Superman Unchained - Is it Worth Buying?

[ColonelGM]

I've been waiting ages for the Superman Unchained graphic novel to come out due to being a big fan of Jim Lee since his early 90s X-Men artwork.
Now I don't get single issues of comics I prefer to buy graphic novels instead.
But is Superman Unchained worth picking up?
Please let me know.
Thanks.

[manduck37]

i personally didn't care for it. If you like Jim Lee's art, you'll like the look of it. My problem wasn't with Lee. He did get a little rushed towards the end of the series and his art didn't quite have the usual level of polish, but still not bad. The story left a lot to be desired though. Superman pretty much lifts right out of the story and stops having any impact on what's going on about half way through. The Lois parts were pretty good. The Superman parts were pretty terrible though. Superman himself has no impact on the story at all. He just bears witness to everyone else taking action to solve the problem. I didn't find it worth picking up, ultimately.

[DrNewGod]

I disagree with manduck37. I won't claim it's the greatest Superman epic ever written, but I thought it was pretty good. I can see manduck37's point, but (and I'm trying not to spoil here) it gets into some pretty important themes surrounding Superman in an interesting way. I guess it depends on whether you're reading to enjoy an interesting story featuring Superman, or reading to see how Superman saves the day this time. I think there's some of the latter, but the story is really more of the former.

It's probably better to think of this much like the way you'd view Elseworld stories such as All Star or Red Son. Still, my vote would be, go ahead and buy it. It's out there on digital if you want to abandon the paper.

[Frontier]

I think whether you enjoy Unchained or not is dependent on a lot of factors...whether you enjoy Snyder as a writer, Lee as an artist, or your own opinion about Superman and what constitutes as a good use or characterization of the character in a story.

[manofsteel1979]

I have agree with Manduck. Visually it's very nice and it was the first PostFlashpoint Superman story to make Lois matter and did a great job with the Lois/ Clark dynamic. The rest is meh at best.

[Cipher]

It's okay. I followed it as it came out and the plot was enough to keep me engaged. I don't normally enjoy Lee's art but I liked it here. The colors are amazing. There's some nice sentiment on Superman toward the end and Snyder's narration style works well for Superman. There's some internal monologue about how he's going to save some civilians at one point, going through options in his head, that's honestly pretty cool.

That all said, I wouldn't tell anyone to go out of their way for it now. It also has some problematic stuff like revealing one of the atomic bombs used against Japan was another Superman-like alien, and goes on to a friend/mentor relationship between him and Superman after that, which feels wrong. Not a bad book, but not a must-read.

If you're a big Jim Lee fan, though, and the art is your priority, you might as well go for it. The art is good here and the story's at least engaging on first read.

[Sacred Knight]

If you're in it just for the art, its not Lee's best work. Its okay, but his JL work was better. For the story...personally, I thought it was terrible. But, if you like Snyder, and/or like an old school post-Crisis take on Superman (even though its supposedly set in the New 52), then you might dig it.

[Cipher]

If you're in it just for the art, its not Lee's best work. Its okay, but his JL work was better. For the story...personally, I thought it was terrible. But, if you like Snyder, and/or like an old school post-Crisis take on Superman (even though its supposedly set in the New 52), then you might dig it.

Superman has a bit of anti-authoritarian swagger in Unchained. It's a pretty "safe" take, but I don't think he's as milquetoast a character as Post-Crisis Supes.

For what it's worth, I like the art here better than Lee's stuff in the New 52 Justice League. Maybe because it's a little cartoonier here? It definitely feels less posed. But those are only positives for people like me who aren't usually Jim Lee fans.

At any rate, I think the opening scene of the the book with Superman stopping the satellite is impressive no matter which side of the fence you land on. Very, very detailed, and an impressive sense of scale and even movement and impact (two things I often think are missing in Lee's work).

[Robotman]

the delays killed the already bland story. i was thinking about rereading it but haven't felt motivated enough to dig through my comics. yeah Lee's art was great towards the beginning of the story but i lost interest as the pacing just felt off and the story itself wasn't that compelling.
i'm sure Snyder worshipers would blame Superman himself for the mediocre story. "see not even the great Scott Snyder can make Superman interesting."

[Frontier]

I thought Superman's final fight with Wraith was pretty cool...

[friendly-fire-press]

It's pretty solid, really. just a few faults that are kind of frustrating.

The artwork is great but it's frustrating that some pages aren't done by Jim Lee, there were lots of delays anyway so he may as well have drawn the whole thing IMO. Snyder's story is pretty cool but some parts are a bit lackluster (Wraith is bit bland and Luthor isn't utilised to his full evil potential) and some of the dialogue could have used more polishing. (There were times when it was hard to tell if it was part of the new continuity or the pre-existing one or one of it's own)

So basically, it's pretty good, but with a bit more polishing it would have been a lot better. It's definitely better than 'Superman for Tomorrow' though (if you're choosing between the 2 main Jim Lee Superman stories).

