, which reintroduced Superman to the DC universe with a modern update. Byrne and Giordano reimagine the circumstances of Jor-El and Lara's launch of baby Kal-El to Earth and his subsequent adventures. Lois Lane gets an design and personality update to match the late 1980s while Superman and Lex Luthor's rivalry begins anew under different circumstances. Byrne and Giordano's version of Superman first meeting Batman is true to the characters, who initially distrust each other due to their different outlooks on the world and methods, but ultimately respect each other. Even Bizarro gets a new origin that better grounds him in reality, removing his pre-Crisis alternate universe background. Though DC has rebooted these characters at least twice since this, Byrne and Giordano's story is true to the character and reflects the best of what Superman represents, regardless of the time period. ( )

John Byrne's restart of the Superman Franchise. It starts where most reboots of Superman start, Krypton being destroyed. He gets shot into space, lands in the Kent's backyard and grows up in Smallville (this time playing football instead of being the water boy). Then he goes to Metropolis, saves the day, but needs and gets made a costume and meets Lois Lane. And so starts the legend again.

I'm mostly ambivalent about the art. It's okay, but not what I prefer in my comic book art. The faces seem to be very weirdly drawn.

Still, where I don't like Byrne's art, I do like most of his stories. The Batman/Superman one especially has interesting interactions between Batman and Superman. And the Bizzaro story was fun too, I always love a good Bizzaro story. ( )