Who else has read this? I thought it was pretty good. A return to a more classic Superman. Simple and removed from the continuity problems of the mainstream version. My only real complaint was his reluctance to be a hero. Not to ruin it for anyone how hasn't read it:
SPOILER ALERT!
When the aliens attacked looking for him, he waited to jump in bothered me a little bit.
See, for me the reluctance you disliked "a little bit" is what completely ruined it.
There's a trend in modern Superman origins and comics for Superman to to be reluctant to keep being Superman as soon as the media turns on him. Dude, Spider-Man puts up with constant hate. Superman can handle a few xenophobes.
It happened in
Birthright, it happened in
Superman and the Men of Steel, but the worst example by far is in
Superman Earth One, where he DOESN'T EVEN REALLY WANT TO BE SUPERMAN.
With great power comes great responsibility. There are people in the world who treat others like dirt and they need to be stopped. There is crime and corruption and social injustice and to me it is a huge part of Clark Kent's character, from the very first Siegel and Shuster comic, to WANT to do something about it. The guy in
Superman Earth One doesn't. He gets pressured into it by his pushy parents and by an alien invasion, and even then not til the invader CALLS HIM OUT SPECIFICALLY.
When it takes that much to get him to do the right thing, you have a different character from Superman. I don't know who, but it isn't Superman.
Other then that, I thought it was a decent version of the character. I really like their take on Jimmy.
I liked Jim too. He's cool. It sort of bothered me that they switched his and Lois' defining traits though. Lois isn't afraid of anything, usually, and Jimmy can think fast on his feet. In
Superman Earth One Lois thinks fast and Jim's the recklessly fearless one. I don't mind completely, it just seemed strange.
I also like the fact that we aren't stuck with the same old rogues gallery. Lex hasn't shown up yet. Neither has Kryptonite. And I like the fact that Krypton was destroyed by outside forces instead just old age. And the mysterious benefactor who helped the aliens blow up Krypton is still a mystery though I think we can all safely assume it's probably Brainiac.
The new villain was cool, and I'd like to see Tyrell again, if only in a different function. It's my understanding that the next book is going to use the Parasite, but in such a way that he'll be "bigger than Doomsday", which seems pretty great to me.
Yet the fact that Krypton was destroyed deliberately is bizarre and horrible to me.
It means Superman needs to be concerned with revenge. That's something that should never even cross his mind, but his spaceship's AI tells him to "Avenge" his planet's death. I'd say that's Batman's thing, but Batman doesn't kill and "Superman" never hesitates to kill Tyrell. He's not even Batman, he's the Punisher or something.
It's like this. Batman needed to be an anti-criminal to save his parents, because that's what they needed to survive that night. But Robin's parents only needed a safety net.
Krypton was destroyed by a natural disaster, a freak accident, and Act of God, and it's population was destroyed by the Science Counsel's refusal to listen to Jor-El despite his accurate findings, in other words, by corruption. Superman spends a
lot of time fighting freak accidents and natural disasters, and when he doesn't, he fights corruption and crime. Now most of his desire to do good comes from his time in Smallville, but it thematically ties into the way Krypton was destroyed.
But if Krypton was destroyed on purpose by a person, and "Superman" doesn't hesitate to take lethal revenge on this person but doesn't care about fighting natural disasters or crime and corruption otherwise.. well, do you see what I mean about the character not resembling Superman very much?
People complain about the New 52, but that Superman has way more in common with the classic hero than the guy from Stracynski's book does. The only similarity there is the red trunks.