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Superman: Earth One Vol. 2 [Hardcover]

Superman: Earth One Vol. 2 [Hardcover] Reviews

DC's Earth One books were designed to be the companies' attempt at making stories in graphic novels for their respected characters, as opposed to making individual comics. These stories exist outside of the main continuity as to let writers have more leeway in writing about aspects that haven't been written about before, without interfering with overlapping details. And it all started with 2010's Superman: Earth One. Writer J. Michael Straczynski and artist Shane Davis made a cinematic reimaging of Clark Kent becoming Superman, that became a huge seller overnight. DC made JMS drop all of his projects at the time of release to get to work on a volume 2. After 2 years, does it proceed or trump Vol.1? I think so. SUPERMAN: EARTH ONE VOL.2 picks up right after the end of Vol.1, where we see Clark settling into his new persona of glasses and keeping to himself. He finally gets his own apartment with some new neighbors, including a flirtatious woman named Lisa Lasalle. Lois Lane, questioning how a young nobody like Clark Kent could get Superman's story, starts an investigation into Clark's background. And Raymond Maxwell Jensen, homicidal killer, accidently becomes the Parasite, a metahuman who can suck living beings powers and essence. How will Superman fight a creature who can steal his powers away? You'll have to find out. After reading both Earth One books of Superman Vol.1 and Batman, I've come to the conclusion the EO books are more about humanizing our protagonist and changing some aspects of the mythos, while stretching some of the taboos of the character. Batman: Earth One did this exceptionally well, with making a Bruce Wayne who never left Gotham, as well as being angst-ridden and making human errors. Superman Vol.1 did some subtle changes, but it played safe to the overall mythos. Vol.2 on the other hand, actually takes more risks on dealing with Clark Kent, the human side of Superman, including the subject of the 70+ year old question regarding sex for The Man of Steel, and I find it commendable. It's different to read about and is handled fairly well, which I'll talk about in a bit. There are two over-arching themes here: Superman represents power and Clark Kent represents isolation. Of the two, Clark Kent takes majority of the screen time and for someone like me who doesn't see a lot of stories on Clark, this is fresh perspective. The theme of being alone is so prevalent that a good majority of the interactions Clark has throughout the story are brief. Lois looks up Clarks background and finds out his whole life has been about keeping away from others due to his power and origins, and to the point that Clark had straight C-grades in school to stay under the radar. Lois, Jimmy, and Perry White are rarely seen for this intention as well to further this theme. It's handled well and you actually care for Clark being an outcast because of who he is. It makes his turmoil that much acceptable to the reader--especially a sad and lovely story about Clarks first pet. But this theme gets challenged by the only friend Clark gets (and love interest) Lisa Lasalle. Lisa pushes Clark into new territories, being a voluptuous redhead with tattoos immediately coming on to Clark from page one. The interaction of this one and only friend, as well as pushing Clark's boundaries in intimacy, gives Clark human qualities we all feel and sympathize with. And the taboo with dealing with sex for Superman (and the awkward and funny scene with Jonathan Kent and Clark over sex) is something that works out well, and adds those qualities never talked about before. I know JMS gets a lot of heat for shaking things up for characters, but I applaud him for trying. The other theme is power; power to rule, corrupt, and lust for. Power of Superman doing just about anything he wishes, and because of it, the world views him from both perspectives: a savior of a god or a destructive weapon ready to go off. This is shown when Superman goes to a foreign land and tries to help, only to be threatened about "guns are the power". The Parasite represents greed and monstrosity of what power can do. Even Superman has an edgy persona about him that drool's power. And even when Superman loses majority of his power, he finds something more about those who don't have it. It's a good metaphor and theme about where Superman stands in this world and universe, and it offsets the more somberness of the book with action. The theme isn't handled as well as the theme of isolation, but it works. As for art, Shane Davis is up there with some of the more underrated artist. He puts on the same level of detail and cinematic feel about it here like he did in Vol.1, but even more so. His detail to human expressions are key here. They go well with Straczynski's writing. 80% of the book is in the expressions, with only 20% in the action. So you'll do well to take your time and really take in the panels. As for complaints, it lies in the character usage of Lisa, Lois, and the Parasite. The Parasite is written somewhat one-dimensional. He plays a great monstrosity of a character, but lacks some polish on his background. As for Lisa, she is and will probably be the biggest lighting rod for debate, due to the nature of her. For one, JMS writes some horribly cheesy lines for her. She immediately slathers her way onto Clark from page one, which is something most people would never do. JMS could have at least eased into her coming on to Clark, but it feels way to fast and ridiculous to believe. The other is her being the new love interest over Lois. Lois and Clark barely have anything to do with one another in Earth One, so this will feel uneasy with readers who feel Lois should be the love interest. And the other...well sorry if this feels like spoiler, but...Lisa is a prostitute (occasionally). This little nugget of information has already made people up-in-arms over feminist as seeing Lisa as stereotypical. People might see this as Clark being around a women who is "impure" to someone like himself. I don't mind this take, but some people out there might really go nuts over this. SUPERMAN: EARTH ONE VOL.2 does everything Vol.1 does, but ups it up greatly. This is a great character study on Clark Kent, and using the Earth One title to deal with such forbidden discussion to great effect. If you're one who didn't enjoy Vol.1, then this book probably won't change your mind. But if you did enjoy Vol.1 and want to take it further, Vol.2 shouldn't disappoint. And if your one who wants a different take on the Clark Kent/Superman mythos, then this too is worth checking out. The big teases and set-ups for the inevitable Vol.3, I'm looking forward on what JMS and Davis do in the future.. this is my Superman: Earth One Vol. 2 [Hardcover] reviews

