Superman: Birthright

[Serasid]

A fairly recent Comic mini-series and now a graphic novel compilation, Birthright is a new-age telling of the Man-of-steels origins.

Has anyone here read/heard of it?

[Fifthfiend]

Totally! I thought it was pretty great, but also flawed in a lot of places.

The redefinition of the Lex/Clark relationship adds depth without garbling the mythos, and the inability of the smartest man alive to figure out the massive riddle staring him in the face is actually intelligently explained. The Clark/Superman dichotomy is interestingly defined though it kind of comes off as though Clark just relocates his entire identity into the Superman persona, although I'm not actually sure whether that's a bad point or a worthwhile bit of drama. As any Mark Waid books, the story really captures some singular moments, like with Superman hoisting the massive S-shield over the child. Superman being a vegetarian is the second stupidest idea anybody ever had about Superman, right after the one about how Superman would be physically incapable of banging Lois Lane, aaaaaand Ma Kent grinding herself up against her adopted son's rippling abs = supa creepy.

On the whole, probably one of the better versions of the Superman origin that have been told, and extremely servicable as a backbone for ongoing comics storytelling.

[Nique]

If I'm not mistaken, they used the latest 'Crisis' incident to explain why 'birthright' was now cannon instead of whatever the previous non-clark/lex-as-buddies version was.

I liked birthright myself. The art and color was pretty different, and in comics thats almost always a good thing. I liked how they explained why-come no one could tell that Clark Was Superman... It was better than the old 'he blurs his face whenever someone takes a picture of him' explination.

[Serasid]

Yeah, it is indeed a very well written and drawn comic. The fact that they made Clark a vegetarian, to me, doesn't take away from anything. In fact, the way they explained it was fine with me.

The Lex/Clark relationship was well done, and the way they tied it all together was great. And they did indeed do a good job explaining why the similarties between Clark and Superman weren't noticed. But its another one of those things that you just kind of have to accept.

In my opinion, it doesn't matter that "everyone in the comic is stupid cause they can't tell Clark is Superman." I am satisfied with whatever explaination is given for that particular incarnation.