Review: Supergirl Vol. 3: Sanctuary trade paperback (DC Comics)

Supergirl Vol. 3: Sanctuary, like Superboy Vol. 3: Lost, is a book transitioning from one creative team to the next, all the while in the throes of the "H'el on Earth" Super-title crossover, which only makes the transition that much bumpier. Comparatively, Supergirl performs better issue-by-issue than the Superboy title does, though "H'el on Earth" is rougher on the character; also the final issue by the new team is less auspicious than Superboy's, though I've still found reasons to check out the next volume.

[Review contains spoilers]

The most egregious problem in Sanctuary is that the "H'el on Earth" crossover sees Supergirl falling in love with H'el. Their relationship is fairly chaste, at least, but H'el is such a creepy guy and the evidence against him is so staggering that it requires Supergirl coming off unbelievably oblivious throughout the story.

"H'el on Earth" is a story that succeeds in beginning to integrate Superboy into the larger DC Universe, but it has the opposite effect for Supergirl; this is a "Supergirl vs." trade rather than a "Supergirl and" trade. And it's not simply that Supergirl sides with H'el instead of with Superman, which presented reasonably might have worked, but rather that she falls in love with him. One can't necessarily fault writer Mike Johnson for this (now sans Michael Green), but rather I'm guessing this was embedded in the "H'el on Earth" zeitgeist; however, the fact that it's Supergirl in love with H'el and not Superboy siding with H'el smacks of a "girls are so emotional" trope that detracts from "H'el on Earth" overall.

That said, though the "H'el on Earth" crossover doesn't distinguish itself as a whole, there's plenty to like in the Supergirl chapters. Series artist Mahmud Asrar draws them all, continuing the book's distinctively tidy, slightly animated style. It's in Supergirl that we get our best glimpse of H'el's (supposed) origin; also it's in Supergirl that the reader ventures for the first time into the bottle city of Kandor that Superman rescued in Action Comics, all well depicted by Asrar.

Sanctuary also pits Supergirl against the Flash and Wonder Woman in separate chapters, and also teams her with Power Girl. Though again Supergirl gets short shrift in "H'el" consigned to the villain role, there's plenty joy in watching these characters meet again for the first time. In the Flash issue, especially, Asrar's style is enough like Francis Manapul for this to feel like a genuine Flash story. And I appreciated that Johnson wrote against the norm by having Supergirl and Power Girl become immediate allies, instead of the usual misunderstanding and battle.

Indeed, Johnson's best issues outside "H'el on Earth" are his first and his last in this volume. The first, before "H'el" rears its head, has Supergirl fighting old enemy Simon Tycho in her new Fortress of Solitude (the titular "Sanctuary") and also cameos Silver Banshee Siobhan Smythe, the character that really made Supergirl Vol. 2: Girl in the World great. The last is that against-the-grain Power Girl chapter, in which the two Karas team up against government agents and also the machinations of Lex Luthor. In these interactions, Johnson presents Supergirl, Siobhan, and Power Girl as amusing and interesting, and it's that same spirit again that buffeted this book's second volume.

As an aside, most of the Lex Luthor material comes in a single issue by filmmaker Frank Hannah, who's been doing some work for DC in the Super-titles. Hannah has an especially good bit in revealing the incarcerated Luthor's solar-powered "mind palace," and it makes me curious to read more of Hannah's work. Mostly, however, the issue underscores just how little the reader knows about Luthor and his interactions with Superman, now a couple years into the New 52; I believe we're going to get more Luthor soon with Forever Evil, but I'd like to see someone address why Luthor is imprisoned, when he "went bad," how he got those scars on his head, and so on.

New series writer Michael Alan Nelson finishes the book, but the vibe I got from his issue left me wanting Johnson to come back. In Johnson's issue, through a series of events that I'm not sure doesn't conflict with Worlds Finest, Power Girl gets a "new" costume from Supergirl, which unfortunately turns out to be the classic "boob window" costume. Too bad, but the fact that Johnson has Power Girl get the costume from Supergirl and Supergirl's reverential "You look beautiful" help mitigate it a bit.

But in Nelson's issue, he starts an ongoing joke about how Supergirl thinks Power Girl looks "too old" for the costume, which both reverses what Johnson just established an issue ago, and also resurrects the tired "look at Power Girl's rack" meme in the New 52, when we might've hoped it died during Flashpoint. Nelson obviously goes for a comedic tone in an issue where Supergirl has to convince Sanctuary to stop attacking her, and while some moments are funny, it goes on long enough I began to get bored. Troubled at times as the Supergirl title has been in the New 52, I began to think Nelson's Supergirl maybe just wasn't for me.

What will bring me back for the next volume is that in looking at the solicitations for Supergirl Vol. 4: Out of the Past, I see it introduces one of my favorite Superman villains to the New 52. This is one I can't miss (and then after that, I'll probably go in again for Vol. 5 and the "Red Daughter of Krypton" storyline). I hope I'm pleasantly surprised, however, because at this point my expectations are tempered.

