Superman: Earth One, Volume 3

I wonder if this hits different because Man of Steel assimilated some JMS' better ideas.

3 stars out of 5.

Pretty good. Solid writing, and decent art (the panels got kind of repetitive/monotonous the more I read). However, I really liked how baby Clark/Kal-el had his small curl of hair (that was cute), and Louis Lane looks a bit like Dexter Morgan's sister, Deb (not a bad thing, although it did take me a while to get used to her look). My favorite character is definitely the Kryptonian spaceship (and Clark's cat when he was younger lol)!

I didn't care too much about Parasite as a villain. He goes into a strange machine and comes out a mutant that can suck the energy out of people and things. No explanation, no logic, it just happens and the reader just has to go with it. I thought Parasite was scarier and more interesting as a normal human being versus his monstrous identity. Also, I found myself feeling a bit fed up and tired of Superman as he just kept coming back to fight Parasite without coming up with solid plan (other than going in and beat the shit out of this guy).

For me, the writing, the story, and the characters in volume one was stronger than in volume two. Having a modern Clark Kent was refreshing (but man, this guy is so perfect–sports, science, business...he can pretty much do anything he wants, huh?! He's the whole package). However, volume two really let me down and I'm just not invested in the story enough to read about what happens next... On the bright side, I'm very interested to see how they handled Batman's Earth One series and I'm extremely excited for Wonder Woman's story to come out (hopefully by 2014).

Big let down! Its just gone in the direction I had hoped it would not. The parasite is a hollow character and adds no value to this volume. Overall this series has begun to stagnate into the second book and its truly disappointing.