Welcome to Earth One!

[X Knight]

ok, just read Superman: Earth One.

I must say.........I didn't like it very much.

It wasn't terrible. But it wasn't epic or spectacular. It was just.........flat and off.

And where it goes wrong, imo, is the portrayal of Clark Kent/Superman. He didn't really come across as whiney or "emo." He just came across as selfish. Or, maybe, self-centered or self-absorbed is the better word.

Now, I'm not saying a hero can't worry about his/her future, or have self doubts. But not if it affects the way you treat others.

Like, when Clark moves into his apartment, and the landlady is asking him questions, he keeps replying with "Don't Know Yet." He wasn't exactly rude, but he wasn't exactly that polite either.

The most glaring example of Clark's "selfishness" was the apartment fire scene.

When Clark saw the fire, his reaction wasn't "Oh No! A fire!! I've got to put it out and save the people in the building. Or stop the fire from spreading."

His reaction was "Oh No! A fire!! It looks like my room. I've got to save MY STUFF!! And I've got to do it before the fire crew gets there and reveal my alien identity"

And once Clark saved his stuff ( his costume and crystal ), he didn't even put the fire out!! Even though he knew the fire crew was coming, he still could have put the fire out if he was concerned about the safety of others. It's like, once he saved his stuff, that's all he cared about.

And that's just it. That's not what Clark Kent/Superman would do. Even with a small thing like the apartment fire ( which could turn into a much bigger problem if it spread ), this Clark Kent didn't really seem concerned about others. He was so absorbed with his stuff and his problems. Superman is supposed to put the fire out first, make sure everyone is safe, then deal with his stuff and get away.

And again, this is echoed in the alien invasion. It had to take Jimmy and Lois being almost crushed by the alien robot thing for Clark to get involved. Before that, with all the destruction ( and presumably people dying ), Clark wasn't sure what to do. His first reaction was to take a piece of the debris for someone to investigate it?? WTF??

All in all, it just didn't feel like Superman to me, at least not the Superman that I know and love. This Clark/Superman was way too self-absorbed and self centered.......

 

[HighFivingMF]

All in all, it just didn't feel like Superman to me, at least not the Superman that I know and love.

Because it isn't. Why would they start a new universe just to keep every detail of the character the same?

And the fire, he wasn't sure if he wanted to be a hero yet. Unless I'm missing something all of the people were out of the apartment building and the building was already toast. Since the firemen were on there way I'm sure he decided that putting out a fire and burning the bridge to having a normal life wasn't worth it if nobody else was in danger.

This kid is NOT Superman, that's something you should know going in. He's not sure if he wants to devote his life to being the world's savior. He's still a kid, figuring himself out. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you would be happy doing it.

 

[X Knight]

Because it isn't. Why would they start a new universe just to keep every detail of the character the same?

And the fire, he wasn't sure if he wanted to be a hero yet. Unless I'm missing something all of the people were out of the apartment building and the building was already toast. Since the firemen were on there way I'm sure he decided that putting out a fire and burning the bridge to having a normal life wasn't worth it if nobody else was in danger.

This kid is NOT Superman, that's something you should know going in. He's not sure if he wants to devote his life to being the world's savior. He's still a kid, figuring himself out. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you would be happy doing it.

well........then.........that's not the type of Superman I want to be reading. You don't have to Superman, or a hero dressed up in costume, to help people. You don't even have to be the world's savior. A person who is truly kind, caring, and generous ( who WANTS to help people ) will help out regardless of the situation.

I don't mind them changing details about the character or updating the story. But the "core" of the character should remain intact, and that's what this story and characterization of Clark lacked.

and as for the apartment fire scene, just read the scene again. It didn't say that the building had been evacuated. And the whole building was not toast. It was only Clark's room that was on fire.

That makes it even more glaring that Clark didn't even seem concerned about the other people in the building. IOW........saving other people wasn't his first concern. Saving his own stuff was.

That's nor very heroic or Supermanish to me.........

And that' why the

 

[kguillou]

Btw, what was that whole fire scene about anyway? It was really random and it just happened to be Clark's room? Unless i misread something that randomly came outta nowhere.

But the fire scene didnt really bother me. And Clark DID act heroically before he decided to become superman. When the aliens started attacking the city, he didnt hesitate to attack those giant robot thingys, but he was doing it without trying to be seen. He only hesitated putting on the costume and deciding to become a full fledged superhero and that was perfectly fine by me. It wasnt like he was standing by and watching people get murdered.

MY problem with this Clark/Superman was that he was incredibly introverted and it was impossible to nail down his personality or care about him because there was a severe lack of dialogue and/or internal monologue. Throughout the entire alien invasion Superman barely said anything. It would have been nice to hear his thought process throughout the whole thing so we could care about the character. I mean maybe that was JMS' intention but it didnt work out very well. Throughout almost the entire book i was like "dude SAY something for god's sake!"lol.