[Includes original covers, including "WTF" gatefold cover, and Mahmud Asrar layouts and sketches]

Coming up, Action Comics Vol. 4 to finish out the week.

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Review: Supergirl Vol. 2: Girl in the World trade paperback (DC Comics)

When I read the first volume of Michael Green and Mike Johnson's New 52 Supergirl, I was impressed with the balance the two struck between an edgier Supergirl suitable for modern audiences and still creating a likable character that authentically evokes Supergirl in her many incarnations. Supergirl Vol. 2: Girl in the World toes this line even better, preserving Supergirl's alien-neess while at the same time giving her a darling supporting cast and some human interaction. Plotting here could still use some work, but fans of Sterling Gates's recent stellar run on Supergirl should find themselves comfortable here, too.

[Review contains spoilers]

The first volume of this book mainly involved Supergirl being Supergirl -- fighting government soldiers, fighting Superman, fighting alien conquerors. As such, the dynamic of the book instantly changes when Supergirl meets "Irish punk rocker" Siobhan Smythe, who speaks Kryptonian by dint of magical powers and becomes Supergirl's guide to Earth. This Kara Zor-El doesn't have a secret identity per se, but Siobhan gets her into "people clothes," out to a music club, and eventually on a date. Green and Johnson's use of Siobhan is inspired -- one step removed in that she can't understand most people and most people can't understand her, but she can understand Siobhan, and it humanizes this most alien of Supergirls without lessening her aloofness.

Indeed, in the book's fourth chapter, when Kara goofs around with Siobhan and goes on a date with Siobhan's brother Tom -- ending with Kara believing she's a danger to her friends and bidding them a tearful good-bye -- the book really begins to feel like a Supergirl story, like something from Gates or Peter David's runs. The story, a kind of done-in-one bridge between the Siobhan storyline and the next, is even a little bit saccharine-y, as Supergirl stories sometimes are; the stories in the first volume of Supergirl were very action-oriented, so it's auspicious to see the book take on a more emotional, teen romance vibe, if only for a moment. Again, the result is a Supergirl book that's new but also seems familiar.

Long-time readers will recognize Siobhan right off as Superman foe Silver Banshee. More kudos to Green and Jonhson for using a familiar character in a new way, rather than creating a new character that might not have as much resonance or staying power. In this new reality, Kara and the Silver Banshee are friends, teamed up against Siobhan's father, the Black Banshee. I like Kara and Siobhan's friendship (and Siobhan's excitement about Kara's powers is contagious, much like Bunker's optimism over in Teen Titans), though I wonder if Green and Johnson aren't just biding their time for a Smallville-esque turn in which Supergirl and Silver Banshee, originally friends, might one day become enemies (again).

Green and Johnson present Supergirl's power set as slightly different than Superman's due to her having circled Earth's sun for a while in her rocket ship. I appreciated that this makes Supergirl not just a carbon copy of Superman (and as a matter of fact, the book strongly suggests Supergirl might be the more powerful of the two). We find in the book that Supergirl has an increased ability to channel the energy in her body, creating mild force fields and energy blasts. There's a hint this Supergirl even glows a little bit, and while the association is a bit of a stretch, I couldn't help but hope this was a little nod to the powers of the "Angel Supergirl" over in David's Supergirl series.

Series artist Mahmud Asrar offers near flawless art here, often inking his own work and with watercolor-esque colors by Dave McCaig and Paul Mounts. George Perez contributes one issue and it's a treat to see him drawing Supergirl; also Perez draws some genuinely-scary banshee-twisted faces at the end of his issue.

While I like Green and Johnson's presentation of Supergirl in general, I think the series still struggles in page-to-page storytelling. Almost every superhero battle in both volumes of this book have stemmed from some villain coming up and attacking Supergirl; this is not yet a series then lends itself to Supergirl patrolling a city fighting crime, but there's a bit of repetitive structure in Kara minding her own business when suddenly a villain attacks. Moreover the writers can't quite shake the common superhero comics tropes like a fight scene in every issue whether it needs it or not; the sea creatures that just happen to attack Supergirl on the way to her underground fortress are an especially egregious example.

I also wasn't crazy about the nuts and bolts of the Black Banshee conflict. There's precedent for this kind of story where a young Superman or Supergirl discovers their vulnerability to magic against a supernatural foe, but I thought the story jumped the shark a bit when Supergirl enters a mystic realm and fights a Black Banshee dragon using swords and armor. I did, however, like that even despite this somewhat esoteric story of magic and ancient curses, the writers tied Siobhan and her brother's own isolation and "stranger in a strange land" aesthetic into Supergirl's own.

