Comic books are a dying industry and have been for decades now. The properties do very well in other media (particularly film), but actual book sales fluctuate quite a bit. Super-hero companies do a lot to try and push higher sales. The big names, DC and Marvel, employ somewhat different methods, to varying results of success or failure.
DC's approach is usually (and often stupidly) trying to be "hip" and "cool". Before they relaunched their entire continuity again in 2011 ( a move that I have and will always defend), they sought to launch the "Earth One" books, a series of stories that reintroduce their biggest characters to a wider readership. These are the so-called "graphic novels", essentially glorified comic books without the stigma the medium carries and with a lot less restrictions in content or continuity, which aim at being easier to pick up and read by people who don't usually read comic books.
Reportedly a Wonder Woman series is in the works, but currently only Superman and Batman have been published. I reviewed the first (and currently only published) chapter of Batman: Earth One; for the most part, it's the same Batman from the comics with few deviations from the standard lore and the only thing that truly stands out is that it's mostly a Jim Gordon story starring Batman than it is a Bruce Wayne story.
Sadly with Superman things aren't that simple; the public already loves Batman. Batman is an easy character to sell. Superman is a timeless, but not necessarily loved figure in the pop culture psyche. I did review the first chapter of Superman: Earth One for another blog, way before I started this one; you can read that review here (but please, don't).
Looking back at that review, I may have obsessed over certain details I find important as a fan, but ultimately I missed the point. Having read all three books now, there are still some things that bother me in regards to both the portrayal of the character and the approach to the story and the lore. However, a reintroduction to a wider audience means shifting focus to different aspects of a character, not necessarily foreign or new concepts, just facets of a story that aren't as usually touched upon in the niche as much others.
The books are written, after all, by Michael J. Straczynski, a proven and talented writer with quite a few credits in and out of comic books under his name. I only recently started watching his Babylon 5 and I'm loving every second of it; I'd argue it's the best sci-fi television next to Star Trek and Doctor Who.
Straczynski has been an outspoken Superman fan, but he hasn't had the best track record with the character. Soon after he started Superman: Earth One, he also penned a storyline in the Superman ongoing titled "Grounded"; his ideas and intentions were good but the execution was less than satisfactory. Well, "please someone rip my eyes out I can't take any more of this" was my reaction at the time, but I got to read Scott Lobdell's take on the character a couple of years later and I got over it.
The three chapters of Superman: Earth One read a lot better as a whole. If Straczynski's job was to reintroduce the character to a younger, more mainstream audience, he definitely took the right direction. If you haven't read the books yet, a good point of reference is David S. Goyer and Zack Snyder's 2013 Man of Steel, which the first chapter of Superman: Earth One heavily inspired.
Τhere is a lot less focus on the 'Super-Man' in this series; the Nietzschian undertones in the character (the man as god, neither slave nor master, who defines his own morality and is the evolution of humanity) are touched upon briefly and in passing. Instead, the story focuses primarily on Clark Kent, a young man in his very early twenties (probably around 22), an alien who really can't fit in and who feels constantly detached from everyone around him. His journey in the book is one of search for purpose and it isn't actually all that different from that of everyone else his age: do something to be happy in your life or do something meaningful with your life?
This is where the "reintroduction to a mainstream audience" comes in. Straczynski's target demographic are teenagers and young adults that face the same questions in life. Loneliness and isolation are things built into Superman, but it's not a sentiment far removed from people of that age. Undoubtedly, all people at some point in their lives feel completely alone. Not abandoned, just alone, different, unable to fit in.
It's an emotion that can be misconstrued; especially during adolescence, it's an emotion that is sometimes heavily projected and flaunted. But even leaving aside the 'woe is me' crowd, isolation is bound to be experienced, when life knocks on your door, unfiltered, when people are left to fend for themselves, away from protective wings of guardians and need to tackle it on their own merits. You can be the most well-adjusted person on the planet, but the moment you need to make important decisions that will affect the rest of your life and the moment you choose to take some steps alone into the world, you will feel alone, different than anybody else-- even briefly, even if in reality you really aren't different than anybody else.
