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The Superman: Earth One/Twilight Kerfluffle


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What do DC’s Superman: Earth One graphic novel and Twilight have in common? Jack and shit, but that isn’t causing fanboys from freaking the fuck out over a few lines in the New York Post, which wrote:

In
“Superman: Earth One,” the Man of Steel is a conflicted 20-year-old
who’s trying to find his way in the world, bearing more of a resemblance
to Robert Pattinson from the “Twilight” movies than Christopher Reeve from the Superman films.

This is a stupid line, because Earth One’s Clark doesn’t resemble Rob Pattinson or Edward Cullen in the tiniest degree. Is he a pretty boy? As the cover should tell you, yes. But that’s all they have in common, and nerds who are freaking out that Superman: Earth One Is “Superman for the Twilight crowd” have got to get their panties untwisted.

I read Earth One, and I assure you it’s not Twilight. What it is is yet another Superman origin story, marginally updated for modern times in the sense that Clark dresses better (the Post says he wears “hipster skinny ties”, and about 80% of it is Superman trying to find his way, exactly like he’s doing in the regular Superman comic instead of kicking ass (also written by J. Michael Straczynski, coincidentally). It’s good looking — and Superman is undoubtedly good-looking in it — but it’s nothing comics fans haven’t seen many many many times before, skinny hipster ties be damned.

So even if it was Superman/Twilight, who cares, because there’s no reason comics fans should reading it anyways. I’m sure DC was hoping to use the continuity-free, very pretty, starting-over-from-the-beginning Earth One series to draw in new readers like Twilight fans, but I can’t imagine they’re super-excited to watch Clark Kent mope about Metropolis for 150 pages. Sure, they like moping, but 1) he’s not moping over a preposterously dull girl for some overwrought romance, he’s just moping, and 2) he still puts on colorful tights at the end. I’m pretty sure Twilight fans have other more Twilight-y alternatives, no matter how pretty Supes is on the cover.