In (sadly) the last volume of DC's Superman Chronicles, reprinting early Superman stories in chronological order, one half of the team who created the character is nearly missing. Joe Shuster only pencils one of the twelve collected stories. The others are penciled by Leo Nowak and John Sikela, each of whom does an okay job mimicking Joe's (more cartoony) style.
The stories are all written by Jerry Siegel, though, and the series at this point still holds a lot of charm. Lex Luthor shows up, as do an assortment of early, more obscure villains. Either out of boredom or a desire to branch out, Siegel's last two stories here work on a meta level: the first involves Clark and Lois seeing a Paramount Superman cartoon in a movie theater (how can Clark prevent Lois from seeing the scenes in the short which show Clark changing into Superman?). The second is a parody of the cartoonist Li'l Abner and a parody of its creator, Al Capp (here called Al Hatt), a premise resulting in a great panel in which Superman slugs Abner! Was the story a response to Capp's popularity and notorious ego? Probably.
Recommended.
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