REVIEW: Superman Unchained, #9

[Myskin]

Wraith is also much different from Superman, in that he does kill people. The guy was pretty much the bomb that blew up Hiroshima. So whats what to him doesnt matter, though he couldve opted for the same strategy.

Well, it's not that the explosion could really be controlled. I mean, I sure as hell don't want to re-open a can of worm, but it is rather evident that the explosion destroys every ship of the fleet. I mean, as I said there doesn't seem to be much of a distance between the manned ones and the AI ones (hell, I didn't even know that there WERE AI controlled ships until an hour ago or so). It is reasonable to think that the explosion would have destroyed everything, no matter what. Even if Superman had been the one who would have exploded.

And while re-reading the story.... Luthor says (I quote): it should be enough force to take out the whole fleet . There's no distinction at all between AI ships and manned ones.

I have a serious doubt that Snyder's comment could be an afterthought, I'd really like someone to pose the following question: "Does the explosion destroy every ship of the fleet, including the manned ones?" on Twitter. Or, even more clearly: "Was Superman ready to kill a whole armada of evil aliens?".

Anyway, if nobody will do it, no matter, I'll simply forget the whole series and that's it.

[Ascended]

Look I'm not going to get into the politics of the wars of the last 5 or 6 decades or so and why it wold be obvious a soldier in the U.S army would have doubts/conscience issues etc. Of course there is going to be ptsd and other issues. Of course war takes it toll.

But taking this ridiculous concept (alien invasion) they plan to wipe out humanity. What? Someone forced in a situation to do that should cry for them (the aliens)? And feel guilty about it? Nah I don't buy that.

Im not talking about politics, of the last five or six decades or the centuries of war that preceded those. What Im saying is, you clearly dont have much education in how these things actually work. Which is fine, Im not knocking you for that; unless you've been in that kind of situation, how *could* you know?

The point Im making is, regardless of the moral justifications or whatever other extraneous details you want to throw into things, lethal force, especially on a mass scale, leaves scars. Should Superman (or anyone else) cry for evil, ruthless aliens who wanted to invade our world? Never said he (or anyone else) should. What Im saying is that it would leave emotional and psychological damage. And if a writer wants to jump into that kind of territory, they better be prepared to do it justice.

As for Superman in particular, the idea that he could kill thousands of sentient beings and not feel a thing about it? Never. And I actually support a Superman who is willing to take a life when he absolutely has to.

You can kill an enemy soldier knowing full damned well that if you didnt he'd kill you, and possibly your brothers in arms or civilians under your care. And you can know that you're totally justified in your actions, both morally and legally. You can know, down to your bones, that you did the right thing. And its still something that is going to weigh on you. No one gets to have a kill count without some demons, regardless of how *right* their actions were.

[CliffHanger2]

Im not talking about politics, of the last five or six decades or the centuries of war that preceded those. What Im saying is, you clearly dont have much education in how these things actually work. Which is fine, Im not knocking you for that; unless you've been in that kind of situation, how *could* you know?

The point Im making is, regardless of the moral justifications or whatever other extraneous details you want to throw into things, lethal force, especially on a mass scale, leaves scars. Should Superman (or anyone else) cry for evil, ruthless aliens who wanted to invade our world? Never said he (or anyone else) should. What Im saying is that it would leave emotional and psychological damage. And if a writer wants to jump into that kind of territory, they better be prepared to do it justice.

As for Superman in particular, the idea that he could kill thousands of sentient beings and not feel a thing about it? Never. And I actually support a Superman who is willing to take a life when he absolutely has to.

You can kill an enemy soldier knowing full damned well that if you didnt he'd kill you, and possibly your brothers in arms or civilians under your care. And you can know that you're totally justified in your actions, both morally and legally. You can know, down to your bones, that you did the right thing. And its still something that is going to weigh on you. No one gets to have a kill count without some demons, regardless of how *right* their actions were.

Hey man all I'm saying is if I know down to my bones I did the right thing, I'm not gonna feel guilty about it. If a writer wants to address ptsd of being in a situation like that it's up to them it doesn't take away from the story for me. Especially in the genre of action/superheroes. In fact stuff like that usually just weighs the story down and comes across as pretentious.

[CliffHanger2]

"I get that someone would feel guilty about doing these exact things. But this time they really definitely had to do it and the other guys were extra-super bad, so now guilt obviously doesn't apply." Regardless of any morality involved, you're seeming pretty optimistic about how much cold, hard logic holds sway over emotions.