That's also the strength of the book; the story doesn't wallow in Clark being different, instead he learns how to fit in exactly because in the end, powers or no powers, he's just not that different than anyone else. The first book, isolated, really does seem as a borderline 'emo' Superman being unleashed into the world; the cover art that portrays young Clark in a hoodie with his heat-vision on, as well as the early pages of the book, where Clark looks consistently depressed, don't help.
The entire series, however, really does portray Clark's isolation and loneliness under the scope of looking for a direction in life. Many books and shows have tried approaching him in similar ways (The CW's Smallville, sadly, stands out the most), but they usually do it as a means of generating arbitrary drama that's often-times antithetical to the character. Straczynski's Clark doesn't run away from the things he can do; he's genuinely conflicted.
On one hand, he really does want to help people; his mother (Martha) made him a suit and his father (Jonathan) really encouraged him to reveal himself to the world. Clark really wants to honour Jonathan's request, especially following his death (because nowadays Jonathan Kent seems to be the de facto sacrificial lamp to the daddy issues drama that's permeating the super-hero genre. I don't like it, either kill both Kents or keep both of them alive). The detail here is that it's not delivered simply as a burden passed down from father to son, which is what Smallville did. Clark wants to help, but he's hesitant of putting himself on display for the whole world to see.
It's not fear that drives him, it's a conscious choice regarding his future. He's between two paths: either wear the suit, reveal himself and help, or get a high-paying job well-within his skills, make enough money to support his mother for the rest of her life and at the same time hide who he is, but live like a happy man, finally fitting in. He still wants to help; he just chooses to do it a different way, by finding cures for lethal diseases, by standing up for the little guy, by exposing the truth.
This is actually a point that gets brought up a lot in regards to super-heroes (usually Batman, for good reason). Straczynski does something with Superman that I haven't seen in a long time and it's a good thing: he makes him "super-smart" again. DC has been portraying Superman like a sack of meat in the last 30-ish years, trying to level out the playing field for the rest of the DC heroes, but people forget Superman once had "super-intelligence" and it wasn't an one-off thing either. It makes sense: he's an advanced alien life-form, with his cutting-edge Fortress of Solitude at his disposal, going up against other aliens and their otherworldly technology. In the Silver and Bronze ages, he was very much a scientist as well, spending time in the Fortress looking for cures and alternative energy and ways to make human life better and safer.
Superman is as smart as, if not smarter than, Batman (SIT BACK DOWN) or Lex Luthor; he's just smart in different ways. He has eidetic memory, he reads fast, he learns fast and he is great at deduction and problem-solving. That's not a super-power, he's an alien life-form from an advanced world. He lacks Batman's cunning and street smarts and Luthor's capacity for cruelty (which, in combination with a high Intelligence Quotient can produce tremendous results). Superman's E.Q. (Emotional Quotient) gives him a blind spot that holds his I.Q. back. That, however, doesn't mean he can't get a job in a research lab and help the world via his work. He very nearly does that in Superman: Earth One.
In the end, what makes him change his mind is the realization that some problems can't be fixed indirectly. Sometimes, when bad things happen and evil threatens all that you love, you have to tackle the problem head-on. Before he puts on the suit he does take a piece of the alien invaders that attack Earth in search of him to his would-be employer for analysis. Said employer is too busy escaping with his life and money with not a single care in the world who gets left behind and brutally murdered by an alien armada.
In stark contrast, he who does stay behind is just some read-headed kid with a camera that won't move when an alien battle-suit charges at him, because he wants to bring the truth to the public. That kid is, of course, Jimmy Olsen and it's his words that encourage Clark, in the distance, to put on the suit and become Superman.
Across three books, Clark learns how to be Superman. In doing so, he also learns how to be Clark Kent. Wearing the suit was only the first step. Barring the existence of three different villains, one for each book, the entire series is set-up like a three-act film, with clear beginning, middle and end, as well as a cohesive and well-paced character arc for Clark/Superman.
