Ugh, what an ugly book. Not the art – Canaan White does a fantastic job with that – but the “story” itself.
Uber asks: what if at the end of WW2, Hitler’s mad plans to create an ubermensch – overman, superman – came to fruition just as Berlin was about to fall? With the emergence of Nazi supermen, the war is turned around with the Nazis pushing back the Allies, putting Hitler back on top. Plus, this being an Avatar book, it’s also hyper-violent and grisly.
I tried reading this book but after stopping and starting a half dozen times, I just put it down for good and immediately felt better. It’s not entirely the fact that watching the Nazis win is horrible to read, so much as the total absence of any story to hold the attention while Nazi supermen rip apart Allied soldiers. That’s all there is for vast chunks of the book: tons and tons of gratuitous violence.
And we see it in such bloody detail – women getting raped, men literally having their bodies ripped in half, others being strangled with intestines, on and on. It’s page after page of Nazi superheroes killing people in visceral detail and it’s completely miserable to read. And yes, I know WW2 wasn’t pretty, but that doesn’t mean I need to see half of the crap in this comic, especially as it doesn’t add anything to the wafer-thin story.
Maybe if you like the torture porn of movies like Saw and Hostel, this kinda comic will be right up your alley as it’s void of any substance and all about lurid graphic violence, for the sake of it. Me though? Hated it. I couldn’t stand the misery anymore and gave up halfway, though I’m guessing the Allies get their own superheroes at some point and fight back? But I couldn’t care less, I just can’t stand this much pointless gore.
Surprisingly there IS a worse Kieron Gillen book than his Iron Man series: Uber.
Uber Volume 1
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