Though all this is now basically irrelevant anyway with that tweet Cypher brought us. It sure as hell wasn't conveyed in the story itself that I could tell, but it's nice to hear.

Yeah that's definitely not made clear in the story. Oh well I guess this conversation is over.

[HsssH]

Underwhelming finish to be honest. I struggle to even come up with something to write about it. Its kinda strange honestly, many things happened in 9 issues but it didn't really feel like anything mattered in the end. We got few forced monologues so that writer could explain his thoughts about Superman, everything else was like padding.

[John Aston]

I just finished the hardcover. I picked it up mainly to revisit Jim Lee.

This wasn't good. Jim Lee's pencils seem to be fine from the original pieces reprinted, but what's with Scott Williams inking so loose on Lee? Lee's art looks much better a bit tighter, which is the point of an inker. Also, I didn't think the color blue could be so overexposed. I lost interest in the story in the first issue and pushed through to justify spending money on this.

[Auguste Dupin]

I just finished the hardcover. I picked it up mainly to revisit Jim Lee.

This wasn't good. Jim Lee's pencils seem to be fine from the original pieces reprinted, but what's with Scott Williams inking so loose on Lee? Lee's art looks much better a bit tighter, which is the point of an inker. Also, I didn't think the color blue could be so overexposed. I lost interest in the story in the first issue and pushed through to justify spending money on this.

As someone who just read the whole thing at a friend's place.....Yep, that sounds about right.
Frankly, I'm not a fan of Snyder at all, but this is a disapontment even by his standards. The premice is stupid, the threat uninteresting (Wraith is boring as hell, and Lane sounds like a parody of the colonel from Avatar), Luthor and especially Jimmy's involvement in the story are forced at best (I mean, seriously, Lex? You couldn't give your weapon to Superman yourself?). The alien invasion comes right out of nowhere, they have nothing to do with anything, we know knothing about these guys, or even if they are guys. Apparently, I've read Snyder said they were androids or something. There's nothing in the text that even suggests it, so Superman comes accross as being completely willing to wipe out thousands of aliens. And people complain about Superman killing Zod in MOS. This is a thousand times worse. For all is monologues about Superman, Snyder just proves he doesn't get him at all.
Ultimately, the biggest flaw of this story is that it doesn't feel like it knows what it wants to be about, so it mix and matches every Superman story cliche it can think, from the evil Superman to the alien invasion, with special mentions to the destruction of the world via nukes (very 80's, I love it), and Lois being kidnapped by terrorists. Just like Superman himself (according to Luthor, at least, but meh, I suppose it's an interpretation that works for the most part), Unchained tries something, sees it doesn't work, gives it up, tries something else, and so on and so forth. The problem is that these elements never feel like they mash well, no matter how hard it tries.
And it is trying very hard. In pure Snyder fashion, the book is full of blabant and obvious "symbolism", which Snyder giving you a text commentary to make sure you get just how much pointless research he put into all this. To paraphrase another comic book: that's not a story, that's Wikipedia.
Now, to be fair, it has a few moments that could have been awesome, but ultmately, it's all buried into so much dullness that I didn't even care anymore by the time I got to them. Hell, there were a few where I should have been outraged, but I was too bored to react to them anymore.
I can't say I expected much more, but for something that is the second best selling Superman run in the New 52, it should have been way better.

[Sacred Knight]

I still feel sorry for anyone who read this and thinks this is the New 52 Superman.

Snyder clearly has a lot of research he needs to do into the character, not only his history but what Morrison and Pak have done recently, before he should get another shot at writing him.

[manofsteel1979]

I regard this as an out of continuity story that just so happens the New 52 designs for the characters. I liked the first issue enough....but it was meh overall. It looked pretty, I will give you that. One thing it did was use Lois well and provided a blueprint to utilize her best...but overall it wasn't horrible or good. Just meh.

[misslane]

I still feel sorry for anyone who read this and thinks this is the New 52 Superman.

Why feel sorry for them? This book sold a lot better than most New 52 Superman titles, so it's not like the public read the first few issues and rejected Snyder's ideas and style. Many appear to have liked Snyder's Superman enough to warrant buying more Unchained than either Action Comics, Superman, Superman/Wonder Woman, or Batman/Superman. I wouldn't feel sorry for the people who were so disappointed or disinterested in New 52 Superman that they had to pick up Unchained instead.

Despite several delays, during the year that it was published, Unchained managed to maintain a readership that was consistently higher than all other New 52 Superman titles. If significant numbers were unsatisfied with Snyder's work, they certainly didn't jump ship for other Superman books. Maybe it would be worth considering that just because a lot of Superman fans liked something you didn't, they don't deserve your condescending pity for liking it.