The second book is probably the most 'quiet' of the bunch and likely the best. Clark moves to a new place and befriends the girl next door. She likes him and he likes her too, but he hesitates; a question of whether or not he can even have sex with an Earth woman without causing fatal harm clouds his mind, all the while having to deal with a deadly enemy that almost robs him off his powers and life as well. There are a few great pages in the second book; one involves a day-dream Superman has, where he heat-visions a dictator that stops him from helping the people of his enslaved country from a natural disaster. Another page has him frustrated he didn't get to sleep with the aforementioned girl (Lisa), when he briefly loses his powers; this cute monologue happens as he takes off to battle again. Another involves a neighbour, who O.D.'s, only for Clark to realize the guy had been silently begging for someone (Superman, in particular) to help him.
If the first book taught Clark to reveal what he can do to the world and tackle problems head-on, the second book teaches him that there are no problems too small or too big for Superman; that it's not just about stopping alien invasions and super-villains, but also about taking care of individual people who are suffering. He does so both as Superman and, finally, as a reporter for a great Metropolitan newspaper. After all, in his own words, "every single person has a story worth telling; they just don't know it yet".
The third book balances things out and concludes Clark's character arc. At the end of the second book, Superman incites a revolution in the aforementioned enslaved country, overturning the dictator. He has no qualms about his motives, but he understands why it was a bad decision. He is forced to understand, because it almost gets him killed, as all governments around the world deny him help, in fear of what he may be able to do if he turns against them and overturn them the same way he did that dictator.
Most importantly, the third book is about trust and acceptance, which serves as the finale to his journey to fitting in and choosing his way in life. In the first book, he was the alien shield against the bad guys. In the second book, he was acting alone, solving problems as a god (and overstepping his role as the Ubermensch). The third book realizes that he's not infallible and he will need the help and the trust of those around him; not just the friends, but everyone. Clark started in the first chapter carrying the burden of his childhood, when he was unable to fit in and he was trying to remain in the shadows, in hoping he would be happy if left alone. By the third book, he has left the shadows; he operates openly and in good faith and asks the same of others. "Leap of faith", as Cavill's Superman called it in Man of Steel. In the third book Superman is accepted by the world and as such, so is Clark.
It's a defining moment that mirrors Jimmy's "truth" speech in the first book, when a brilliant scientist (whose name I'll avoid mentioning, because it would be a hell of a spoiler) sacrifices everything to save Superman. As does Lisa. It's hope and bravery that Superman sees, from small people, when the powerful governments of the world have turned their backs on him. Most importantly, it's hope for the future, it's kindness, compassion and honest, genuine, very human love.
The three books are, themselves, a mirror of a motto tied to the character: chapter one is Truth, chapter two is (poetic, in fact) Justice. Chapter three I would personally refer to as "Hope", but if you want to be a traditionalist, I can see the 'American Way' there; both in the way the American government's actions almost butt-fuck the entire planet and in the way small, everyday people will put everything on the line to do the right thing and defend what they believe in.
It works; there is a poetic brilliance in Superman's dual-identity that very few grasp. Straczynski removes the poetry from it, but approaches it in a more humanistic way. There is a very fine balance between the two identities and they both need to work in unison for the character to be complete. Superman can't be a mask, because it's what allows the character to act out in the open, without fear of hiding his true self. Clark can't be a mask either, as it's his way of connecting to people and experiencing love and life in the fullest.
In an oddly funny twist in the third book, Lois Lane uses a "super-signal" in the sky (it's exactly what you think it is) to contact him. As Clark moves in on a relationship with the brave Lisa (who is lovely and whose recent past makes her a very... progressive love interest for a character with Superman's long and often conservative history), Lois serves the role of a friend and unofficial liaison between the human race and Superman, someone he turns to for advice and discussion. It's a fresh approach that gets the point across nicely.
I do have a few issues with the series, mostly in the way it's structured. As far as the villains go, Superman: Earth One is very weak. The villains in the first book are Krypton's neighbours, aliens from the planet Dheron led by a man named Tyrell, a people with the mission to kill every last Kryptonian in the universe. The second book features the Parasite, a serial killer that becomes an energy leech after an accident. The third book pits none other than Zod against the Man of Tomorrow, who is, 100%, the genocidal maniac people have seen in Man of Steel. Actually, he's the genocidal maniac people have seen in Superman II; obsession with kneeling for everything other than a sex act and all.