[manofsteel1979]

It's pretty solid, really. just a few faults that are kind of frustrating.

The artwork is great but it's frustrating that some pages aren't done by Jim Lee, there were lots of delays anyway so he may as well have drawn the whole thing IMO. Snyder's story is pretty cool but some parts are a bit lackluster (Wraith is bit bland and Luthor isn't utilised to his full evil potential) and some of the dialogue could have used more polishing. (There were times when it was hard to tell if it was part of the new continuity or the pre-existing one or one of it's own)

So basically, it's pretty good, but with a bit more polishing it would have been a lot better. It's definitely better than 'Superman for Tomorrow' though (if you're choosing between the 2 main Jim Lee Superman stories).

Agreed, however that is a pretty low bar to set, as "FOR TOMORROW" is probably one of the most pretentious,boring and sloggish Superman tales with pretty art. It has it's moments (love the scene where he owns Batman) and it reads better as a single volume rather than issue by issue,but this is where the emo-woe is me me is woe Pre-Flashpoint characterization started to take root. It's like someone within DC looked at the sales of this and the then high (for the WB/CW) ratings of SMALLVILLE and said, "THAT'S THE TICKET!!!! Let's make Superman all conflicted and emo from here on out!!!" and thus we got "great" stuff like Superman being an inneffectual brooding boob through out the march from IDENTITY CRISIS to INFINITE CRISIS (culminating in the verbal beat down by Batman) and then all that again during NEW KRYPTON through GROUNDED.

At the worst, UNCHAINED was an underwhelming story with pretty art. FOR TOMORROW I think was the first nail in the coffin of the Post-Crisis version....with pretty art.

[Deniz Camp]

I thought it was just fine. It reads as though written by someone from outside comics, for good or ill. It's a greatest hits/head on theme sort of story, where a writer goes in and plays with the supporting cast and deals with what he/she feels is the central conceit of the character. But the construction of it, with the creation of the antagonist and so forth, was fairly middling I think. It was a fun, recognizable Superman story. If you've read a lot of Superman I suspect you'll feel it's 'been done' but that he got a lot of the voices right. If you don't know Superman, I think it will hold the same appeal that something like Superman: TAS often did.

FOR TOMORROW, though, was brilliant, I thought. Challenging and subtle, but really excellent. One of my favorite Superman stories of all time.

[Tayswift]

I've been waiting ages for the Superman Unchained graphic novel to come out due to being a big fan of Jim Lee since his early 90s X-Men artwork.
Now I don't get single issues of comics I prefer to buy graphic novels instead.
But is Superman Unchained worth picking up?
Please let me know.
Thanks.

I think it is worth, Jim Lee art is good and if you like snyder writing on Batman you will like this.

the story has some problems, but it is the first time snyder write a Superman in a mini series. It is probably my favorite story of superman on new 52. not that it means a lot

the problem is that many similar stories came after unchained, ullysses on johns superman and now Rao on JLA

[Auguste Dupin]

I've been waiting ages for the Superman Unchained graphic novel to come out due to being a big fan of Jim Lee since his early 90s X-Men artwork.
Now I don't get single issues of comics I prefer to buy graphic novels instead.
But is Superman Unchained worth picking up?
Please let me know.
Thanks.

Nah. It's really not.
The story is bland and forgettable, trying to be a "greatest hits" type of book, only to become a succession of cliched storylines (evil Superman that "challenges" his way of thinking? Check. Luthor has a plan to "destroy" Superman? Check. SPOILERS Alien invasion that come out of nowhere and overtake the plot at the detriment of everything else? ENDOFSPOILERS Check.) that don't mix very well with each other and end up feeling less like a coherent storyline and more like Snyder threw as many stuff as he could to see if something would stick.
Not only that, but the few elements that could have been interesting ( a Superman like creature working for the governement since the 40's being the main one) are unexpoited and lead nowhere, feeling that they were added to build them up as more important than they were.
Superman is irrelevant in his own story, the main bad guy is nowhere near as intriguing as he should have been (and none of the other bad guys manage to do much better) , and several of the plot points litterally lead nowhere or are clumsily tackled back in (Luthor's plot being the most obvious example of this), almost like Snyder suddenly remembered they existed. The book is trying to say big things about war, and mankind, but let's be real: everything it had to say, you probably heard it better elsewhere.
I also happen to find some elements of the ending to be pretty distasteful, but that's probably just me.
On the more positive side of things, well....Lois was decent, and if you like Lee's art, it's fine here. Ultimately, though, the main feeling I got from this was a vague sense of boredom, which is the worst sin a comic could commit in my eyes.