Before reading, the first thing that came to mind was, “Why Superman: Unchained?” I pictured some editorial meeting where someone asks, “What about, Superman: Off the Hook?” Then another shouts, “No, Superman: Up, Up, in Here!” The title just seemed odd considering I was expecting a simple Superman: Man of Steel to capitalize on the buzz surrounding the newest Superman movie, but a title isn’t everything.
First and foremost, the creators. I have enjoyed Scott Snyder’s work, along with Greg Capullo’s, on Batman. I felt his effort on Batman really helped it stand out as one of the better relaunches of DC’s NEW 52 although the DEATH OF THE FAMILY story arc never packed the punch that I thought it would. As for artist Jim Lee, I have been a big fan of his work since the beginning so I am, admittedly, a bit biased. I will say, however, that I thought Jim Lee has never really been as good as when he was penciller on UNCANNY X-MEN back in the day. Once the relaunch of X-MEN #1 happened he had become Jim Lee, if you will, and stopped maturing in some ways, which I have seen happen to others before. There are even times that I feel he has collected all his work on some big database and just calls up an image he needs, then just digitally manipulates it. The ship in space scene from UNCHAINED #1 feels like it came right out of X-MEN #2. That being said, I still find his art to be so much fun and dynamic and would love to see Mr. Lee wear only the hat of artist again to really shine. Maybe he would even benefit from a different inker even though Scott Williams has some great line work.
As for the book itself, I rather enjoyed it. It was a fun ride, albeit brief, and I did feel that Snyder was going to be building to something — that he has something to say here even if he has only started to mumble. That is what I would like to see, a MAN OF STEEL backed by a writer and penciller that are UNCHAINED and show some real guts. I felt an inkling of that here and nothing more, but it is just a short first issue so I am willing to be patient.
The characters here seem very grounded. I assume that is because we are building, again slowly, to a time when things will be chaotic for all. Superman appears confident in his abilities like Lois Lane in hers. Clark Kent juggles aspects of his life much like Superman does with falling space satellites. Perry White is the wise old reporter with a life full of stories. General Lane looks to be a real military pain-in-the-butt, and Jimmy Olsen is a light-hearted modern-day young guy making his way in the world. Maybe therein lies the idea of UNCHAINED. It is about the embracing of life and it’s emotions whether good or bad. Normally we train ourselves to embrace only the good emotions and run and hide from such bad ones as fear. Perhaps here the idea is to unchain Superman, unchain ourselves, and embrace the bad causing a sharp, definite, dynamic, present moment. It is like the story of the Buddhist student meditating in a room when he/she becomes aware of a snake. At first fear sets in, makes them sweat. Struggling to meditate and concentrate only detaches you from the moment, but when the student embraces the fear, it is then that they are in the moment and simply accept the snake.
SUPERMAN: UNCHAINED is, at the moment, a C+, but I trust in these creators that they will quickly be unchaining themselves and releasing the Man of Steel. Some fun scenes you might enjoy are Superman’s on-the-fly calculations on how to disarm a nuclear engine and the military’s “oh dear” attitude when they realize that in an attempt to destroy some evidence they fired some missiles at Superman and he will either A.) id the culprits, B.) get “unchained” on who did the attacking, or more likely C.) Both.
They Guy in the Hat