Part of the book's few failures are Straczynski's fault and part of them aren't.
Those that aren't can be blamed on the requirement of a villain at all until the third book. These books were released years apart from one another and originally would have needed to be read as individual stories with a clear beginning-middle-and-end. In that regard a villain had to exist for each book and Straczynski at least tried to make them relevant to Clark's development. They still end up breaking the story's pacing, though, and despite the impressive action set-pieces, I found myself quickly flipping through the pages of pure action to get to the quiet, talking parts.
What I can blame on Straczynski is the Silver Age-type, '90s Babylon 5 kind of science and overall framework. Tyrell's explanation about Krypton's 'assassination' and the story he set up there really doesn't work for me. I know what it's leading up to, but it makes the destruction of Krypton needlessly complicated. The Parasite is just kind of crap through and through and seems to only exist in the story in that character's purest form, i.e. as a mirror of Superman's potential for destruction and the danger of accidentally harming those close to him. Zod is surprisingly dull and one-dimensional. In this version he's Kal-El's uncle, Jor-El's brother, which means actual family for Superman. His homicidal rampage and the hatred he displays toward his own blood is nicely juxtaposed to the love and compassion portrayed toward Superman by his adoptive world, but the character can't stand on his own merit; he may as well have been a giant, walking gun.
Then there are all these moments in the book, where Superman is visiting the Fortress. The Fortress isn't really a Fortress yet so much as it is a hole in the ice, where his baby-shuttle rests in. Instead of his father's floating head, we get the computer's AI interacting with Superman. Their interaction is boring and the ship's contribution both to the story and to Clark's development is insignificant and at times downright gimmicky. Actually, even before Clark gets a hold of his ship, when it's resting comfortably and tested on by the U.S. military, anything to do with the ship drags down the narrative. It's just not fun reading.
To a lesser extend I also find myself underwhelmed by the presence of the Daily Planet staff. Straczynski gets all these characters (Lois, Perry, Jimmy), but they too don't seem to contribute too much to the story. There are some nice moments thanks to them, but the meat of the story seems to be away from the Daily Planet. This is a supporting cast I've always thought of every bit as important as Superman himself and I don't feel like they're being paid their dues here. The Daily Planet panels move between distracting and cheesy (the bad kind of 'cheesy') and while the cast could've made an appearance earlier, I'd have preferred Clark to not officially join the paper staff until the end of the series.
I don't feel like I'm qualified to judge the art. "It's good", is all I can say. The first two books are done by Shane Davies, with the third picked up by Adrian Syaf. Sandra Hope did inks and Barbara Ciardo handled colouring. Davies' pencils are 'cleaner' but I admit to preferring Syaf's work in the third book. It feels more traditional comic book art to me, though I'm no expert in any case.
Superman: Earth One is a good read. Straczynski's focus on Superman's humanity makes the character relateable, without exhausting his flaws and without bleeding him for arbitrary darkness and tragedy as a gimmick. This is what Smallville, Superman Returns and even Man of Steel got wrong, when they beat the audience over the head with whatever tragedy exists inherently into the character. Straczynski is the only one, in recent years, who has succeeded at what he set out to do, because he gets that a relating to a fictional character stems from conflict and its solution, not flaws that are impossible to overcome.
Superman works in this series, because he learns to put his skills on display, unafraid of the rest of the world. He learns that he can't be happy if he's not really himself. He learns he won't be happy, if he lives in isolation and if he raises a wall around himself in fear of hurting others or himself. He learns that, from some point on, you get to decide who your family really is. That's how you live a life; moment by moment, step by step, building a future brick by brick. There is nothing in this book that's not a good, hopeful message for teenagers and young adults and this is exactly how Straczynski beat the rest of DC at their own game.