 

[BrianWilly]

The fire came about as a result of the ship's piece in Clark's room reacting to the larger ship reacting to the incoming invasion; Clark mentions, as he's flying away, that the piece was hot enough to burn even him.

Anywho...I read Earth One and, props to JMS where it's due, I actually thought it was pretty good. I liked the scenes at the Planet, I liked the spaceship shenanigans, and the invasion sequence played out in a cool way. Well okay, the actual villain was hella dumb, but I thought it all fell together pretty well eventually. Not really interested in this tortured, ennui-filled Clark being anywhere near my regular DCU, but it worked well enough here. Though honestly, I can see why JMS's regular DC Clark is so irritating and difficult if this is the "baseline" Clark that JMS has envisioned for his origins.

 

[kguillou]

Upon a second read, i liked it much better than the first time but i still think JMS could've done much better. This could've been a huge superhero epic but it moved way too fast. Maybe JMS is saving the "big" stuff for the later OGN's but i'd like to see more character development for Clark and it'd be nice to get some internal monologue or something.

 

[random_havoc]

I was also unimpressed.

It was okay, but the pace felt rushed and nothing wowed me. Also, I almost laughed at the look of the villain.

 

[kguillou]

And his name was Tyrell...really JMS? lol

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Did he build robots, by any chance? Very human-looking robots?

 

[The Batman]

...just read Superman.


Eh. You know, I realize that DC made a mistake doing three "cool new" superman orgins within 6 years...because this one felt as a tired as SO ended up being. Same alien invasion plot. Same "some people dont trust superman!" Clark just felt like any post crisis interpretation, except twenty. They even gave him the "Hi I'm Dean Cain and I'm average" Superman physique.

The changes were unnecessary, and the villain was forgettable. The art is really the only thing that sells the "Edgy modern" revamp gimmick they wanted to pull off.

JMS exploring Clarks options and a badass Jimmy Olsen are the two standouts from this book.

 

[kguillou]

This may sound silly, but i also feel like the book could've really benefited from using word sounds like "pow! kaboom! zap! etc etc.). Sometimes they can be silly but alot of times word sounds can add a lot of impact to action scenes. For a book like this where you have a powerful character punching and smashing things, i think it would've added a little impact to the scenes. Again, for some reason JMS made this book feel very quiet.

 

[Ultimate_Superman]

Here's a question I had we all know Clark is suppose to be 21 but how old is Lois and Jimmy suppose to be? Also I hope in the sequel they start to work on the Clark,Lois,Superman love triangle. As well as you have to have Lex in the sequel. However it will be interesting when they start to do the cross over issue where Superman meets Batman or Wonder Woman or how they will do the big events for Earth One.

 

[Ultimate_Superman]

I was wondering how would you feel if there was more diversity between the heroes and villains of Earth One. I was thinking since this is a new Earth and the heroes and villains should be different would it be so bad if some there races were changed as well? I personally would think its about time to bring more diversity into the DCU.

 

[GyLocke]

Supes spelled it out in the Kent interview, why he didn't put out the fire. I'm paraphrasing, but "He doesn't want to do for Man Kind, what we can do for ourselves. He's here to help with things we can't do. If we start to depend on him, it's worse than letting a few buildings burn till the firemen arrive" I think Lex Luthor would have a lot less problems with this Superman.

 

[Tron Bonne]

I'm pretty sure that's the lamest excuse I've every heard. 'I don't want you to depend on me, so I'm more than willing to let some people burn to death in a burning building, even though I'm there and totally capable of preventing them from burning to death.' I mean, really, is this what the modern hero is all abou...oh, well, yeah, I guess it is.

 

[X Knight]

I'm pretty sure that's the lamest excuse I've every heard. 'I don't want you to depend on me, so I'm more than willing to let some people burn to death in a burning building, even though I'm there and totally capable of preventing them from burning to death.' I mean, really, is this what the modern hero is all abou...oh, well, yeah, I guess it is.

yeah.........that is a pretty ******* lame excuse. Especially when you consider that the fire started in HIS room. Even though Clark didn't know that it was caused by his crystal at that time, he still inadvertently/indirectly put other people's lives at danger.

Oh, wait, I forgot........this Clark also has no qualms about using his heat vision to fry a mugger's hair, when he could easily have diffused the situation in a less violent manner. It's not like the mugger could really have hurt him..........

That type of excuse and attitude is right up there with Peter Parker's initial "Not my problem. I'm only looking out for myself" attitude. Which, of course, led to his Uncle Ben's death.

It looks like Earth One Clark could have learned a lesson from Uncle Ben. With great power, comes great responsibility, indeed...........

