Shortly before four in the afternoon on the third Monday in the month of May, the people of the city of Metropolis learned the meaning of joy. They had no explanation for this feeling, and there were gaps in their knowledge of what had gone on in their lives so far that day. It was as though they were all waking up, or at least opening their eyes, for the first time in an awfully long time. The first thing many of them saw was the red-and-blue figure of Superman drawing a line across their sky, and he became the symbol of their joy. It felt like a miracle, though none could say why.
Today is the third Monday in May, known to all true blue Superman fans as Miracle Monday. It comes from the novel Miracle Monday by Elliot S! Maggin, from which the above passage is taken. I won't spoil it for you, you'll just have to read it for yourself.
Elliot S! Maggin's two Superman novels, Last Son of Krypton & Miracle Monday, are two of the best straightforward super-hero prose novels ever written. The novels came out in conjunction with the first two Superman movies back in the late 70s/early 80s, but they are not adaptations of the movies. Instead, Maggin told sweeping original stories of the pre-Crisis Superman. Probably the best part of the novels is Maggin's Lex Luthor, one of the only characterizations of the pre-Crisis bad guy that ever provided motivations that made sense to me.
The novels are long out of print, but you can read them both online at Superman Through the Ages.
