#Superman year one

[wwprice1]

Art from the third issue of Superman Year One.

[small-screen-superman]

I have a Superman blog and I just published my first comic review :) You can also read it below!

Note: I do not recommend that young kids read either this review or the comic being discussed due to a reference to mature content.

Frank Miller is a controversial comic creator, but he’s still a talented one. I’m not that familiar with his work, honestly, but I have read one of his more recent creations, 2019’s 3-issue series Superman: Year One. It’s a retelling of Superman’s origins, but a rather unusual one in some ways.

Issue #1 is the one I’ll be reviewing here and the one I recommend the most. Interestingly, I actually feel like the individual issues of this series can stand alone for the most part, which is both a good and bad thing in some ways (though the bad part is irrelevant as far as the first issue is concerned). I will likely review the other two issues at a later date (though, as a preview of my thoughts, I’ll just say that I also recommend #2 but don’t recommend #3, as sadly there was a steep drop in quality). This review won’t be spoiler-free, but I also won’t give too many details of the plot away.

The first issue was the most “normal”, but it was also amazing. It’s the standard things you’d expect from a Superman origin, but done in an especially compelling way. Krypton’s destruction is brief but powerful – I actually teared up, which I’m not sure has ever happened before when going over this part of Superman’s origin. It was presented in a way that was poetic yet also very immediate with beautiful art depicting the destruction. The death of Krypton is often taken for granted, but something about the way it’s portrayed here made me feel the depth of loss as well as the suddenness of the catastrophe.

When we get to the Kents, the toddler Clark is depicted as having subtle psychic powers to nudge his adoptive father into taking him home, which I think is an interesting idea. Clark’s childhood has a wholesomeness and cuteness to it without abandoning the weirdness of his powers (I always prefer it when Clark has at least some powers in his childhood, so that’s a plus for me). I love moments that drive home the fact that Clark has to learn to handle people and everything around him gently.

When we get to him as a teenager, we see Clark deal with issues that are normal, but with the twist of he himself not being normal – stuff like bullies and his first relationship in the form of Lana Lang. It works incredibly well because the emotions surrounding these things feel so intense and accurate to how they feel in the moment, and the interaction with these things and Clark’s powers and formations of his values and desires is very interesting.

I like how the Kents are depicted. They don’t feel perfect or over-idealized, but they feel very loving and real. We get to see stuff like Martha worrying about losing track of Clark because of his powers and her deep sadness when he leaves the farm. We also see an interesting scene where Martha tries to teach Clark strict nonviolence, and Jonathan reluctantly agrees with her in front of Clark, but in private teaches him that it’s not so simple. I like seeing that the two have different viewpoints in a major way, and not wanting to fight in front of Clark is understandable and admirable. Another moment I love is when Clark is succeeding in football due to his powers and his parents look disapproving as they watch, but they don’t show them harping on it or anything.

The issue ends in a very interesting way. Clark thinks that the way to learn more about the world so that he can protect it is by seeing the world, and he decides to do that by joining the Navy. It’s a pretty unique twist, and as we see in the next issue, it actually works quite well. There’s a final scene where as Clark leaves Smallville, he hones in on Lana using his recently more fully realized super scences. It’s quite touching.

In general, issue #1 did an amazing job showing the intensity of a young person’s experience while also showing how Clark’s powers interact with it all. It was emotional, endearing, and even thought-provoking. Honestly, it might just be my favorite Superman origin.

I will say the art isn’t perfect – though the backgrounds and coloring are beautiful, the bodies and faces of people look a bit odd at times. (Funnily enough, I think the biggest example of this can be found on the cover itself – what’s going on with Superman’s leg, and why are his arms so dang long?) But they usually look good and even when they’re odd-looking, it’s not so distracting that it takes away from the story significantly.

Also, something that made me a bit uncomfortable and prevents me from recommending this story to younger readers is the fact that at one point, some teenage boys attack the teenage Lana and subtly threaten to sexually assault her, though they’re not able to even prepare to do so before Superman intervenes. It’s not inherently bad to depict bad people wanting to do bad things in a comic, but it just felt unnecessary and like it doesn’t really add anything to the story either.

