Originally Posted by
daBronzeBomma
Hadn't thought of that, honestly. Made me want to do some digging on the subject.
Superman does have some established literary presence already, although most of it would never be confused with good science-fiction.
Here's the list of what I found so far in chronological order (full title, author, page count, publishing date, type):
01. THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, written by George Lowther, 228 pages, 1942 (original story)
(snip for space use)
08. THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, edited by Martin H. Greenberg, 360 pages, 1993 (anthology of original short stories by various authors)
09. LOIS & CLARK: HEAT WAVE, written by Michael Jan Friedman, 124 pages, 1996 (official tie-in to LOIS & CLARK tv show)
10. LOIS & CLARK: EXILE, written by Michael Jan Friedman, 150 pages, 1996 (official tie-in to LOIS & CLARK tv show)
11. LOIS & CLARK: DEADLY GAMES, written by Michael Jan Friedman, 132 pages, 1996 (official tie-in to LOIS & CLARK tv show)
12. LOIS & CLARK: A SUPERMAN NOVEL, written by C.J. Cherryh, 288 pages, 1996 (official tie-in to LOIS & CLARK tv show)
(snip for space use)
31. IT'S SUPERMAN!, written by Tom DeHaven, 432 pages, 2005 (original story)
(snip for space use)
33. THE LAST DAYS OF KRYPTON, written by Kevin J. Anderson, 496 pages, 2007 (original story)
34. ENEMIES & ALLIES (co-starring Batman), written by Kevin J. Anderson, 336 pages, 2009 (original story)
35. MAN OF STEEL, written by Greg Cox, 320 pages, 2013 (official novelization to MAN OF STEEL film)
Wow, so by my count, throughout Superman's 76 years and counting publishing history, Clark has starred in 35 different novels to date! That's A LOT more than I would have thought.
Granted, a majority of them come with various asterisks:
18 of those 35 novels were SMALLVILLE tie-ins (though TWO separate lines no less!),
another 4 of those were LOIS & CLARK tie-ins,
another 4 were straight novelizations of movies,
another 1 co-starred Batman,
another 2 were novelizations of the exact same storyline from the comics,
another 1 was an anthology of short stories (one co-starring Wonder Woman, another co-starring Batman)
and another one barely featured Kal-El at all except as a small infant.
That's 31 of 35 novel that are somewhat compromised in terms of being original, independent full-length solo stories.
That leaves us with 4 novels that can stand on their own as original, independent full-length solo stories of Superman:
THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN (1942), LAST SON OF KRYPTON (1978), MIRACLE MONDAY (1981) and IT'S SUPERMAN (2005).
And it should be pointed out again that LSoK and MM were released as tie-ins to S:TM and SII and each contained pages of actual photos from their respective movie.
In conclusion, yes, I would very much like to see a new, wholly original, independent, full-length solo Superman novel that is NOT a tie-in to any pre-existing incarnation of the character. One that could stand on its own as a great science-fiction novel.
But who should write it? So many possible choices for established science-fiction authors out there. Surely one of them "gets" Superman in a new way ...