 

[X Knight]

I'm pretty sure that's the lamest excuse I've every heard. 'I don't want you to depend on me, so I'm more than willing to let some people burn to death in a burning building, even though I'm there and totally capable of preventing them from burning to death.' I mean, really, is this what the modern hero is all abou...oh, well, yeah, I guess it is.

hmmm.....it is disappointing.

sadly, it also reflects the stories you hear lately of people just walking by/ignoring someone that's injured or dying in the streets. Even worse, some ppl actually whip out their cellphones to snap pics of the person instead of helping!!!

In fact, I just read a story about that Bill Nye the Science Guy collapsing on stage in front of some students. And, instead of coming to his aid, people were actually pulling out their phones to txt message their friends and tweet about the incident. Again.........

I guess this Earth One Clark really is a product of this generation..........

 

[Mystirious]

That's terrible

Was Nye alright

 

[Cousin Itt]

That's terrible

Was Nye alright

From what I read he seems to be fine now.

 

[Primal Slayer]

I was wondering how would you feel if there was more diversity between the heroes and villains of Earth One. I was thinking since this is a new Earth and the heroes and villains should be different would it be so bad if some there races were changed as well? I personally would think its about time to bring more diversity into the DCU.

While I think a lot of times it is stupid to change a charecters color just to add more diversity, if it were a lesser hero or villan and they actually had a good reason to change them or just did it well I wouldnt mind.

 

[taskmaster]

hmmm.....it is disappointing.

sadly, it also reflects the stories you hear lately of people just walking by/ignoring someone that's injured or dying in the streets. Even worse, some ppl actually whip out their cellphones to snap pics of the person instead of helping!!!

In fact, I just read a story about that Bill Nye the Science Guy collapsing on stage in front of some students. And, instead of coming to his aid, people were actually pulling out their phones to txt message their friends and tweet about the incident. Again.........

I guess this Earth One Clark really is a product of this generation..........

If we have a Superman that stops every bad thing from happening then every few years we'll have to deal with a long drawn out story about Superman finding himself because some person says, "Why didn't you save the people I wanted to be saved?!" I'd much rather have a Superman that just deals with the big stuff than to have to read that story again.

 

[Tron Bonne]

Well, sure, Superman can't and shouldn't do everything. No need for him to go around and do taxes, pay other's bills, write up a grocery list, and sure, he shouldn't be the police of everything, but come on, the logic behind this is idiotic. It's like a man with great power lives outside a city, and one day he sees someone falls into the lake and is about to drown, and instead of helping him says, 'I see you're drowning, but I don't want your city to become too dependent on me, so I'll just let you drown. Sorry, hope you make it. Now when a comet comes down, give me a call.'

That's kind of an exaggerated example I'll grant, but still. Something like a building burning, that may have people in it? His code of non-inference instead says let that ***** burn so the general public won't become too dependent on him?

 

[TimBisley]

Madness.

 

[fifthfiend]

If we have a Superman that stops every bad thing from happening then every few years we'll have to deal with a long drawn out story about Superman finding himself because some person says, "Why didn't you save the people I wanted to be saved?!" I'd much rather have a Superman that just deals with the big stuff than to have to read that story again.

It seems significant that the terrible story you're referencing was written by the same guy who wrote the story whose terrible characteristics you're defending by reference to the first, terrible story.

 

[taskmaster]

Well, sure, Superman can't and shouldn't do everything. No need for him to go around and do taxes, pay other's bills, write up a grocery list, and sure, he shouldn't be the police of everything, but come on, the logic behind this is idiotic. It's like a man with great power lives outside a city, and one day he sees someone falls into the lake and is about to drown, and instead of helping him says, 'I see you're drowning, but I don't want your city to become too dependent on me, so I'll just let you drown. Sorry, hope you make it. Now when a comet comes down, give me a call.'

That's kind of an exaggerated example I'll grant, but still. Something like a building burning, that may have people in it? His code of non-inference instead says let that ***** burn so the general public won't become too dependent on him?

I totally agree that he should have stopped the fire, I should have made that clear in my original post. Sorry. The fire was started because of Clark, he was there and should have done something. I just didn't like the insinuation that Clark would be less of a hero if he only focused on large scale problems and let humanity take care of itself for the most part. Also that it had to be the fault of the younger generation, that didn't make any sense to me.

Edit: I just re-read the scene, firefighters already had the situation under control when Clark got there. The tenants were being evacuated, no one was in any immediate danger, the fire had been contained to Clark's room and the firefighters were in the process of putting it out. Clark was just preventing his secret from getting out, without retrieving his things he couldn't have stopped the invasion. Could he still have put it out? Of course but saying he was being selfish is blowing it out of proportion.

It seems significant that the terrible story you're referencing was written by the same guy who wrote the story whose terrible characteristics you're defending by reference to the first, terrible story.

JMS isn't the first and won't be the last to do a story about Superman hating himself because someone is mad that he didn't save someone.