Superman Returns

I watched the movie last year, now I'm reading the book, then I"ll watch the movie again.The nice thing about movie novelizations is that they include details that we often don't get a chance to see in the movie, or which the producers assume we'd figure out on our own.We even get to hear the words that baby Kal-El is thinking on Krypton and in the rocket, and get additional scenes (or better understanding of some scenes). For example, I don't remember young Clark's room having stars on the ceiling, nor do I remember "returned" Clark looking up at that ceiling, but the five year old Clark had actually arranged the stars on the ceiling in the constellation patterns as seen from Krypton, which Clark did not realize until he returned from his trip to Krypton Space.But in this particular novel, the book leaves out details that are in the movie. There is nothing in the book about little Jason Lane having superpowers that are slowly developing, which is unfortunate. I was looking forward to learning more about that from the book.For those of you who love all the incarnations of Superman, check out: Archives.org where you will find many of the now public-domain RADIO episodes of Superman from the 1940's.John

In this novel version by Marv Wolfman there is a lot that is covered that is not covered in the movie or shooting script versions. For one, Superman's trip to Krypton is entirely covered, explaining more why he went. Also his origin on Krypton is covered more thoroughly than it was even in the original Superman movie. We get to know Jor-El and Lara (Superman's birth parents) a lot better than ever before. There are chapters covering all this before the book even gets to what is the beginning of the film. Marv Wolfman is an amazing writer. Sometimes comic book writers are not given their just due because comics can be judged on more than just the story, everything has to click to make good comics : story, art, coloring, editing etc. In novel form, Marv impressed me with this version of Superman Returns. While it is not perfect this book has a lot to it that adds to the story that is the movie. So if you saw the movie and liked it, you would love this book. Marv writes about Krypton, Jor-El and Superman's travel to find his homeworld so descriptive that you can easily picture in your mind what it would have looked like added on to the movie version. Very highly recommended, even more so than the shooting script version!

This is better than the movie because it does not establish that the kid is Superman's son, it is Lois' husband. Unfortunately, this forces Lois to be the killer of her brute assailant using leverage. This unabridged version gives all the characters back story, even the ones you already know all of their back story. It retreads the same ground for those just starting to follow this franchise, so there, it drags. It gives Luthor proper due. It's revealed he was the one who baited Superman to go in search of Krypton where he was supposed to die. Good audio, great for long car trips.

This is a great movie and book love it

I was hoping to get a few more details than seen in the movie, but there's not much different here. There's one significant departure, which I actually wish the movie would've used.

This was a great read; as usual with novelizations of movies, it both expanded upon and more fully explained scenes from the movie as well as included scenes not included / cut from the movie itself for reasons of length (but which will be hopefully included in the uncut DVD release this fall).

Thank you

Although I got this book about a month ago, I held off on reading it until after I saw the movie it was based upon. (When it's a movie based on a book, I do it the other way around.) Superman is my favorite comic book hero of all time, and I dearly loved the movie. Although I was disappointed with Wolfman's previous novel, an adaptation of his own Crisis on Infinite Earths, I wanted to give him another shot. I'm glad to say this is a far better effort than the Crisis novel. Perhaps because the scope of this story is smaller, with a smaller cast of characters and none of the time travel hullaballoo to deal with, Wolfman manages to give us an adaptation that does just what you want a novelization to do: gives you the basic story of the film while filling in gaps, explaining more of the characters' motivation and history and throwing out occasional "Easter Eggs" for fans of the comics or earlier adaptations of the character.Like you see with novelizations sometimes, though, there are a few discreprencies between the film and the book, including a fairly major plot point towards the end which is done away with in the novel. When this happens, particularly in the case of such an important element, it's usually the case of the filmmakers adding something in too late for the novelist to include the change. You can't really fault Wolfman for it, but at the same time, it still makes the book a little less satisfying to read as an adaptation. Still, it's a fun book based on a fantastic movie, and I'm glad I gave Wolfman another chance.