As for hardcore fans, there is a good chance you won't like it. There's nothing wrong with it, but it lacks the "epic hero" vibe many of us look for in our Superman books. I'd still recommend it, but do know what you're getting into; this isn't really written for us.
DC's approach is usually (and often stupidly) trying to be "hip" and "cool". Before they relaunched their entire continuity again in 2011 ( a move that I have and will always defend), they sought to launch the "Earth One" books, a series of stories that reintroduce their biggest characters to a wider readership. These are the so-called "graphic novels", essentially glorified comic books without the stigma the medium carries and with a lot less restrictions in content or continuity, which aim at being easier to pick up and read by people who don't usually read comic books.
Reportedly a Wonder Woman series is in the works, but currently only Superman and Batman have been published. I reviewed the first (and currently only published) chapter of Batman: Earth One; for the most part, it's the same Batman from the comics with few deviations from the standard lore and the only thing that truly stands out is that it's mostly a Jim Gordon story starring Batman than it is a Bruce Wayne story.
Sadly with Superman things aren't that simple; the public already loves Batman. Batman is an easy character to sell. Superman is a timeless, but not necessarily loved figure in the pop culture psyche. I did review the first chapter of Superman: Earth One for another blog, way before I started this one; you can read that review here (but please, don't).
Looking back at that review, I may have obsessed over certain details I find important as a fan, but ultimately I missed the point. Having read all three books now, there are still some things that bother me in regards to both the portrayal of the character and the approach to the story and the lore. However, a reintroduction to a wider audience means shifting focus to different aspects of a character, not necessarily foreign or new concepts, just facets of a story that aren't as usually touched upon in the niche as much others.
The books are written, after all, by Michael J. Straczynski, a proven and talented writer with quite a few credits in and out of comic books under his name. I only recently started watching his Babylon 5 and I'm loving every second of it; I'd argue it's the best sci-fi television next to Star Trek and Doctor Who.
Straczynski has been an outspoken Superman fan, but he hasn't had the best track record with the character. Soon after he started Superman: Earth One, he also penned a storyline in the Superman ongoing titled "Grounded"; his ideas and intentions were good but the execution was less than satisfactory. Well, "please someone rip my eyes out I can't take any more of this" was my reaction at the time, but I got to read Scott Lobdell's take on the character a couple of years later and I got over it.
The three chapters of Superman: Earth One read a lot better as a whole. If Straczynski's job was to reintroduce the character to a younger, more mainstream audience, he definitely took the right direction. If you haven't read the books yet, a good point of reference is David S. Goyer and Zack Snyder's 2013 Man of Steel, which the first chapter of Superman: Earth One heavily inspired.
Τhere is a lot less focus on the 'Super-Man' in this series; the Nietzschian undertones in the character (the man as god, neither slave nor master, who defines his own morality and is the evolution of humanity) are touched upon briefly and in passing. Instead, the story focuses primarily on Clark Kent, a young man in his very early twenties (probably around 22), an alien who really can't fit in and who feels constantly detached from everyone around him. His journey in the book is one of search for purpose and it isn't actually all that different from that of everyone else his age: do something to be happy in your life or do something meaningful with your life?
This is where the "reintroduction to a mainstream audience" comes in. Straczynski's target demographic are teenagers and young adults that face the same questions in life. Loneliness and isolation are things built into Superman, but it's not a sentiment far removed from people of that age. Undoubtedly, all people at some point in their lives feel completely alone. Not abandoned, just alone, different, unable to fit in.
It's an emotion that can be misconstrued; especially during adolescence, it's an emotion that is sometimes heavily projected and flaunted. But even leaving aside the 'woe is me' crowd, isolation is bound to be experienced, when life knocks on your door, unfiltered, when people are left to fend for themselves, away from protective wings of guardians and need to tackle it on their own merits. You can be the most well-adjusted person on the planet, but the moment you need to make important decisions that will affect the rest of your life and the moment you choose to take some steps alone into the world, you will feel alone, different than anybody else-- even briefly, even if in reality you really aren't different than anybody else.