Snyder clearly has a lot of research he needs to do into the character, not only his history but what Morrison and Pak have done recently, before he should get another shot at writing him.

Because Snyder wrote a version of Superman you didn't like, he clearly needs to do things differently? Whatever Snyder did with Superman was more successful than other New 52 attempts, so there really is no compelling evidence that his approach should change. If anything, the success of Unchained proves that Snyder can write a Superman than will bring in an impressive audience. Perhaps you wouldn't appreciate it because your taste lies elsewhere, but that means other writers who want to be similarly successful should study his work not the other way around.

[Sacred Knight]

To your first question, tongue-in-cheek. To the rest, I say he needs to do research not because I didn't like it, but because it wasn't in line with what this version of Superman is, and this project was branded as part of the New 52. If it was marked in the first place as an out-of-continuity project then no problem. But if he's going to take another shot at this Superman in the future, then yes, he has research to do because he was off the mark on this one. That's a big if though, who knows what projects he'll want to move to once his priorities with Batman are done.

[misslane]

Not because I didn't like it, because it wasn't in line with what this version of Superman is, and it was supposed to. I mean if he's going to write him again and its not in continuity, then he can do whatever he wants. But if he's going to take another shot at this Superman in the future, then yes, he has research to do because he was off the mark on this one.

How was he off the mark, though? Other interpretations of New 52 Superman were less successful than Snyder's take on the character, yet no one would argue that those other interpretations were invalid. Look, I get it. You like and define "New 52 Superman" as the guy Morrison and Pak have written, but that doesn't make their interpretations the only true interpretations of New 52 Superman. Snyder wrote his New 52 Superman, and a lot of people liked it. There's no reason why his interpretation that people liked a lot should be treated as less valid than other interpretations that people liked.

[Sacred Knight]

The characterization. He was far too passive and bland. As far as it being a valid though, fair enough. But I won't apologize for hoping his interpretation never catches on. Its valid, but I will continue to voice my opinion that its leaps and bounds inferior to the Morrison/Pak product. Its just a shame their names don't have the draw Snyder and Lee's does.

[Auguste Dupin]

The characterization. He was far too passive and bland. As far as it being a valid though, fair enough. But I won't apologize for hoping his interpretation never catches on. Its valid, but I will continue to voice my opinion that its leaps and bounds inferior to the Morrison/Pak product. Its just a shame their names don't have the draw Snyder and Lee's does.

Well, actually.....That may be true for Pak, but a comparative analysis of the sales of Unchained and Morrison's run show that it is much more contrasted than you would think.
The first issue of Unchained sold about 251 456 copies, against 182 748 for Morrison's AC. So, it clearly sold better. The last issue of Unchained sold 65 478 copies, against 61 879 for AC, so again, Unchained sold (slightly this time) better.....except that Unchained stopped at issue 9, and Morrison's run at issue 18. In fact, AC 9 sold 88 796 copies, so it actually did better than Unchained 9. As a matter of facts, Unchained started to sell less than AC at around issue 4 (94 147 against 112 839), and for the most part remained that way.
So, long story short: while the first issue of Unchained sold significantly better than the first issue of Action, it had a much more significant drop rate, keeping only a bit more 1/4 of its original readership by the end of its run, against a bit more than a 1/3 for AC (and if you compare with the corresponding issues, AC 9 still had about half the readership). In other words, for more than half of its run,Unchained sold less than Morrison.
So it can actually be argued that Morrison (+ Morales and a few others) is actually a bigger draw than Snyder + Lee, at least on Superman.

[misslane]

The characterization. He was far too passive and bland. As far as it being a valid though, fair enough. But I won't apologize for hoping his interpretation never catches on. Its valid, but I will continue to voice my opinion that its leaps and bounds inferior to the Morrison/Pak product. Its just a shame their names don't have the draw Snyder and Lee's does.

Grant Morrison's name has a lot of draw, and yet Unchained sold better than Morrison's Action Comics 1-9 run for the most part (Unchained's sales dips coincide most with its delays). Critically speaking, average reviews of Unchained versus Action show Unchained with a slight edge. By most gauges, then, Unchained was a success. As for the rest, we'll just have to agree to disagree. I like Pak's Superman a lot, and I like aspects of Morrison's. I liked Snyder's as well, and part of the reason I can like all these versions is that they highlight different qualities of the character I like or show off different aspects of his world. The most unappealing New 52 Superman take, for me, was Lobdell's followed by Perez's and Soule's.