A review by melvinpena
Superman: Up in the Sky by Tom King

emotional hopeful inspiring fast-paced

4.0

this whole review is likely to be full of spoilers so I'm just going to hide it all in the tag. read on at your own risk. for a non-spoiler review, I'll just say that this is a really good, really fast-paced Superman intro book. I think it is even more important as a precursor or draft version of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, which began publication the very next year.

just read Tom King's "Superman: Up in the Sky" (2020). I think for a one-book intro to Superman, Mark Russell and the Allreds's "Superman: Space Age" is more satisfying and complete, but this is still a really good, really fun, really moving book. 

A young foster child is kidnapped from Gotham City by an unknown entity. Superman puts life, work, love, and all his other duties on hold to pursue and find this lost little girl. 

this is a book that explores who Superman is by examining all of his human frailties, all those things he learned from his mom and dad growing up on a farm in Kansas. this is a textbook Superman, a this is who you want Superman to be type of hero, who always does what is right, even if it is not convenient or easy. indeed, throughout this book, Superman often makes it very very difficult on himself by not choosing the most expedient path. 

I think more importantly, this was a test run for the much more narratively intricate and emotionally involving "Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow" that King would start to publish the very next year. this book has an extraordinary amount of value as a precursor to that one