Last Son of Krypton

An alien named The Master plots to take over the galaxy, and Superman must join forces with his worst enemy and childhood friend Lex Luthor to stop him.

A 1970s Superman novel by Elliot S Maggin. It was originally proposed as the idea for a Superman movie, and the novel was released as a companion to the first Superman movie - although the plot and characterization (especially that of Luthor) differ greatly from the movie. (Even the location of Krypton is different; in the movie, Superman claims he comes from another galaxy, while in this novel Krypton is said to have orbited Antares.)

As this novel was written prior to Crisis On Infinite Earths, Superman's powers reach near-ridiculous levels at some points. He flies through the core of the sun to take a refreshing bath. He fires a blast of air between his front teeth that disables a helicopter several blocks away, yet doesn't even affect anything else nearby. He takes out an entire mob of Lex Luthor's goons, one man at a time and in a different and inventively nonlethal way with each man, before a ten-second countdown finishes. It doesn't quite reach the truly insane levels shown in some episodes of the Super Friends ("With Colossus distracted, I'll pick the Earth out of his pocket and put it back in orbit around the sun"), but it comes close.

There's also a sequel called Miracle Monday.

The book can be read online here.

This book provides examples of:

 * Ambiguously Jewish
 * Author Appeal: This book contains an awful lot of a)Luthor and b)Einstein.
 * Badass Boast: How Superman persuades
 * Big Bad: The Master
 * Cardboard Prison
 * Chronic Villainy
 * Cool Starship The Black Widow
 * Corrupt Corporate Executive: The Master
 * Does This Remind You of Anything: Clark's discussion with Steve Lombard sounds like it's about something other than drinking.
 * Dressing As the Enemy
 * Enemy Mine: Most of the first book's plot.
 * Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Why Luthor doesn't bother to try and figure out Superman's secret identity
 * Evil Versus Evil: The Master and Luthor
 * Faster Than Light Travel
 * Foe Yay: And people say Smallville is gay . ..
 * A God Am I Luthor's eventual aim.
 * Holding Out for A Hero
 * Jerkass
 * The Master
 * Perky Female Minion: BJ
 * Rousseau Was Right
 * Secret Ingredient: Clark makes a bet with his rival Steve Lombard that Mrs. Kent's soft drink is the best drink ever. While on the planet Oric, he obtains a spice so powerful that a drop of it added to his mother's drink would make it irresistible to the human palette.
 * Subspace or Hyperspace
 * What Could Have Been: As stated above, this was originally a movie treatment.