The reprints are gorgeous and in a wonderful hardcover that shouldn't fall apart too quickly. The text prefacing the book is boring and unneccessary, mostly, this book just costs waaayyyy too much. I would've preferred to get it in comic book format for about 10 dollars, but they no longer reprint this stuff. The stories aren't very good, but it's interesting to read in it's amateurishness and see how things originally were intended.

This is actually some great stuff. I think the early Superman stories are good examples of exciting storytelling with interesting social commentary.

For example, the first Superman story contains a none-too subtle anticaptial punishment message, as our man saves a lady from an execution and a man form a lynching (remember, this is 1938). The second shows Supe stopping a war that is concocted by munitions manufactureres (an early anti-WW2 message).

Along with that, reading these early adventures gives you the feeling that you're a little kid in pre-television 1938-39, sitting with awe and wonder with these exciting tales either being read to you by a skilled adult storyteller, or by yourself with a flashlight at night. Once you get in that mood of an inner child, you can really get into this stuff and it's lots of fun.

However, I would agree that the cost is a bit much for a new edition. Buy a good used copy. Gather the kids (over age 10, that is) around, turn the lights down low, read it with vigor, and have a ball!

DC's Archive editions are the pinnacle of classic comic book reprints. Lovingly restored and printed on high quality, glossy paper, they give the material the classy feel it deserves. In this, one of their earliest Archive editions, they reprint in their entirety (advertisements and all) the first four 1939 and 1940 issues of SUPERMAN, four issues that would easily fetch upwards of a quarter million dollars. SUPERMAN ARCHIVES VOL. 1 is not just a bargain. It's a glimpse into pop culture and comic book history.

Most of these four issues are reprints of stories published in ACTION COMICS, other adventures from which appear in SUPERMAN: THE ACTION COMICS ARCHIVES, although several others were taken from the newspaper strips, which are reprinted in their original black and white form in Kitchen Sink Press' SUPERMAN: THE DAILIES.

These early adventures are, compared to modern comic books, crude and childish, but they reveal a sense of wonder and awe absent from many of today's comics. In 1939, the readers and creators were still enthralled by the idea that a man could do whatever he wanted and dispense justice without rules. Just as Superman is different in these reprints -- a swashbuckling, two-fisted pulp hero, not the "big blue boy scout" of today, most of his earliest menaces are a far cry from the criminal masterminds and alien invaders he later fights. They are enemies of the Depression-era everyman: war profiteers, abusive husbands, incompetent mine owners, con artists, fascist spies, corrupt orphanage directors. Anyone who preys on everyday folks receives swift justice from the Man of Steel's fists.

Comics creator and historian Jim Steranko provides a thorough analysis of the adventures in his Introduction and Afterword, so comics historians will want this book, as will Superman fans, nostalgists and collectors of all ages.