That's also the strength of the book; the story doesn't wallow in Clark being different, instead he learns how to fit in exactly because in the end, powers or no powers, he's just not that different than anyone else. The first book, isolated, really does seem as a borderline 'emo' Superman being unleashed into the world; the cover art that portrays young Clark in a hoodie with his heat-vision on, as well as the early pages of the book, where Clark looks consistently depressed, don't help.
The entire series, however, really does portray Clark's isolation and loneliness under the scope of looking for a direction in life. Many books and shows have tried approaching him in similar ways (The CW's Smallville, sadly, stands out the most), but they usually do it as a means of generating arbitrary drama that's often-times antithetical to the character. Straczynski's Clark doesn't run away from the things he can do; he's genuinely conflicted.
On one hand, he really does want to help people; his mother (Martha) made him a suit and his father (Jonathan) really encouraged him to reveal himself to the world. Clark really wants to honour Jonathan's request, especially following his death (because nowadays Jonathan Kent seems to be the de facto sacrificial lamp to the daddy issues drama that's permeating the super-hero genre. I don't like it, either kill both Kents or keep both of them alive). The detail here is that it's not delivered simply as a burden passed down from father to son, which is what Smallville did. Clark wants to help, but he's hesitant of putting himself on display for the whole world to see.
It's not fear that drives him, it's a conscious choice regarding his future. He's between two paths: either wear the suit, reveal himself and help, or get a high-paying job well-within his skills, make enough money to support his mother for the rest of her life and at the same time hide who he is, but live like a happy man, finally fitting in. He still wants to help; he just chooses to do it a different way, by finding cures for lethal diseases, by standing up for the little guy, by exposing the truth.
This is actually a point that gets brought up a lot in regards to super-heroes (usually Batman, for good reason). Straczynski does something with Superman that I haven't seen in a long time and it's a good thing: he makes him "super-smart" again. DC has been portraying Superman like a sack of meat in the last 30-ish years, trying to level out the playing field for the rest of the DC heroes, but people forget Superman once had "super-intelligence" and it wasn't an one-off thing either. It makes sense: he's an advanced alien life-form, with his cutting-edge Fortress of Solitude at his disposal, going up against other aliens and their otherworldly technology. In the Silver and Bronze ages, he was very much a scientist as well, spending time in the Fortress looking for cures and alternative energy and ways to make human life better and safer.
Superman is as smart as, if not smarter than, Batman (SIT BACK DOWN) or Lex Luthor; he's just smart in different ways. He has eidetic memory, he reads fast, he learns fast and he is great at deduction and problem-solving. That's not a super-power, he's an alien life-form from an advanced world. He lacks Batman's cunning and street smarts and Luthor's capacity for cruelty (which, in combination with a high Intelligence Quotient can produce tremendous results). Superman's E.Q. (Emotional Quotient) gives him a blind spot that holds his I.Q. back. That, however, doesn't mean he can't get a job in a research lab and help the world via his work. He very nearly does that in Superman: Earth One.
In the end, what makes him change his mind is the realization that some problems can't be fixed indirectly. Sometimes, when bad things happen and evil threatens all that you love, you have to tackle the problem head-on. Before he puts on the suit he does take a piece of the alien invaders that attack Earth in search of him to his would-be employer for analysis. Said employer is too busy escaping with his life and money with not a single care in the world who gets left behind and brutally murdered by an alien armada.
In stark contrast, he who does stay behind is just some read-headed kid with a camera that won't move when an alien battle-suit charges at him, because he wants to bring the truth to the public. That kid is, of course, Jimmy Olsen and it's his words that encourage Clark, in the distance, to put on the suit and become Superman.
Across three books, Clark learns how to be Superman. In doing so, he also learns how to be Clark Kent. Wearing the suit was only the first step. Barring the existence of three different villains, one for each book, the entire series is set-up like a three-act film, with clear beginning, middle and end, as well as a cohesive and well-paced character arc for Clark/Superman.
