YMMV / Superman Unchained

• Awesome Art: Jim Lee's art, as expected, is one of the most consistently praised aspects of the series, especially when it comes to the hyperdetailed kinetic poses that make every action scene come to life. The cover art for issue 1, which depicts Superman breaking free from his chains, has been adopted as one of the character's most famous scenes from the New 52 as a whole.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Some apparently unimportant quotes from this series become more charming when Scott Snyder's later works are taken into consideration.
  • Lex Luthor predicting that Batman will perish in a fight to the death against the Joker while Gotham dies an acidic death are Foreshadowing the exact events of Batman: Endgame.
  • General Lane specifically requesting a soldier to play death metal songs while he wages what's intended to be the final war against Superman. Snyder would later cap off his Justice League run in an event called Death Metal.
• Win Back the Crowd: Unchained is often considered the best Superman book of the New 52 and a return to form at a time when every other Superman book was thought to have hit an Audience-Alienating Era. Its great action scenes and fun character moments made it stand out in comparison to Grant Morrison's Action Comics (New 52) (which has since been Vindicated by History, but was considered overly-cerebral at the time), the compromised George Pérez run, the misdirection for several months afterwards and (despite arguably getting the books back into alignment) Scott Lobdell's panned storylines. In fact, until Greg Pak took over writing duties on Batman/Superman and Action Comics, as well as Geoff Johns returning to Superman, Unchained and Supergirl (2011) were the only Superbooks that had predominantly positive reviews.

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