| Superman has more than just a thousand stories from the first time he debuted in Action Comics #1. Most of his stories and adventures is about his powers are punching the bad guys. But over time the narrative expands and slowly grounds the character to be a relatable hero to most readers growing up and its understandable how challenging to craft a narrative around an archetype character.
There are already a lot of interpretations of how he came to Earth, and the diverse stories about his origins with each one interpreted through the writer’s perspectives. But one that really redefined a modern Superman was the story told by John Byrne in The Man of Steel, but DC Comics did not stop there in crafting his other origins. Over the years, there are writers taking Superman’s origin to great heights, and a fresh take that would also be considered canon. This is due to the multiple earths that DC Comics would bring back in their major events like Crisis on Infinite Earths. Fans would debate and discuss these stories that gives clarity, which all of these interpretations are part of the wide DC Multiverse. The most recent origin of Kal-El back in the mid-2000s was written by Mark Waid with art by Leinil Francis Yu that have masterful inks by the Great Komikero, Gerry Alanguilan that was the maxi-series, Superman Birthright. |
Published: 19 June 2019
Age Rating: Mature
Language: English
But no fan expected more origin stories of Superman would be retold yet again this time with Frank Miller on the helm, which reunites with John Romita Jr. for the DC Black Label. Delving deep and humanizing the Last Son of Krypton for everyone to understand who is Clark Kent and how he came to be this Superman is a daunting task. But these two legends manage to pull it off.
Of course, for long time readers of Frank Miller and John Romita Jr. their last collaboration together was back in 2016’s The Dark Knight Returns: The Last Crusade. But their defining partnership goes back to 1993’s Daredevil: Man without Fear, which inspired the former Netflix series. Both creators have worked for Marvel, and seeing them again this time at DC was something of a nostalgia at the same time working with this book, Superman: Year One in 2019.
The challenge here as mentioned is telling a story about one of DC Comics’ cornerstone property, and most of them are powerful like Superman. When you flip through the pages the narrative goes deep with Clark’s relationships with his family, friends, and love ones that made him human before his journey in becoming a hero.
Most of the first issue story is about him crashing to earth in Miller’s interpretation with some humorous outtakes about how Clark got his powers at a young age as compared to how he has grown up slowly acquiring those said powers. There’s not much elaboration just a straight up storytelling from Frank Miller, which provided the visuals by John Romita Jr. It delves on being a young high school kid to growing up and finding love with Lana Lang as well as bonding with his ‘Weirdo Pals’ was something never told much delved to in other origins of Superman.
There were slight changes to the characters origin too towards the last few pages of the first issue, and that’s how he enlisted into the military school, which explains how Clark’s such a boy scout. But all these were told in a slow process, which is why the pacing of the narrative was quite a challenge in reading though Clark growing up and how this world is tied to the Dark Knight Returns series, and also why this Superman is not the same guy from the main DC Universe that would eventually be known as Earth-31, where all of Miller’s works are hailed from including the All-Star Batman & Robin mini-series.
Overall the slow story pacing lets you understand the character’s youth as well as the people around Clark Kent, from his parents to the love of his life that defined this version of Superman slightly different from the main universe version.
Most of the setting is from his youth and why he needs to find himself was important in the first part of the book despite not as engaging as you’d want it to be, but it does tell one part of Superman’s origins.
Superman Year One was released in June 2019 to local Comic Shops. This was given away as part of Free Comic Book Day in the Philippines with a cover price of $7.99 US (Sold originally for ₱480.00 pesos). This comic book was given away for FREE at Fully Booked.
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