If there’s one thing I love almost as much as comic books, it’s books about comic books. Of the many bookcases in my home office, there’s one shelf that’s home to “Visual Guides”, “Complete Histories”, and countless other coffee table and textbook style tomes on characters from Spider-Man to The Joker, and creators like Jack Kirby. These books are massive and unwieldy, but work as great visual and text references for the long histories of comics and their characters. It’s easy for me to lose hours in a day just going through them. With the new revised edition of Superman: The Definitive History from authors Robert Greenberger and Edward Gross, I expect to lose even more hours in this new edition on pop culture’s greatest hero.
Spanning over 500 massive pages, Superman: The Definitive History is truly a book for fans of Superman (provided they don’t have the previous edition, of course). This is an exhaustive book, full of details on not only the comic book history of the Man of Steel, but the various TV shows , radio plays, movies, cartoons, and merchandise that’s had the big “S” emblazoned on them. “Exhaustive” doesn’t really even begin to cover the book’s contents, as every page surprised and delighted me to no end, especially when you get to the movie histories and myriad issues that plagued the Man of Steel from getting a movie adaptation in the 1990s. As a fan of the stories of the never filmed Superman Lives with Nicolas Cage, I was well fed during this portion of the book, but found that even the stuff I knew already was still entertaining.
DC
Another element of the book that I found extremely fun is how well broken up it is. Instead of going through the character’s history from the moment of his creation to now, Superman: The Definitive History is instead broken up into the different pop culture elements that Superman has been a part of. Naturally, the comics take up a large portion of the book, covering nearly 178 pages dealing with his comic origins, locations, and allies and villains, but the other chapters also conveniently break things down into radio shows, TV, movies, and animation. There’s even a fascinating chapter specifically on the various merchandise that’s featured Superman, which leads to some truly hilarious reveals and surprising elements (the Superman Pogo Stick is a horrifying and hilarious bit of merchandise, in particular). Greenberger and Gross break these chapters up with fun breakdowns of aspects that tie into the chapters themselves, like a history on Action Comics #1’s importance in pop culture, a guide to the various forms of Kryptonite, and breakdowns of important Superman stories like “For the Man Who Has Everything” and All-Star Superman.
One of the most surprising elements of the Definitive History is how throughout the book you’ll find small replicas and facsimiles of famous elements from Superman’s History. Animation model sheets, movie concept art, expanding timeline foldouts, and original art replicas are all in this book, adding to the fun and excitement for Superman fans, although they’ll want to be careful, as some of them are rather precariously attached to the pages and can easily come out of the book.
While Superman: The Definitive History is exhaustive, the sheer size and weight of the book makes it a bit difficult to hold onto and casually read. This is a tome and half, and weighs nearly four pounds, so a beach read this ain’t. And at $85, it’s not going to appeal to those who already have it, as the only new material is some behind the scenes information on James Gunn’s Superman film from last year (the previous edition came out in 2024 before they had time to get info on that film). But if you haven’t already picked up the previous edition, or are looking for a big gift for the comic book fan in your life and don’t mind shelling out the cash, Superman: The Definitive History is easily one of the best books about a pop culture icon I’ve seen in some time.
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