'Superman: Earth One' a disappointment

By Andrew A. Smith
Scripps Howard News Service

Nov. 23, 2010 -- DC Comics is adding another chapter to a long tradition of re-invention that has always been entertaining, with a new graphic novel called Superman: Earth One ($19.99). Maybe because of my high expectations, I’m terribly disappointed with this book.

You see, DC has always rebooted its major characters every 20 years or so. Currently they’re doing it again, by inventing a new world – “Earth One” – inhabited by new, younger, 21st century versions of Superman, Batman, et al. This GN is the first in a series, all written by superstar writer J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5).

And, IMHO, it’s an epic fail. There’s not much new about this new version of Superman, and what is new is a bunch of bad storytelling decisions.

In all honesty, I may be prejudiced in that my profession is depicted really badly:

1) I can accept, for example, that Clark Kent lies to his editor and his reading public about his secret identity. Even though that violates no less than six tenets of the Society of Professional Journalists Rules of Ethics, the lie prevents a greater evil: the murder of all of Kent’s family, friends and associates.

But what I can’t accept is Kent using this façade for professional gain. My primary beef is those stories that depict Kent scooping Lois Lane with the first interview with Superman, which lands him his job at the Daily Planet. That isn’t a white lie necessary to save lives; it’s fraudulent self-promotion of the worst kind.

Thankfully, the 1986 version of Superman began to realize how unethical this was, and a 2009 miniseries retelling the Man of Steel’s early years (Superman: Secret Origin) dispensed with it altogether – Kent got his job the old-fashioned way, by coming up with a big story without using his super-powers, a story that had nothing to do with Superman. Huzzah!

However, Superman: Earth One restores this ethical breach, with Kent playing the Superman card to get a job. Gah! Once again, Kent is no better than Stephen Glass, Janet Cooke or Jayson Blair.

2) Planet Editor Perry White explains to Kent that newspapers strive for active sentence structure instead of passive sentence structure, and gives an example. That’s something a good editor does.

Except White gets it wrong. He says in order to make “last night, a dog was killed” active, it should read “a dog was killed last night.” But both those examples are passive; simply rearranging the sentence doesn’t make it active! (“Someone killed a dog last night” is the example he’s looking for.) It’s Journalism 101, folks, and Perry White gets it wrong.

3) Kent and Lane’s first stories about Superman are included in the back of the book. But they are so embarrassingly juvenile, subjective and unreadable that they wouldn’t pass as decent blog posts, much less professional news stories. Worse, Kent writes a dialogue exchange between himself and Superman – one that is not only unethical (he’s making it up!) but is so cringingly adolescent and amateurish that no newspaper on any Earth would run it.

Too arcane? Then let’s look at two changes Earth One makes to the Superman mythos I think are clumsy:

1) Teenage Clark Kent demonstrates incredible, virtually “super” abilities at professional sports, research science and other jobs before joining the Daily Planet. Oops! That kinda lets the ol’ “secret identity” out of the bag, doesn’t it?

2) We discover Krypton didn’t blow up by chance, but was deliberately destroyed by other aliens.

Bad plan. First, the arbitrary nature of Superman’s central tragedy, and how he transforms it into altruism instead of self-pity, is central to his heroism – as it is with Batman and Spider-Man (who have also suffered this sort of revisionism occasionally). Second, if aliens murdered his planet, then Superman has a moral obligation as the last Kryptonian to leave Earth and devote his life to bringing those aliens to justice. Since he won’t (or there’s no series), he looks like a coward from the get-go.

If you’re going to change Superman, says I, change him for the better – give him a 21st century makeover that makes him more relevant to a new age. Don’t tinker around the edges, “correcting” things that were done right the first time.

I seem to be alone in this opinion, as Superman: Earth One is selling like gangbusters and critics are raving. And that's great -- I really do want it to succeed.

I just wish it was better, and deserved to succeed.

Contact Andrew A. Smith of the Memphis Commercial Appeal at capncomics@aol.com.

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Comments

  • True, Richard, true.

