Hey guys! I'm back with this week's comic book review. This week I'm talking about Superman: Earth One Volume 1 by J. Michael Straczynski with art by Shane Davis. So let's get into it.
The premise of the Earth One line of graphic novels is simple. Reboot the classic DC Comics characters such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Teen Titans, and Green Lantern and make them characters that exist in today's world, with updated origin stories. And also publish the stories in graphic novel form rather than single issues to be collected in graphic novel form after the fact. And because Superman was the first superhero to be published by DC Comics, they chose him to start off this lineup with Straczynski writing all three volumes.
For those of you who don't know who he is, J. Michael Straczynski, shortened to JMS, has a long career in animation, Television and comic books. In animation he worked on He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, She-Ra: Princess of Power, and The Real Ghostbusters to name a few. For Television he is best known for creating the Sci-Fi series, Babylon 5 (1993-1998), which served as a rival for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as both shows were on at the same time and were on for the same amount of time. In comics he's best known for a critically acclaimed run on The Amazing Spider-Man that ran from 2001 until 2007 and pretty much shaped what comic book Spider-Man was in the 2000s. In addition to Superman: Earth One, JMS also wrote for Superman and Wonder Woman at the time as well.
Superman: Earth One is a turning point for Superman in the comics. While it's not in continuity with the main DC Universe, it still served as inspiration for more recent Superman movies and Superman related TV shows, namely Man of Steel and Krypton. When you first look at the cover you think "Okay DC what are you doing here?" because Clark is wearing more modern/less formal clothing and his eyes are glowing as if he's some dark version of Superman. But when you actually read the book that's not the case at all.
Clark is very different here than he is in the other comics or even in the TV shows and movies. Normally when Clark moves to Metropolis he does so with the intention of becoming Superman and having a plan to conceal his identity from those who would use him for their own ends. But here he doesn't. He simply moves to Metropolis to look for a job, but struggles to decide whether he's going to become Superman or live a normal life. He even wears more casual clothing in this book, which isn't something you usually get with a more traditional Superman outside of Smallville. Though that's definitely something that's changed with Man of Steel and the Arrowverse in the last eleven years since this book came out.
There really isn't a whole lot to the story. It's basically the plot of Man of Steel after you get through the origin stuff, but without as much to it. Which makes sense since DC was playing the long game with this series, and so they could afford to let JMS take his time and let the story unfold the way it needed to unfold without feeling slow or forced. Which is not usually the way comic book publishers work since they need to put out several dozen books per week and they react to sales figures and marketing advice. Things like that. But with Earth One they really took their time getting these books out. I like how it unfolds in the Superman books though because it does do things that the comics don't normally do. For example, in most versions of the origin story, the Kents hide Clark's ship or pod somewhere on the farm. Here though the military has the ship and is studying it, though they don't know who was in it until Superman reveals himself during the invasion by Tyrell and his people from Dheron, a planet that occupied the same star system as Krypton, similar to Daxam on Supergirl.
Shane Davis's artwork is pretty good. I've never seen his work outside of the first two books in this series, but it's still pretty good. His Superman isn't as clean cut as Superman usually is. Both in terms of his personality and his appearance. His hair is a little bit longer and a bit shaggier than it normally is and despite knowing his responsibility regarding the uses of his powers, this version of Clark also knows early on that he has to make time for himself even when he's saving the city as Superman. Again, we don't normally get that from Superman. At least not when he's as young as he is in this book. It puts him in his early to mid 20s, though his exact age isn't brought up at all.
Probably the only thing I don't like as much about this book is Tyrell, the villain of the book. He's a lackey for a much bigger threat that won't actually be revealed until Volume 3. I mean it's fine, but Tyrell is such a boring villain that he ends up being an exposition dump for Clark and for us, the audience, and his plan is to just destroy everything until Superman reveals himself and surrenders to him. That's just not very interesting at all. But I think JMS meant for it to be that way since the meat of the story is in volumes 2 and 3, with volume 1 simply being the prologue or introductory chapter. Similar to how Star Wars introduces all of the main characters in the Star Wars Trilogy, but The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are where we really get to know them and get a huge chunk of the story.
Alright guys that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back on Friday for my review of the first episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which drops Friday morning on Disney+ and I have my fingers crossed for this show since I was in the minority and didn't like WandaVision very much. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
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