Superman Unchained #1

[superfangirl1]

Superman think Lex is involve in the crashing satellites incidents. But when Clark shows up he finds that the inmates being transfer to The Maw had taken over the helicopter.



Lois is helping Clark with his new newsblog start-up and give info on a terrorist group. Who could be involve in the crashing satellites mystery.

Comments

[captainbellman]

Ah, par for the course with Snyder's writing - words, words, words, a healthy dollop of "There's A Secret Conspiracy That Our Hero Never Knew About", some poor attempts at snappy dialogue that would do better on TV than in a comic book, no real plot developments of any substance.

Yawn. I can see why they keep him around - this and his work on Batman can be very neatly described as "adequate", or "bare minimum". Nothing really very challenging, and (as with the Court of Owls and Death of the Family arcs), a good deal of cribbing from Morrison. The opening sequence with Superman breaking up a manned space station is in many ways identical to the opener of "All-Star Superman" #1, but thanks to the giant gimmicky fold-out pages you could say that quantity is being favoured over quality.

Also, it might just be the annoying over-abundance of crowding word balloons, but Jim Lee's art is getting terribly cramped. He's trying to cram way too much detail into these panels, and it distracts from what's meant to be happening in the story.

[flash_fan]

Snyder, IMO, can actually be a pretty good writer but none of his Nu52 DC work really seems to jump out at me. It's pretty boring. I would suggest giving his "American Vampire" a chance along with his new comic "The Wake". You kind of hit then nail of the head with the art I must say. I wasn't feeling Jim's work here at all.

[alexanderlucard]

Did you try his Swamp Thing? I really liked it. I tried the first issue of the Wake and found it to be really dull.

[flash_fan]

When I was budgeting for the Nu52 I forced myself to pick between Swamp Thing and Animal Man lol. I'll definitely check it out now though.

[alexanderlucard]

Animal Man was the better choice...at least until they wacked poor Cliff. However both and JLD are my DC comics of choice right now.

[jlroberson]

I liked his Swamp Thing pretty much right up to when he became Swamp Thing again. I hate the fact he made him a superhero. Even if he's back to being a plant(as opposed to it ACTUALLY BEING BASICALLY A COSTUME), the damage is done.

[mrstatham]

American Vampire's actually smart, intelligent writing that - for me, at least, and in addition to reading Del Toro's Night Eternal trilogy - actually gave the vampire genre it's teeth back after they'd been so thoroughly stripped in the past few years, thanks to It Which Shall Not Be Named.

But his Batman run is missed opportunity after missed opportunity, and I'm fairly certain it's the constraints of the New52 fucking with him, at times, because Black Mirror was just infinitely superior to the stuff he's doing now. Court of Owls is one of those things that could have made a great horror story, even with the 'brother' revelations at the end. Things in the walls, creepy masks, mazes, secret dark family revelations? It reeked of Poe, and yet it turned into a brainless action movie.

And this just seems like his Batman run, but with Superman. The hero who can do pretty much anything finding himself undermined by a secret conspiracy - which is what this book's solicits are screaming - is basically Court of Owls, with Superman. And Lee's art is just increasingly blah. I liked it when it was kind of a novelty to have him doing a DC book and he had to work with the long-time designs for particular characters, but now everything has his fingerprints all over it.

[darkknightjrk]

"It reeked of Poe, and yet it turned into a brainless action movie."

Interesting you say that, because by the end, I was kind-of likening Court of Owls more to a Bronze Age horror title, like Tomb of Dracula, where there is action and horror, but also a certain amount of melodrama to it as well.

[akodo_rokku]

American Vampire is the best. Teenage Rockabilly Vampire Hunter!

[alexanderlucard]

His Swamp Thing run was pretty good, but I haven't been impressed with his Batman.

[nate_abril96]

Personally I found his Swamp Thing run to be good, until it had that boring Rotworld crossover with Animal Man. That really dragged on forever. It's a shame, because I was considering buying his run in trade, but that Rotworld stuff really turned me off. However, his last issue was still pretty good, and am currently enjoying the book now that Charles Soule is on it (although his issue where Superman guest-starred had Superman do and say some things out of character that made me feel a little bit squeamish; but still a good issue).

[lucean]

Considering that Snyder's work on Batman has been both praised by both fandom and critics in addition to selling pretty well, it is great that you can see them keeping him around because his work can be described as 'adequate' and 'bare minimum'.

[benuben]

I don't get what's so bad about wordy comics. I like it when it takes me more than 5 minutes to read the thing. Nowadays, it takes 3 issues to tell a story, that in the 80's would be told just fine in only one.

