I was noticing that there are very few books starring superheroes that are actually good. Generally when a superhero text novel is published, it’s a good bet that it’s going to be bad (and yes I’m looking at you Kevin J Anderson). But the ones that are good mainly happen to be Superman related books. There have been Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, Iron Man and countless other novels and most of them aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. But Superman has made his mark in the novel world. To celebrate that I’m going to go over my top 5 Superman books. I’m including a couple comic ones also, since they’re too go to be ignored. Today we’ll start with the Honorable Mentions:

Supreme: The Story of the Year was Alan Moore’s non-Superman Superman. The only reason that it’s an honorable mention is because it’s not about Superman, but it is. This collection of the Alan Moore Supreme stories starts off with a new Supreme being sent into reality by the Supreme leaving reality. There is a tour of the space where Supremes go when they are replaced by the next generation of Supremes. After that meta-Supreme story, we dive into Ethan Crane (the Clark Kent analog) and Supreme story with multiple digressions back to earlier adventures (lovingly drawn in older styles by Rick Veitch among others). Alan Moore tears down Supreme while he builds him back up. The Lex Luthor analog Darius Dax makes a wonderful foe (and an amazing twist) as Alan Moore gets to write a wonderful homage to the Superman stories he grew up with. Highly, highly recommended.

Superfolks I reviewed previously and has the same issue as Supreme. It’s not Superman, even though it is. Superfolks suffers a bit due to the enormous number of 70s references that make it not age well. But, it should be read. The satirical look at the world of politics and superheroes makes it well worth reading.

We’ll be back tomorrow with our countdown from #5 to #1.