Comic Book Friday: Man of Steel by John Byrne

Years ago, a friend shoved a copy of the collector’s edition first issue of this Superman reboot into my hands and said I should make it part of my comic book collection. And while I can clearly recall having the collector’s cover issue in my collection for years, I can’t recall much about reading it at the time. (In fact, I may not have read it on the off chance that I’d bend the spine and decrease the collect-ability value of the comic in question).

Reading this six-issue reboot of Superman thirty plus years later, I’m impressed by how big an influence it had on just about every version of Superman that’s appeared in pop culture since that time. The six issues reflect a lot of the high points of one of my favorite shows of the ’90s, Lois and Clark. Whether it’s Clark’s parents still being around to serve as sounding boards to Lex Luthor being a billionaire industrialist with his own mischievous agenda that he’s upset gets hijacked by Superman’s appearance on the scene, John Bryne’s take still echoes through comics and pop culture today.

In many ways, I kept feeling like what Bryne was doing with Superman was what Brian Michael Bendis did with Spider-Man in the Ultimate Spider-Man line — it was giving a character relevance to a new generation of fans. And certainly, the Man of Steel needed that refresh in the 80’s. This reboot opened the door to many of the other Super storylines to come, including the infamous Death of Superman storyline in the 90’s.

With an introduction by sci-fi great Ray Bradbury, this collection of six issues is a refreshing reboot of one of the iconic comic characters. It’s worth looking at if you haven’t read it before or visiting again if you haven’t read it in a while.