Writer: Scott Snyder, Artist: Jim Lee
IANN ROBINSON: While I have high hopes for Greg Pak on Action Comics, he’s only two issues in, which allows 2013 to be yet another failure for first superhero ever. Since the launch of the New 52, Superman has been one bad idea after another. Attempting to reboot the character, most creators just sailed right off the reservation. Hope finally arrived in the form of Superman Unchained. Yes, the title is a little hokey, but the story itself is a return to what makes Superman great. The crux of the character is the dynamic between being a near God, and his human upbringing. Snyder has enemies that attack not only Superman’s physical ability, but also his insecurities and questions about himself and his adopted planet. Lex Luthor gets a makeover here, turning from the poorly-written random psychopath he’s been in the New 52 back into the genius villain he once was. Add Jim Lee’s inhumanly good art, and what you have now for Superman is hope.
Writer: Scott Snyder, Artist: Greg Capullo
ANDY HUNSAKER: There’s a general malaise in the halls of DC Editorial, and it’s not even a secret, and the result is a lot of books I like just fine, but not much that really excites me. The Movement has a lot of potential, Earth 2 is pretty cool, Batgirl is solid, the Green Lantern stuff has its moments, I like aspects of Forever Evil, etc., but while the New 52 mandate was a ballsy move, the result of micro-management and their penchant for driving away talent has been a uniformity of tone and a dilution of anticipation – as if books will not be allowed to get too interesting if they deviate too far from what’s expected of them. Snyder seems to have the good fortune of being one of the people they don’t mess with too much, and that’s showing in his rewriting of Batman’s origin with new, intriguing complications, and with drop-dead amazing art from Capullo. In “Death of the Family,” they terrified us with the Clown Prince of Crime’s reign of atrocities most effectively, and although it’s always difficult to end a Joker story in any kind of satisfying way, the journey was truly an experience.
