'Super Boys' by Brad Ricca best suited for Superman scholars

With a new movie on the big screen, Superman is once again at the forefront of popular culture. As a result, the timing is just about perfect for the publication of “Super Boys: The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster - The Creators of Superman” (St. Martin's Press, 423 pages, $27.99) by Brad Ricca. The book itself, unfortunately, isn't as perfect as the timing.

Ricca has clearly engaged in exhaustive research into the origins of Superman, the tale of the character's rise to prominence even as his creators were underappreciated and undercompensated, and the legal battles that ensued. Ricca works hard to get inside the minds of Siegel and Shuster and to delve deeply into possible influences and inspirations. In these senses, the book is a strong addition to the shelf of books devoted to Superman and the men who, as teenagers, dreamed him up.

Ricca's style and tone, however, do not serve him or the reader well. Here's a bit of his description of the night things came together in young Jerry Siegel's head:

“Jerry might have been reading so fast that his eyes were burning. Everything was leading to something, like invisible threads through the universe that he could almost just see. Jerry was a thinker, always running that brain over ideas and possibilities to tell and sell. So when he went to bed that night, if he even did, getting out of the chair and shuffling his feet in disbelief or taking the back stairs like a police car, he must have had an overwhelming sense of sudden inevitability.”

What the reader must have at moments like this is a sense of confusion. What could “taking the back stairs like a police car” even mean? The overwrought tone, designed in this case to make palpable the ineffable coming together of an idea, is distracting, as well.

In the end, “Super Boys” is probably required reading for those who taking comics in general or Superman in particular seriously in a scholarly sense. Those with a more casual interest may find that the style serves as a sort of kryptonite to readers.