Overall, Superman Year One #1 is a masterpiece. I don’t know how else to sum it up. I highly recommend giving it a try.

[allovesthings]

I love that Dick is pocket sized for both powered superheroes and as Robin, when he is a teeny little guy for the non-powered. It's very fun.

So here is three of my favorite way someone carried Dick:

Kitten! Dick taken by the scruff in Batman/Scarecrow Year one:

2. On the shoulder of Superman, looking like he is having the time of his life:

3. look at his shit-eating smile, i love him

[shyjusticewarrior]

Clark: On krypton there was a vigilante called "Nightwing." His family didn't want him to be a superhero-

Dick, just fired by his dad: His family didn't support him, you say?

[magicpiano]

When Tim is 10 years old his parents force him to go to some boring party in Metropolis held by Lex Luther. This would have been relatively normal if he hadn't ended the night kidnapping rescuing a clone of superman he found when he was snooping in the basement.

The good news is Tim is literally the last person Lex would suspect of stealing his clone, so he doesn't come looking (at least for a while.) Also Tim's parents are barely home! So with Superboy's powers he can easily stay quiet and hide. The Drakes don't even notice someone else living in their home.

The bad news is Tim has no idea how to take care of a super powered clone with no life experience (or even a name) when he himself is still a child. But whatever, at ten he is old enough to raise himself, so surely he is old enough to raise his new friend too?

Something, something, hijinks ensue, Tim is adopted by the batfam early and Clark steps up to be a dad.

[emacrow]

Siren song of Space by emacrow/the og prompt creator

The assignment has gone all type of wrong for the justice league.

They were investigating a mass sudden disappears of a town called Amity Park after finding out a neglectful person(*cough cough* flash*cough*) thought they were prank calling about ghosts and some group called GIW until John Constantine heard one of the voicemails.

The area where Amity Park was now a Mass ocean that looked like galaxy was dipped into it even if it was daytime and fog covered the greenish tint sky inside the Barrier.

This was deep world ending shit, but unfortunately, none of the adults could even enter at all nor high tech ships not even John constantine could pass through, but old wooden ships with food supples can easily slipped through, along with the except J'onn.

Who tried float a foot deeper in without gripping his head from the pure mass empathetic overload and pushed back out by an unknown force, going through an internal shock until one curious Robin tried stepping a foot in and successfully went through, stepping on the ship easily.

Seeing that only kids and teenagers could go leads to mass arguments between the Justice league until John cut in that the abnormal sea space dome is expanding, sucking in more ground until the very earth itself is swallowed whole.

Grumbly, internally, Batman called in the young justice league, teen titans, and a few robins to find what had happened and come back in 1 hour.

Now, the entire young justice league, main teen titans, and robins were on a wooden ship sail into the space like sea.

Cyborg and blue beetle had to stay behind due to being mostly technology along with miss Martian who might also had the dame reaction as J'onn earlier as Red Robins pulled the sail with a compass, Starfire, Raven, Super girl, Super boy and Tranformed eagle Beastboy flies around as the scout.

Aqualad couldn't get in the water the moment he tried to stick his head only to immediately pull away gasping for air. This water was too dense yet suffocating like space itself submerged in it.

Kid flash helps around with arrangements, tying up knots and untying when the wind blown hard with the help of bat girl, robin, and Artemis

The only sound they could hear was the sea roaring, the ship creaking with each wave they sail over, and an odd electric sound buzzing around, as the ominous greenish fog seemed to roll in.

Starfire, Super Boy, Super girl, Raven, and Beastboy flies back onto the ship the moment their vision was blurring by the Fogs. Super boy and girl couldn't detect any other elses' heartbeats others than their group, and that alone sent chills of what could have happened to the Amity Park residents.

The sense of danger was shivering up everyone's backs as they could hear a voice, low and quiet, that began to grow louder.

Beautiful like yet haunting young male voice that nearly pulled their attention towards as Raven yelled at them to cover their ears with ears plugs from one of the wooden boxes now.

Something massive white was swimming in the star filled sea near their ship.

There couldn't be anything alive in this sea, but their eyes couldn't betray what they have saw.

