Ok i'll chime in on this.
Greatly enjoyed Earth One, thought it was a fantastic re-telling of the Superman origin with a modern twist. It did a few things particularly well:
Explored his other options:
I thought this was pretty cool, having his abilities he literally could've done anything so seeing that brought out was nice along with his super intellect. Things that haven't really been addressed in many re-tellings of his origin.
Kryptonian Technology:
JMS knocked this one out of the park. Information actually written on the atoms of the ship is just such a great SciFi concept
t:. I loved his reimagining of kryptonian tech. It's one of those things that i think has been down played since the Donner Films, everything being from crystals and such is just boring and done to death. I loved JMS' fresh take on this, and seeing clark pilot his ship was equally cool along with his placement of it at the north pole and his conversation with it. Just great stuff altogether.
Also i liked that this was not focused on Lex Luthor. Lex is a great character so don't get me wrong but this does prove that you can tell a solid Superman story without his inclusion. Thanks for that JMS, hoping the new film follows suit. Not that i don't like lex, it's just nice to see a different approach tried.
Also some things that i've never been a fan of were presented in a way i could accept. Like his parents making the suit and his dad coming up with the name Superman. I've always prefered the \S/ being kryptonian but for whatever reason i didn't mind how they handled it here and it went back to it's golden age roots.
I definetly think it's a story that anyone with a casual interests in Superman can pick up and enjoy. Only if you're closed minded or only accept one interpretation of the character would you really take issue with this. It may not be for everyone but it's well done and fun. Art was great too.
They used somethign i've advocated for, a modern geek clark kent! Whohoo! He was talkative, he quoted lord of the rings when interviewing Superman, that's the kind of clark that will work well with a modern audience. And should be used in the new film.
Now to compare it to other origins i'm still gonna go with Birthright. Simply b/c Birthright is a great clark kent story. I loved his characterization, he was proactive, he had fun with his abilites, great interaction with his parents, it provided the most insight into his journalism career choice, just fantastic well thought out character development. I like his age being 27, i loved the kryptonian book he'd been trying to decipher, i like the origin of symbol along with his creation of the suit. My only faults with that story are the lex in smallville angle them him acting like he never lived there and the fake alien invasion. I don't have big issues with it and it doesn't stop me from enjoying the story i just don't see the point of having lex grow up in smallville if they're are no real repercussions from it.
I thought Smallville has done the best job with young lex and clark being friends but they dropped the ball with trying to explain how their future relationship would work and to this day it hasn't been addressed, so it has it's issues.
Man of Steel by Bryne was smart in how it covered around 5 years in 6 issues that bridged the gap very nicely in firmly planting Superman in the then current DCU. It was smart way to go.
Now as far as actually handling the character i have mixed feelings. Making Krypton cold and dark, the whole clone issues, with the one woman using one of her clones to marry her son b/c no other woman was good enough, and that causing the war in the first place was just awful. same with Lex Luthor seducing Perry's wife before they were married. Same as Martha being married but unhappy before marrying Jonathan. Just random changes that felt somewhat soap opera ish
. NO they weren't in the six issue reboot but in the World of KRypton, Metropolis and Smallville. Also hated the manhunters brainwashing all the children of smallville and controlling lana for the majority of her life, even being responsible for killing her parents, just a convoluted mess, and people actually complain about the tv show Smallville
Alot of it wasn't very good. I enjoyed Cat Grant and the new take on Clark Kent but he still seemed very 2d and not necessarily that interesting for someone who is suppose to be Superman. Birthright gave him the appropriate global view of a character of his power and importance. Earth One was a fine update that was enjoyable but his hestitancy while understanble in the context of the comic i didn't like the idea that he already had teh costume and everything just didn't want to put it on, seemed kind of convient for him to have it. Prefered teh suit's origin in Birthright. My thoughts.