     

    The thing is, being a reporter isn't the only job where someone can disappear for hours at a time. So this book, supposedly a reinvention of Superman for new era, needed to give a really good answer as to why would this Clark Kent seek this job. Why does a Superman even want a job? Does he even need money?

     

    And, by the way:

     

    welcomeani-1.gif

  • Captain, it's a small world. Also, in my previous comment I was going to include an observation on Clark's reporting job. When Nightwing became a police officer and Peter Parker taught in a classroom, these were dream jobs for them. The problem was that they couldn't disappear to "suit up" and return at some point covered in bruises. Clark's reporting job gave him the excuse to disappear to (supposedly) do street reporting and bruises - what bruises?  

  • This may be too big a coincidence to be believed, but if that JMS panel was at the 2002 Comic Con, then the fan asking the Baby May question was me.

  • Being a new member of the Captain Comics Round Table, I have been working my way through the blog archives. I have a couple of comments on Superman Earth One, which I recently bought and read. I did enjoy it, though I was also a little surprised at Clark's scooping Lois on the first Superman interview, and not crazy about the aliens blowing up Krypton, either. I did like it well enough to look forward to the second volume. I am a big fan of JMS, having all the Babylon 5 shows and movies on DVD. I've enjoyed Rising Stars and Midnight Nation. It seems to be more problematic when he takes on a pre-existing character such as Spider-Man. This is how the Gwen Stacy/Norman Osborne sexual liaison became such a jarring, out-of-character plot point. I was also bothered by the way the baby daughter of Peter and Mary Jane was ignored out of existence. I realize this was an editorial decision, not his decision. I happened to be at the San Diego Con in a JMS panel when another fan asked the question I was going to ask: was JMS going to address the unresolved plot line of the kidnapped baby. JMS was completely blown away by the question, knowing nothing of any baby. Strangely, this plot was only about a year old at the time, yet he knew nothing about it. So either the editors intentionally concealed recent history from JMS and said "do what you want, we just want big sales" or JMS had no curiosity about the characters he was going to write, not being his characters. Any  thoughts?

  • I had the chance to buy Superman: Earth One but didn't. Again if anyone liked it, great but no thank you. Bought Superman Vs Muhammad Ali. I made my choice and I'm happy with it.

    Just remember, Superman doesn't have to be ripped or huge to be Superman!
  • I had some time to while away this weekend, so I read through Superman: Earth One while at a Barnes and Noble. Quick thoughts:

    Superman as a whiny, useless slacker? Nope, this book is not for me.

    The Daily Planet as a fading institution going to seed, whose best days are behind it? Hmmmm... I didn't quite buy it, but I might be expecting a greater level of versimilitude than the writer can reasonably be expected to provide. Or not. In any event, I couldn't finish reading those mock "news" stories in the back of the book; they were so wrong in form and content it wasn't funny.

    On the other hand, the idea that the Planet had exclusive images of this new Superman and Perry White really, truly believed that no other news agency would use them without getting permission first was the funniest joke I'd heard all month.
  • " ... not only was it impossible in a physical sense (the exaggerated abdominal muscles), but it was SILLY."

    I see what you mean, Cap. That's grotesque. And people used to complain that Kirby and Sekowsky didn't know basic human anatomy!
  • Isn't the goal to reach non-fans with the character? To me that applies trying to appeal to non-fan readers of a range of ages, but primarily skewing younger, since younger readers (by which I here mean young kids and older kids; in my previous post I meant young kids) are more likely to respond to Superman in large numbers.

    I think material can have different levels of age appeal built into it. I like Weisinger Superman stuff more as an adult than I did as a younger teen, partly because I recognise and appreciate its sly humour now. Stuff can be accessible to younger kids but also entertaining to older kids, because it has something additional to offer the older ones. I'd peg the DCU kids' titles I've seen (none recent) as young kids' comics, unlikely to appeal to older kids.
  • But Luke, the purpose of this exercise was a "new Superman for a new era." We have the current one in seven books a month, so your young readers are serviced.
  • I think superhero costumes are part of what makes them accessible and imagination-catching to young readers. The combination of the costume and those powers is a large part of what Superman is.
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