It was humanoid, with multiple arms with webbed fingers with white massive hair longer then foot ball station, a large slender body that had thousands upon thousands of green spots and hundreds scars too neat and professional align to be normal cut and a very long tail with shredded fins.

Super boy and Girl eyes widen seeing that the green spot weren't for show as they were bubbles with people sleeping, encased, young and old, most of them were green colored or off color humaniod while the rest were living human people asleep.

They all kept their ears shut with the ear plugs, But super boy and Girl could still hear the most beautiful yet haunting voice that sound like a Siren enchanting his neck victim.

Red Robin could see Super boy swaying in a dazed like state while Super girl looking enchanted nearly floating, motion the others to help tied the two to the pole with lightly laced Kyptonite rope to stop them from going over board toward the Entity.

Raven could see that this was likely the Entity that trapped the Residents of Amity parks, but the questions remains as how it got here and why this space dome was here.

Bat girl was signing that this creature seemed desperate, hurt, confused, traumatized, hopelessly scared, yet dazed in some typed of trance like over protective like state.

[frownyalfred]

“why do you hate the Injustice art style so much?”

well. these two panels happen within the same volume in back to back issues:

[syppys-den]

"that guy in the acrobat outfit!" I always appreciate when artists acknowledge Superman's real life inspirations (in this case being circus performers)

Elseworlds Superman by Michael Lark

[reunitedinterlude]

summer phantasy: the album

tracks 5-8 (x)

[danaclese]

Clark is so annoyed in this panel

In one offhand comment, Dick Grayson just committed him to several hours of study in order to convincingly play a hockey fan of such significance as to be in a fantasy league with a billionaire from another city.

Dangit Dick Now I have to learn an entire sport history.

[daydreamerwonderkid]

The more I think about it, the more hilarious it is to me for MAWS Clark Kent to potentially run into Bruce Wayne.

Clark's Superman career is literally just starting, and if we're going by the general wishy-washy timeline that DC comics give us, that means Bruce has at least one year as Batman under his belt.

You got adorable babygirl Clark Kent out here trying to discover who he is while also struggling to juggle his personal life with the weight of responsibility he feels towards his powers. He's dipping his pinky toe into the massive ocean of absolute craziness that comes with being a superhero.

Fuck, he hasn't even met Lex Luthor yet, y'all.

Meanwhile, a few states away, you got Bruce leaning full hard into his "I am Vengeance. I am the Night" schtick. This motherfucker just got back from his batshit insane training world tour and Alfred is probably just happy that his son ward is at least coming home every night. Nevermind that he spends all of his time pouring over grainy video footage and case files while blasting his underground bunker with Nirvana's greatest hits. It's the small things.

I'm just asking y'all to picture this with me: Year One Batman running into Barely A Week Old Superman.

Bruce would eat Clark fucking alive.

[t00thpasteface]

I love how you draw Superman, he's really just a Little Guy

he's a big guy who's also just a little guy yknow. like he's yuge but he's smol. yknow??? he's just a little guy and it's his birthday.

here's something from the archives i drew for my buddy:

[thebatfamdeservesbetter]

I wake up as a DC fan, for the first time the birds are singing,

I open up social media, everyone is hyping up the current comic slate.

I watch in glee as Superman saved a little girl in the trailer for his next big blockbuster.

Is this what it feels like to be…. winning?

[shyjusticewarrior]

Clark's reaction to Bruce firing Dick is "how can he possibly even do that??" Based af.

[stealingyourbones]

OUGH I’m slowly working on a “best place to start reading” comic list for dpxdc folks but I simply am unable to describe easily why I enjoy a comic so much and why it’s a good starting book

[artemismoorea03]

DP x DC: Reaction Time

Based on the Danny Phantom Episode: Flirting With Disaster

(Another idea I've never seen anybody else use so I'm going to go with it)

When the United States sent up a new Satellite the Justice League had conflicting feelings about it all. Yes, it wasn't any danger to the Watchtower and was nothing more but a mild annoyance. Mostly because 'Axion Labs' had built the damn thing after constantly refusing to share their specs with any competitors and everybody was very tightly lipped about it. They had no idea if it were safe, what it was capable of, and it was ugly.