Superman: Earth One Vol. 2 [Hardcover] Specs

• Amazon.com Review
• Q&A with J. Michael Straczynski
• Q. Were you surprised by the tremendous success of SUPERMAN: EARTH ONE Vol. 1?
• A. J. Michael Straczynski: Yes and no. Any time one writes a book of any sort, one hopes for success with it. I knew that the story was as solid as I could make it, the art was great, and our lead character is one of the most recognizable figures in the world, so all of the elements were there. The question then becomes the degree to which it resonates with an audience: do they care about the story and the characters?
• So while I suspected the book would do well, given the elements above, I never expected that it would spend 37 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list for graphic novels. What's especially interesting about that is that in the weeks and months since it came out, I heard from a massive number of readers who said that they'd never picked up a Superman comic before, that the character hadn't really interested them previously, but that they bought, and enjoyed, this one. I think we managed to reach a considerable number of folks who had never been able to dial into the character before.
• We'd taken a rather risky path with the character of Clark Kent in the book, so to receive both a very strong response in both critical reception and sales was a huge validation that we'd made the right choice.
• Q. Many creators have re-imagined Superman's origin story throughout the years. What frame of mind did you put yourself in to create a new, unique vision that stands by itself?
• A. J. Michael Straczynski: The answer to that dovetails rather neatly into the comments above, but requires a bit of a long story. For two years I'd worked in Vancouver as writer/producer on a Showtime TV series called Jeremiah. Every week, I'd go down to the comics store on Granville near Robson for my comics fix. Now, if you know that area, then you know that Granville is a haven for street kids: the lost and the transitional, the runaways and the throwaways. I would often see them walk into the comics store in search of something, anything that resonated with them, and the world in which they had to live. They would scan the multicolored racks with desperate eyes, looking for something uplifting that would speak to them...and return to the streets empty handed.
• For Superman to remain relevant, the character must grow and change and evolve, must be re-invented for each new generation. So that's what I decided to do with Superman: bring him to Metropolis in his early 20s today, right now, and give him the same task that awaits so many others at that age: let him define himself, figure out what he wants to do with his life and show the difficulties, but also the joys, of making that happen.
• Q. What is the core tenet behind the SUPERMAN: EARTH ONE mythology you and artist Shane Davis have created?
• A. J. Michael Straczynski: To show the human side of Clark and make him relatable. The key thing about Superman is that while you cannot pierce his skin, you can pierce his heart. His journey has to be one filled with action but it must also be a very personal journey of discovery. We must all discover who we are, and what we stand for when standing is the most difficult. Clark Kent is no different in that respect, and that key gave us our central approach to the character.
• Q. Parasite is the starring villain in Vol. 2. What aspects of the character have you focused on?
• A. J. Michael Straczynski: The Parasite is in a way the mirror image of Superman, in that Superman gives of himself to help others, and the Parasite takes from others to strengthen himself. So that gave us our focus from a thematic perspective. Before the accident that transforms him, he is a serial killer who exploits people until he no longer needs them, then murders them and moves on. Cold, calculating, conscienceless and very much in control. As Parasite, when the hunger for power hits him, he is very much out of control, and that dichotomy gave us some really cool dynamics to play with.
• Q. Your version of Clark Kent isn't the instantly heroic Boy Scout archetype we all know. Will we see further change in Clark in Vol. 2?
• A. J. Michael Straczynski: For me, the fun in writing Clark is that he's not so much a boy scout as he is, in his way, kind of naive when he comes to Metropolis for the first time. He's led a life in which he was always afraid that he might accidentally hurt someone, or that his powers might be discovered, so he withdrew into himself, leading a life where he touched as few people as possible, and was touched by few of them in return. Because he was an outsider, in a very literal sense, there was always a barrier between him and other people, between him and fun. But now that he's out in the world, on his own for the first time, he has to relate to other people more intimately than he has in the past, and there's a certain amount of fun involved in that, some of it at his expense. He has to figure out how to rent an apartment on his own, and how to deal with the beautiful young woman next door who thinks he's really cute. He's protective, and strong, but also very shy in his ways, and that ends up being very attractive.
• Q. Are there any other supporting characters from the Superman mythos we'll see in Vol. 2?
• A. J. Michael Straczynski: In addition to Parasite, there's an appearance by one character known well to fans of Superman, but whom I've been deliberately holding back until I could bring him in via a new path, reinventing him in ways that parallel what we're doing with Clark. I think this will be a pleasant surprise for readers, especially given the character he arrives alongside. I don't think anybody will see this one coming.
• About the Author
• J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI has worked in television, comics and, most recently, motion pictures. In comics, he is known for The Amazing Spider-Man, The Twelve, Thor and Silver Surfer: Requiem, as well as SUPERMAN: EARTH ONE Volumes 1 & 2 and BEFORE WATCHMEN for DC Comics. He is the creator of the hit TV series Babylon 5, and was nominated for the 2009 Best Writer Eisner Award. In movies, he is known for writing films including Changeling, Thor and a forthcoming reinterpretation of Forbidden Planet.

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