The design and UX isn't done, Rob and Abbie, okkurrrr! 😌
sfletcher26's review against another edition
4.0
Supermen and total war. A brutal story based during what for us were the final days of WWII.
darylnash's review against another edition
2.0
This is problematic as hell, especially these days. The first issue almost reads like neo-Nazi wish fulfillment. Not to mention the writing itself is cold. But Gillen’s commentary convinced me that his heart’s in the right place, and the writing improves in later issues, so I’ll probably give the next book a chance. Since I already bought it on sale.
derrickmitchell's review against another edition
3.0
This series imagines what World War 2 would have looked like if actual super humans were involved, but used strategically as weapons. It’s pretty bloody at times, but also engaging.
trike's review against another edition
3.0
I bought this book purely on the weight of author Kieron Gillen's name. He wrote an Iron Man story that I thoroughly enjoyed, so I figured that Nazi Supermen -- or Ubermensch -- would be a no-brainer.
And it almost is. It's so, so close.
I really like how Gillen messes with expectations of a story we've seen many times before, but unfortunately the tale is hampered by some unclear character design and hard-to-follow art. The actual draftsmanship is fine, but the layouts leave a lot to be desired, hindering the story rather than accentuating it.
Some of the standout bits include Hitler on the verge of committing suicide in his bunker and Churchill struggling with the trauma of the war.
That said, despite the flaws it's still pretty good and I'll certainly read the next TPB that comes out.
And it almost is. It's so, so close.
I really like how Gillen messes with expectations of a story we've seen many times before, but unfortunately the tale is hampered by some unclear character design and hard-to-follow art. The actual draftsmanship is fine, but the layouts leave a lot to be desired, hindering the story rather than accentuating it.
Some of the standout bits include Hitler on the verge of committing suicide in his bunker and Churchill struggling with the trauma of the war.
That said, despite the flaws it's still pretty good and I'll certainly read the next TPB that comes out.
mark_cc's review against another edition
3.0
So this was basically a Tarantino movie? Or at least all the parts of a Tarantino movie of which I am none too fond. Apart from having to draw too much blood, the art in the faces fell flat for me a couple times, but in spite of all this I found the plot compelling and enjoyed reading it once my brain recalibrated and I managed to filter out torture 'n' gore.
nigellicus's review
5.0
The concept behind this book seems like a distillation of the prologue to Grant Morrison's Zenith, where an Allied superman and a Nazi superman fight on the streets of Berlin in 1945, cut short by an atomic bomb. In Uber, the Nazis get the supermen before anyone else, but only manage to deploy them on the brink of defeat, precipitating a desperate arms race as the superior human weapons of the Reich devastate the conventional forces of the Allies on both fronts.
This is not a superhero book, though. This is a book about weapons, and escalation and a new type of war. The supermen are basically walking atom bombs of varying degrees of strength and dexterity, and what follows is cruel and brutal and ugly. It's an Avatar book, so the blood and the guts and limbs fly, and in service to almost any other story you might say it's gratuitous and exploitative, but the development of the story is about the prosecution of a war. The narrative voice is detached and cool and objective, like a historian providing commentary for a documentary. The characters are small set against the huge scale of the conflict, and most of them know it.
It's a cruel, brutal and ugly story and it's a cruel, brutal and ugly book, so why the heck am I reading it on Christmas Eve? It's 2016. Aleppo has fallen, homeless Irish people are squatting in Apollo House, Leonard Cohen is gone, Carrie Fisher is in hospital and the US president elect is announcing a new nuclear arms race via Twitter. Somehow Uber, a comic about what would happen if the Nazis got supermen, is entirely of the moment. I wish it wasn't, but it's still a great comic.
This is not a superhero book, though. This is a book about weapons, and escalation and a new type of war. The supermen are basically walking atom bombs of varying degrees of strength and dexterity, and what follows is cruel and brutal and ugly. It's an Avatar book, so the blood and the guts and limbs fly, and in service to almost any other story you might say it's gratuitous and exploitative, but the development of the story is about the prosecution of a war. The narrative voice is detached and cool and objective, like a historian providing commentary for a documentary. The characters are small set against the huge scale of the conflict, and most of them know it.
It's a cruel, brutal and ugly story and it's a cruel, brutal and ugly book, so why the heck am I reading it on Christmas Eve? It's 2016. Aleppo has fallen, homeless Irish people are squatting in Apollo House, Leonard Cohen is gone, Carrie Fisher is in hospital and the US president elect is announcing a new nuclear arms race via Twitter. Somehow Uber, a comic about what would happen if the Nazis got supermen, is entirely of the moment. I wish it wasn't, but it's still a great comic.
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