The second book is probably the most 'quiet' of the bunch and likely the best. Clark moves to a new place and befriends the girl next door. She likes him and he likes her too, but he hesitates; a question of whether or not he can even have sex with an Earth woman without causing fatal harm clouds his mind, all the while having to deal with a deadly enemy that almost robs him off his powers and life as well. There are a few great pages in the second book; one involves a day-dream Superman has, where he heat-visions a dictator that stops him from helping the people of his enslaved country from a natural disaster. Another page has him frustrated he didn't get to sleep with the aforementioned girl (Lisa), when he briefly loses his powers; this cute monologue happens as he takes off to battle again. Another involves a neighbour, who O.D.'s, only for Clark to realize the guy had been silently begging for someone (Superman, in particular) to help him.
If the first book taught Clark to reveal what he can do to the world and tackle problems head-on, the second book teaches him that there are no problems too small or too big for Superman; that it's not just about stopping alien invasions and super-villains, but also about taking care of individual people who are suffering. He does so both as Superman and, finally, as a reporter for a great Metropolitan newspaper. After all, in his own words, "every single person has a story worth telling; they just don't know it yet".
The third book balances things out and concludes Clark's character arc. At the end of the second book, Superman incites a revolution in the aforementioned enslaved country, overturning the dictator. He has no qualms about his motives, but he understands why it was a bad decision. He is forced to understand, because it almost gets him killed, as all governments around the world deny him help, in fear of what he may be able to do if he turns against them and overturn them the same way he did that dictator.
Most importantly, the third book is about trust and acceptance, which serves as the finale to his journey to fitting in and choosing his way in life. In the first book, he was the alien shield against the bad guys. In the second book, he was acting alone, solving problems as a god (and overstepping his role as the Ubermensch). The third book realizes that he's not infallible and he will need the help and the trust of those around him; not just the friends, but everyone. Clark started in the first chapter carrying the burden of his childhood, when he was unable to fit in and he was trying to remain in the shadows, in hoping he would be happy if left alone. By the third book, he has left the shadows; he operates openly and in good faith and asks the same of others. "Leap of faith", as Cavill's Superman called it in Man of Steel. In the third book Superman is accepted by the world and as such, so is Clark.
It's a defining moment that mirrors Jimmy's "truth" speech in the first book, when a brilliant scientist (whose name I'll avoid mentioning, because it would be a hell of a spoiler) sacrifices everything to save Superman. As does Lisa. It's hope and bravery that Superman sees, from small people, when the powerful governments of the world have turned their backs on him. Most importantly, it's hope for the future, it's kindness, compassion and honest, genuine, very human love.
The three books are, themselves, a mirror of a motto tied to the character: chapter one is Truth, chapter two is (poetic, in fact) Justice. Chapter three I would personally refer to as "Hope", but if you want to be a traditionalist, I can see the 'American Way' there; both in the way the American government's actions almost butt-fuck the entire planet and in the way small, everyday people will put everything on the line to do the right thing and defend what they believe in.
It works; there is a poetic brilliance in Superman's dual-identity that very few grasp. Straczynski removes the poetry from it, but approaches it in a more humanistic way. There is a very fine balance between the two identities and they both need to work in unison for the character to be complete. Superman can't be a mask, because it's what allows the character to act out in the open, without fear of hiding his true self. Clark can't be a mask either, as it's his way of connecting to people and experiencing love and life in the fullest.
In an oddly funny twist in the third book, Lois Lane uses a "super-signal" in the sky (it's exactly what you think it is) to contact him. As Clark moves in on a relationship with the brave Lisa (who is lovely and whose recent past makes her a very... progressive love interest for a character with Superman's long and often conservative history), Lois serves the role of a friend and unofficial liaison between the human race and Superman, someone he turns to for advice and discussion. It's a fresh approach that gets the point across nicely.
I do have a few issues with the series, mostly in the way it's structured. As far as the villains go, Superman: Earth One is very weak. The villains in the first book are Krypton's neighbours, aliens from the planet Dheron led by a man named Tyrell, a people with the mission to kill every last Kryptonian in the universe. The second book features the Parasite, a serial killer that becomes an energy leech after an accident. The third book pits none other than Zod against the Man of Tomorrow, who is, 100%, the genocidal maniac people have seen in Man of Steel. Actually, he's the genocidal maniac people have seen in Superman II; obsession with kneeling for everything other than a sex act and all.