It turned out that the satellite was just the processing unit but that due to 'Secret Axion Labs technology' was able to access any and al devices to allow world wide alerts to go out in a matter of seconds. Which wouldn't have been a bad thing if A) The Justice League had even a glimps of what data they would be sending, B) Axion Labs could even be trusted - which they couldn't, and C) if the owner of Axion Labs wasn't also on Batman's personal "Watchlist" for a multitude of reasons one of which was blackmail and fraud.

Batman didn't trust it and specifically made any possible adjustment on their equipment that they could to prevent anybody from hacking into their systems or finding out their personal information.

For a few months things were fine until one day things suddenly changed.

It was a rare mid-day meeting to talk about the increasing number of Lazarus Pits popping up around the world when a sudden bright green laser shot out from the middle of Illinois and hit the ugly satellite.

In seconds every Justice League member was on their feet and at the window, watching the situation with wide eyes while Martian Manhunter multitasked and started trying to locate the source of the problem. Batman watched as he obnoxious round dome on the satellite suddenly morphed into something green and almost alive. It was glowing and face like as it laughed, it's voice echoing through space as it boomed.

"IT'S OVER, CHILD! YOU CAN'T STOP ME NOW!"

Batman was thankful that he had updated the security on the Watchtower and his stuff back in Gotham City but now he was left spiraling and concerned. What happened to the satellite? Why was it suddenly sentient?! WHAT THE HELL WAS HAPPENING?!

"There are two figures approaching the satellite." Superman said, "Without a ship."

"What?!" The collective comment formed as the satellite began to move on it's own and Batman pulled up the camera's from the outside while pulling up more information from earth.

The outside cameras showed what looked like two teenagers - one in a red suit that definitely wasn't meant to be a space suit and one in no suit at all just a helmet and what looked like some kind of jetpack!

Pink lasers shot out of the satilitte down the earth, making Batman fear the worst as news became flooded with a glowing green face of a man with long white hair in a mullet and a black and white suit of some kind. He was laughing wildly.

Suddenly earth was thrown into chaos.

Street signs changed, electronics came to life all over not just America but the entire planet as one by one areas were struck by pink lasers. The teenager with the mask flew at the satellite with glowing green energy shooting out of their hands as it effortlessly bounced off of the machine.

"Whoever that kid is, he seems to know what's going on." Flash said quickly, "We might be able to hack into the helmet and form some kind of communication."

"Maybe I should go out there." Superman suggested.

"Not yet, that glow could mean trouble." Batman grumbled and Superman deflated slightly, "Let's try to contact the kid." He said, getting to work on hacking into the kids helmet when the second kid in the red suit suddenly slammed into the one in the mask, trapping them in the middle of some kind of hoverboard.

Suddenly there was an explosion, a crack in the back of the jetpack as the kid tried to break free, firing a blast at the red one, throwing the two of them apart. The red one went limp while the green seemed surprised at their own actions before flying towards the satellite, flying in front of it. The teen pulled off the jetpack, turned it on, then let it go as the satellite opened what looked like it's mouth and swallowed the jetpack.

Which - understandably - exploded and destroyed the satellite in turn. The faces were yanked off of the news, all of the machines which had been powered up were suddenly shut down and fell harmlessly to the ground.

Disaster had been averted in a matter of minutes and just as quickly both teens vanished.

"What the hell just happened?" Gawked Superman.

"I don't know... but Axion Labs has a lot of explaining to do." Batman glared. "Let's find out as much as we can about the Illinois location."

"Amity Park Illinois." Flash said, already having information pulled up. "It's - oh."

"Oh?" Green Arrow repeated.

That was never good.

"Uh... yeah, looks like this isn't gonna be an 'on the way conversation'. Looks like we have a new meeting topic."

They learned about the kid they had seen, Ghosts, and half a dozen attacks that probably should have at least caught the attention of Justice League yet they had never even heard of these things.

They had never heard about Danny Phantom or the problems Amity Park was having but that was going to change from that moment on. They were taking a fieldtrip to Amity Park. To meet Danny Phantom, figure out what was happening, talk to Axion Labs, and figure out how the hell they hadn't heard about any of this.