IMO, this doesn't seem that bad. Just nothing special.

[darkknightjrk]

Can't help but notice that Lex isn't scarred here. Hope that's a gaffe on their part, I liked that detail (kind of a modern take of the whole "Superman was responsible for my baldness" thing) and I was hoping to see that story.

Anyway, not a bad intro at all. Snyder's got everyone's voices down, and I'm interested to see where he's going with Sam Lane and his "real superman."

[icon_uk]

Not sure that I see making the bad guy scarred is doing anything particularly worthwhile.

[darkknightjrk]

I just mean I was curious as to what happened and wanted to see that story. What happened to make Superman possibly almost kill him,,,

[sir_razorback]

As cool as it would be to read about a Lex trying to build something positive, I'm going to guess that his sun-tree is red-light focused.

[yvonmukluk]

Wasn't there a planned story a few years back where lex Luthor was building a tower, that when finished, would kill superman? It was going to be called Superstorm or something. I read about it on TV tropes.

Guess maybe they're finally doing that story.

[skemono]

I believe that was Luthor's end goal in the Question miniseries from 2005.

[nate_abril96]

Hey I know that this is off-topic, but I was wondering, between Lois and Clark, who's older? I only ask this because as I was reading reviews for Man of Steel some of them criticized Amy Adams' casting as Lois Lane for being nearly ten years older than Henry Cavill. This then led to me seeing a comment, in one of the reviews, stating that this was staying true to the comics where Lois is a few years older than Clark. This then made me curious, as I have never read a comic where it was mentioned who was older between the two. So my question is who's older: Lois or Clark?

[icon_uk]

I always saw them as of an age, when I thought about it at all.

Originally I could see her being a little older, since she was already a successful journalist before Clark joined the Daily Planet (with little experience AFAIK, did he go to college whilst she did an internship I wonder?).

Since Byrne's Man of Steel, when Clark was established as a well-known writer and journalist before joining the Planet, the age difference seems so mininmal as to be irrelevant.

[darkknightjrk]

I don't recall any specific comments about their age--I think it's always been inferred because in most takes on the origin, when Clark starts working at the Daily Planet, Lois has always been there before and was the star reporter, implying that she's been there for a few years and has worked her way into that position.

[shadowpsykie]

hmmm i don't know, i kinda like this....

but i thought this was gonna be a collection of... alternate superman stories, or something like that....

[mrstatham]

I think you're thinking of the digital Adventures of Superman book? That one pretty much fits what you're saying.

[darkknightjrk]

Yeah, you're thinking of Adventures of Superman. Superman Unchained was always Snyder and Lee's run on the character set in the New 52.

[shadowpsykie]

but wasn't superman unchained supposed to be OSC or was that always adventures?

[aravis]

That was always Adventures.

[darkknightjrk]

Always Adventures. Which is also the name of my new post-rock band, funnily enough.

[drexer]

To itensify a radiation beam means to increase the emission of photons, not to increase the energy of those same photons. Besides, increasing their energy might push them into the range of MeV or GeVs, but that does not suddenly make them turn from X-ray to Gamma beams, the name depends on from where the photons originate(the orbital of the atoms or the nucleus of the atom itself). Not to mention that the increase in itensity is what's wanted, not the increase in energy as that's the reasonable way to perhaps burn out a circuit.

The rest of it seems extremely bland, so I really don't have anything else to say.

[zabilac]

Wait a second...Superman isn't hated or feared by the crowd and is actually thanked for his heroics?

[nate_abril96]

What? This is an outrage! Doesn't DC understand that the only way people will relate and like Superman is if he is hated and feared by everyone around him? I mean Superman being liked by the public, what kind of weird twisted Bizarro universe is this? Next thing you know they'll have Superman being inspirational, or sociable, or kind, or heck, acting like a real adult or something. Preposterous.

[zabilac]

I know, I feel so cheated. I want my money back!

[icon_uk]

Next they'll be telling us that Batman sits down

[nate_abril96]

This is the greatest not-controversy controversy I have ever seen.

[thanekos]

Lex's doctorate is a comp sci one? Unexpected.

(Of course, the way this Lex's been going, it might be an underestimation to think he's got just the one.)

[icon_uk]

Luthor should either have about 153 degrees (because he's that smart) or none (because the college thing didn't suit him),

[lbd_nytetrayn]

So, what exactly makes this "unchained"? I was sort of hoping maybe it would be stories like the JLU finale where he "finally gets to cut loose."