Part of the book's few failures are Straczynski's fault and part of them aren't.
Those that aren't can be blamed on the requirement of a villain at all until the third book. These books were released years apart from one another and originally would have needed to be read as individual stories with a clear beginning-middle-and-end. In that regard a villain had to exist for each book and Straczynski at least tried to make them relevant to Clark's development. They still end up breaking the story's pacing, though, and despite the impressive action set-pieces, I found myself quickly flipping through the pages of pure action to get to the quiet, talking parts.
What I can blame on Straczynski is the Silver Age-type, '90s Babylon 5 kind of science and overall framework. Tyrell's explanation about Krypton's 'assassination' and the story he set up there really doesn't work for me. I know what it's leading up to, but it makes the destruction of Krypton needlessly complicated. The Parasite is just kind of crap through and through and seems to only exist in the story in that character's purest form, i.e. as a mirror of Superman's potential for destruction and the danger of accidentally harming those close to him. Zod is surprisingly dull and one-dimensional. In this version he's Kal-El's uncle, Jor-El's brother, which means actual family for Superman. His homicidal rampage and the hatred he displays toward his own blood is nicely juxtaposed to the love and compassion portrayed toward Superman by his adoptive world, but the character can't stand on his own merit; he may as well have been a giant, walking gun.
Then there are all these moments in the book, where Superman is visiting the Fortress. The Fortress isn't really a Fortress yet so much as it is a hole in the ice, where his baby-shuttle rests in. Instead of his father's floating head, we get the computer's AI interacting with Superman. Their interaction is boring and the ship's contribution both to the story and to Clark's development is insignificant and at times downright gimmicky. Actually, even before Clark gets a hold of his ship, when it's resting comfortably and tested on by the U.S. military, anything to do with the ship drags down the narrative. It's just not fun reading.
To a lesser extend I also find myself underwhelmed by the presence of the Daily Planet staff. Straczynski gets all these characters (Lois, Perry, Jimmy), but they too don't seem to contribute too much to the story. There are some nice moments thanks to them, but the meat of the story seems to be away from the Daily Planet. This is a supporting cast I've always thought of every bit as important as Superman himself and I don't feel like they're being paid their dues here. The Daily Planet panels move between distracting and cheesy (the bad kind of 'cheesy') and while the cast could've made an appearance earlier, I'd have preferred Clark to not officially join the paper staff until the end of the series.
I don't feel like I'm qualified to judge the art. "It's good", is all I can say. The first two books are done by Shane Davies, with the third picked up by Adrian Syaf. Sandra Hope did inks and Barbara Ciardo handled colouring. Davies' pencils are 'cleaner' but I admit to preferring Syaf's work in the third book. It feels more traditional comic book art to me, though I'm no expert in any case.
Superman: Earth One is a good read. Straczynski's focus on Superman's humanity makes the character relateable, without exhausting his flaws and without bleeding him for arbitrary darkness and tragedy as a gimmick. This is what Smallville, Superman Returns and even Man of Steel got wrong, when they beat the audience over the head with whatever tragedy exists inherently into the character. Straczynski is the only one, in recent years, who has succeeded at what he set out to do, because he gets that a relating to a fictional character stems from conflict and its solution, not flaws that are impossible to overcome.
Superman works in this series, because he learns to put his skills on display, unafraid of the rest of the world. He learns that he can't be happy if he's not really himself. He learns he won't be happy, if he lives in isolation and if he raises a wall around himself in fear of hurting others or himself. He learns that, from some point on, you get to decide who your family really is. That's how you live a life; moment by moment, step by step, building a future brick by brick. There is nothing in this book that's not a good, hopeful message for teenagers and young adults and this is exactly how Straczynski beat the rest of DC at their own game.
As for hardcore fans, there is a good chance you won't like it. There's nothing wrong with it, but it lacks the "epic hero" vibe many of us look for in our Superman books. I'd still recommend it, but do know what you're getting into; this isn't really written for us.
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