With all the focus on Watchmen in the wake of the movie, it’s easy to forget that the series, when it first came out, didn’t exist in a vacuum of nothing but bronze-age superhero comics. Just as many great scientific discoveries are the result of years of collaboration and cross-pollination of ideas, so Watchmen was itself the ultimate expression of a growing movement of superhero deconstruction. One of the books that helped to germinate the ideas that would ultimately redefine the genre was The One, a series originally published in 1983 by Marvel’s Epic imprint.

Rick Veitch’s 6-issue series is subtitled “The Last Word in Superheroics”. These days, that seems like a lofty claim to make, but looking back it’s easy to see how, in the early 1980s, it could’ve seemed like exactly that. Far from being an early 80s superhero throwback, The One is remarkably progressive, despite being fairly steeped in its era. Veitch pulls on the same threads that Alan Moore would weave into a glorious, genre-rocking tapestry several years later. As evidence of their interrelation, Moore actually writes the intro for this collection, and from the close connections between these creators you get a definite sense of the cold war paranoia of the 80s, and an understanding of how that was reflected artistically. It’s definitely a product of its time, but its ideas are still relevant decades on.

While the plot specifics of The One are hard to distill, the general themes of the book are what drive its sprawling cast forward. An escalating cold war between the US and USSR is threatening to tear the world apart, and the creation of government-sponsored superheroes is the latest factor in an arms race. From this downward spiral emerges The One, a genuine, next-level superhero – or perhaps, supervillain. It might all sound a little familiar, but the plot mechanics alone are vastly different to Watchmen, and the emphasis is on providing a commentary for philosophy, politics and satire rather than superheroes themselves.

Just as The One stone cold download slightly pre-empts some of the ideas in Watchmen, so it was itself slightly pre-empted by Moore’s Miracleman. Indeed, Veitch drew several issues of the latter series, suggesting even stronger ties between the works and authors. The One is more than a historical curio, though. It has powerfully developed themes and an undercurrent of psychedelia that make it unique in the telling, though it’s not afraid of dropping its guard to throw in a few jokes, too. Where the real world meets superheroes, it leads to a strangely heightened reality, steeped in something that falls between 80s excess and 70s anti-war sentiment – stark contrast to the (no less valid) modern interpretations of “real-world” superheroes, from the cynical Ultimates to the mundane violence of Kick Ass.

Recently made available again after years out of print, The One is a must-own for fans of deconstructive comics, and an appropriate follow-up to anyone who’s read Watchmen and wants to see some similar ideas explored. At the very least, it’s worth reading simply to redress whatever injustices allowed this series to slip through the cracks, and to remind ourselves that even new ideas have to come from somewhere.

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