Although Earth One came out over a year ago,  I’d stayed away from it.  For one thing, I just can’t bring myself to buy a  twenty-five dollar comic book.  Calling it a “graphic novel,” encasing it in hardback doesn’t ease the pain of this overgrown kid still pining for the drugstore spinner racks of a bygone era.

Another reason I avoided E1 was I’d heard the story was “darker” than the usual Superman stuff.  My tolerance for darkness was pretty much exhausted twenty five years ago after Watchmen and The Dark Knight.  I think it’s safe to say that darkness has been done to death in the interim.  Nevertheless, when my friend John, no fan of dark stuff himself, recommended this one, I was intrigued enough to get it.

The story begins with a young Clark Kent wandering around Metropolis looking for a job.  There are amusing scenes in which he astounds research scientists with his knowledge and pro-sports team owners with his athletic prowess.  His is not the problem us regular guys have, that of finding a job.  No, Clark’s problem is choosing among a hundred lavishly-paying professions, all of which he can do with ease.   Which will fill his heart’s desire?

Meanwhile, back on the farm, the widowed Martha Kent yearns for her adopted son to choose a totally different career, the like of which the world has never seen.  She’s even made him a special uniform for the job.  But Clark is in denial.  Although he wants to use his marvelous gifts to help people, he can’t accept his destiny.

If you watched Smallville much, you’ll recognize the same motif which, unfortunately, was played out over a decade on that show.  The glory of this story, however, is that Straczynski doesn’t let his hero run in place too long.  When an alien invasion threatens the world, Clark sees he has no choice but to cape up and cut loose.

I like Earth One for several reasons.  Not only is the story exciting, suspenseful, and absorbing, but it tweaks the Superman legend in all the right places.

Take, for example, what Straczynski does with that old bastion of journalistic truth and integrity, the Daily Planet.  The joke about the Planet has long been  it’s the paper that gets all the good Superman stories.  Naturally, that’s because, whenever Superman arrives, somehow a certain mild-mannered reporter always manages to be on the scene.   At least, he’s the one who gets the byline.   But why, in a day when newspapers are dying right and left, when the digital has all but displaced the printed, should there even be a Daily Planet?  Ah, this is where our writer glanced back and noticed what was there all along.  Against all odds, fashions, and economics, the Planet manages to stick around precisely because it gets all the Superman stories!  Indeed, Superman’s presence is an economic necessity to the editors, reporters, and employees of that grand old lady.  As such, it feeds Clark’s own need to be needed.  Granted, in the real world, there’s no Superman to prop up the printed page, but, in this story at least, it makes sense.

I also like Straczynski’s approach to Superman’s costume–or uniform, if you prefer.  It’s really the latter his foster-mother, Martha, has in mind as she painstakingly sews together a suit made from the fibers of the red and blue blankets in which the infant from Krypton was wrapped.  Here, Straczynski  allows a major theme from the Christopher Reeve Superman movie–destiny–to hold sway.  But, refreshingly, he departs from the idea that the S-shield on the uniform is some sort of Kryptonian crest.

There’s an interesting flashback wherein Martha presents the suit to her son as Jonathan looks on.  The ‘S’ on the shirt is just that.  According to his mom, it stands for “super-man,” that which her son is and was always meant to be.  Although Jonathan thinks she might’ve gone a bit “fuzzy,” there, he raises no argument.  The emblem will stand for what we all know it stands for.  Regardless of Clark’s ancestry, he is first and foremost Superman!

Here’s a good place to say a word about Shane Davis’ wonderfully detailed artwork.  In these pages, Davis has created what director Richard Donner called “verisimilitude.”  The costume actually looks sewn together, albeit by a fine seamstress.  You can see the ridges along the chest-emblem.  You can tell that, when he finally puts his uniform on, Superman’s wearing a belt.   Oh, and, evidently, neither Martha nor her husband had any qualms about their son using that belt to hold up a pair of red trunks (Take that, New DC!).

I also like the approach to the destruction of Krypton.  Far from being a cosmic accident, we learn that it was, in fact, an act of genocide performed on a truly appalling scale.  While this will no doubt seem new and fresh to many readers, I’m wondering if Straczynski borrowed a leaf from a late sixties tale in which an alien villain killed Krypton  (I don’t have time to look up the issue number.  If you care to comment on that particular story, by all means do so).

Besides the gratification that a grumpy old fan like me feels–”What goes around comes around!”–the plot device also provides a compelling reason for Clark to man up and go to work.  A super-man requires a super-menace.   The vengeful alien Tyrell had made it his mission to wipe out Krypton’s population to the last man.  Realizing that one had escaped his vengeance he bided his time, waiting for him to reveal himself.  When he threatens to use the same war machines that had destroyed Clark’s birth world, he forces our hero’s hand.

Above, I mentioned destiny as a major theme of E1.  Another word to use is “calling.”  Calling is finding that which we were born to do, our true vocation.  It’s a rich biblical term encompassing individuals, faith communities, even whole nations.   Pastors talk about their “calling,” but comedians do too.  Frederick Buechner defined calling as the place where our greatest passion meets the world’s greatest need.   By that definition, I personally believe I am called to preach.  I’m wondering if J. Michael Stracwynski hasn’t read his Buechner too.  He’s certainly written a powerful tale of a young man  finding his place in the world.   The place may be hard, but saying no is harder.

“You wanna know how strong, I am, Luthor?” He bends a sword and casts it away–clang!

“You wanna know how fast I am?” He picks up a revolver, checks the loads, and fires at wide-eyed Lex–only to catch the bullet inches from Luthor’s chest. Superman drops the hot slug in the startled entrepreneur’s hand.

Of course, Lex is cool as a cucumber. He calmly threatens random death and destruction should the Man of Steel continue to operate in his town. Superman is thrown for a while, but he gets back up in the saddle or, rather, back up in the sky.

The fourth episode was a charming throwback to the old George Reeves series involving a gang of invisible thieves plaguing Metropolis.

I liked the little touches of humor and whimsy that mark these episodes: Here’s Perry telling Jimmy about seeing Elvis in Vegas. Here’s Lois, dirty and limping on one high heel into the newsroom, having received a mild lesson in humility from Kent. Here’s the dream Clark has in which his co-workers approach him in Superman costumes, laughing at him.

I admit it. I’m a Superman junkie. That certainly explains why I’ve continued to torture myself with SMALLVILLE. Though I watched pretty much every episode of L&C as originally broadcast, I disdained its “cuteness” and, as it seemed then, its obsession with sex.

But never say never again. After eight years of SMALLVILLE depression and whining, LOIS AND CLARK has leapt upwards in my estimation. Not only was nobody worried about flights and tights, the show was fun! Oh, they toyed with sex, of course, but, unlike his current TV incarnation, at least Clark waited until he got married. What’s more, he wasn’t ashamed to be who he was–the tights-wearin’, never-swearin’, horns-blarin’ hero.

Hallelujah! Amen.