The Absolute Universe, the DC All In Special told us, is one “driven by challenge, by turmoil … A world where heroes are born facing greater odds.” But if the adage is true that there is no gain without loss, then perhaps the reverse is also true, and there is no loss without gain.

Because inasmuch as DC has touted what the Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman of the Absolute Universe have to go without, none of their stories are dystopias. And though it is no small thing to trade paradise for the underworld, for instance, or one parent for another, there are clear and obvious gains here. Had the Absolute origins come first and the original origins of the World’s Greatest Heroes come second, the equations of better and worse would be no easier to calculate.

That’s a long way of talking around Absolute Superman Vol. 1: Last Dust of Krypton’s big twist. It’s a doozy, one that may have the greatest effect on the Man of Steel’s character while yet having the least impact on his outlook. Writer Jason Aaron, with artist Rafa Sandoval, manifests a Superman in the mold of his Golden Age iterations, if not Grant Morrison’s New 52 reinterpretation of that iteration — a man of the people and plainclothes crusader against corruption. In appearance, Aaron’s Superman is more “Kryptonian armor” than “T-shirt and jeans,” but more than once he’s referred to as a “hippie” (“… who’s bulletproof and can jump really far”) and, through the events of the book, lives up well to the label.

Absolute Superman has a lot to do. It feels squarely set in its own awareness that its namesake was on the cusp of a big movie. It also seems to do a lot of world-building for the Absolute universe as a whole, certainly opening up a way for the other titles to connect, though it remains to see if this is the way those connections will manifest. But it’s also a plenty enjoyable tale of a young Superman, at least on par with a variety of those we’ve seen before.

[Review contains spoilers for Absolute Batman, Absolute Wonder Woman, and Absolute Superman]

The audience knows no small amount of what they need to know about Aaron’s Absolute Superman from the first few pages. We see, as usual, the elitist science caste of Krypton who will ultimately fiddle as Krypton explodes, but then the twist — “My parents,” Kal-El narrates, “were not among them.” Rather, we find that Jor-El and Lara are scientists disgraced for questioning the status quo, raising Kal-El now among the labor class, working as miners, mechanics, farmers! Superman’s Kryptonian parents were farmers, and he grew up with Krypto among the Redland fields. Superman’s time with the Kents quite aside, in Aaron’s iteration Kal-El grew to adolescence among the “people of steel” as a “child of the dirt,” his dedication to the common man an artifact of his Kryptonian, not human, upbringing.

And so the trifecta of basic but fundamental changes among DC’s Absolute Big Three are complete. Batman lacks the Wayne fortune and Alfred’s guardianship, sure, but Martha Wayne is still alive and raised him. Wonder Woman grew up in hell without her fellow Amazons, but was raised peacefully by enemy-turned-mother Circe and is in possession now of ancient magics. And yes, it appears Superman only lived among the Kents for about six weeks, but compared to a Byrne’s-eye view, he gained years and years as child of the loving Lara and Jor-El — whom, additionally, are still out there among the stars. It’s not perfect for the heroes, but in all those changes, there’s some element of wish fulfillment, too.

Perhaps most conspicuously absent from Aaron’s Superman is Metropolis, as we join Kal-El in Brazil where he’s protecting diamond miners, and later follow his path backward — to Mexico, to Vietnam, to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Those Superman protects, has even gotten close to, are the factory workers, the refugees, against the abusive Lazarus Corporation and their Peacekeepers. In Morrison’s Action Comics Vol. 1: Superman and the Men of Steel, Clark Kent’s Woody Guthrie aesthetic might be chalked up to his Midwestern upbringing¹; here, his egalitarian streak comes straight from Krypton. We end up essentially in the same place, though importantly we have a Superman who not just perceives himself as an immigrant (as in the recent Superman movie) but rather has the lived experience of being in a foreign place with “nowhere else” to go.

Among Superman stalwarts, Aaron also introduces Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Brainiac (I’m reminded that Lex Luthor didn’t appear right away in J. Michael Straczynski’s Superman: Earth One, either). Time will tell, but Lois felt the most canned to me here, a Lazarus agent who has an outsized revelation when she writes a report on Superman and realizes, “That … that actually … felt good.” We know where the origin story leads, but let’s not overdo it. At the same time, Aaron offers some astute sci-fi commentary between a Krypton where using generative text is required in schools and an Earth where Brainiac does all of Lazarus' writing, so maybe Lois writing her own report is, as they say, “the real punk rock.”

Indeed, in positioning Superman mainly against Lazarus' Peacemakers in general and one particularly violent Peacemaker named Christopher Smith in specific, it seems Aaron’s Superman is making a play for the cinematic zeitgeist. Whether a Superman this removed from the other trappings will serve that purpose or not, I’m not sure; I’m surprised DC hasn’t released a continuity-light Superman vs. Peacemaker around now a la Superman vs. Lobo.

Lazarus and the Peacemakers are so ubiquitous, I wouldn’t be surprised if they get referenced in Absolute Batman or Absolute Wonder Woman, like Gamorra to Wildstorm, though I don’t know to what extent the titles are sharing like that. Opposing Lazarus are the Omega Men, including Jimmy Olsen (and I wouldn’t be surprised if Omega Prime had a familial relationship to Lazarus), ostensibly a protagonist rebel group. But “omega” could have specific connotations in the Absolute universe, and so I wonder whether all is not as it seems — whether the predatory Lazarus might be the safer of two evils over an Omega Men backed by a malevolent force, or something.

All of the first three Absolute Universe books have been quite fine; all of them I’m interested to continue reading. I’m not sure Superman needs a robot sidekick buddy and the cape of dust is going to take me a bit, but Absolute Superman Vol. 1: Last Dust of Krypton does well especially by Jor-El and Lara, making a twist to the mythos that’s germane and that I’ve never seen before. Looking forward to the next.

[Includes original and variant covers, character sketches]