There's a variety of mysteries inherent in Michael Green and Mike Johnson's Supergirl series, and I liked that with the Zero Month issue that ends this book, they illuminated one (who killed Kara's father) while raising another (what's Superboy doing on ancient Krypton). I know Green and Johnson's time on Supergirl is limited -- just another collection or so -- but I hope they get a chance to answer more of these questions (and pose new ones) before their run ends. If I was on the fence about the New 52 Supergirl before, Supergirl Vol. 2: Girl in the World has assuaged those doubts, and I'd glad to see Supergirl get a good foundation in this new universe.

[Includes original covers; layouts, sketches, and character designs by Mahmud Asrar]

Captain Atom coming up next time.

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Review: Supergirl Vol. 1: Last Daughter of Krypton trade paperback (DC Comics)

Having the star of the New 52 collection Supergirl: Last Daughter of Krypton be Kara Zor-El, Superman's cousin from Krypton, seems a foregone conclusion, but it was less than ten years ago when Jeph Loeb and the late Michael Turner re-introduced this character in the pages of Superman/Batman. Prior to that, since the death of the original Supergirl in Crisis on Infinite Earths, the DC Universe's Supergirl had been a variety of popular artificial lifeforms and other beings, but never the original article.

This is not to say Supergirl reemerged without some difficulty. Loeb and Turner offered a Supergirl with some edge, who refused the mentorship of both her cousin and Batman, accepting instead warrior's training from Wonder Woman and, momentarily, servitude to Darkseid. As other writers took over the new Supergirl title, she became a stand-in for the bad girl celebrities of the time, as often fighting crime as she was hanging out in clubs. It was not until Sterling Gates became the series writer roundabouts the "New Krypton" storyline that the Supergirl title evened out, offering a heroic and relatable Supergirl, though still with an impulsive teenager's temper.

Michael Green and Mike Johnson's New 52 Supergirl preserves the spirit of Gates's definitive run, with Kara heroic and impulsive, far from the bubbly do-gooder of her earliest incarnations but neither the bad girl anyone would be embarrassed to read. Artist Mahmud Asrar similarly follows Gates's penciller Jamal Igle with a Supergirl drawn tastefully and not gratuitously, despite her even-skimpier new costume. The announcement of the New 52 Supergirl suggested an angrier or more violent take on the character, but ultimately Supergirl fans shouldn't find much to be concerned about in Last Daughter of Krypton.

Unfortunately, despite that Green and Johnson handle the Supergirl character respectfully, it doesn't necessarily mean they can find something interesting to do with her.

[Review contains spoilers]

Supergirl: Last Daughter of Krypton is a book too constrained by the conventions of the pre-Flashpoint DC Universe. In issue one, Supergirl crash-lands on Earth, remembering having been on Krypton just moments ago with her baby cousin Kal-El. Issue two, Supergirl and Superman meet, and fight; issue three, Supergirl finally comes to understand about the destruction of Krypton. Though nicely illustrated by Asrar and team with a sketchy, watercolor effect, this is the same process Kara went through in Loeb and Turner's title, quicker and with Batman brooding on the sidelines.

Green and Johnson certainly know their stuff, having written the epic, moving Superman/Batman: The Search for Kryptonite among other stories. In Supergirl, however, at least one difficulty is that they don't seem to be able to line up the action sequences with the forward action. Superman and Supergirl spend much of the second issue fighting . . . only to eventually stop fighting so Superman can explain about Krypton. Similarly, Supergirl fights the alien Reign in the ruins of Supergirl's home of Argo City, all the while Reign spouts exposition; Reign wins, a few beats pass, and then Supergirl and Reign start fighting again on Earth.

There is not enough new here, nor are the villains so compelling, as to distinguish the New 52 Supergirl title. The New 52 gets yet another rogue mad scientist (as almost every other New 52 title seems to have) in the form of Simon Tycho, who pits Supergirl against some nondescript monsters and mainly serves to furnish her with the sunstone information crystal that sends her off to Argo. There, Reign fights Supergirl for an issue, before they move the fight to Earth and Supergirl battle's Reign's three beasties, equally generic animal-aliens that fail to make any impression on the reader.

Kara's arc in the book also seems too simplistic. Inevitably, this Supergirl will come to fight on the side of good, team with the Teen Titans, and so on, but given that inevitability, it's interesting to read for the moment about a Supergirl not so tame. Green and Johnson get points, for instance, for the fact that Supergirl can't speak English and doesn't do so for the entirety of the book. But after a ghostly apparition by her parents, Supergirl suddenly decides to embrace Earth as her adopted home and to protect the people there; not only is the apparition hackneyed (hopefully there's an explanation besides Kara seeing ghosts), but Kara's shift in attitude comes too quickly. Better is the Supergirl in Superboy: Incubation, who turns away her young "cousin" as a monster; this makes for a more interesting Supergirl, different than her pre-New 52 incarnation.

The writers tease a number of mysteries that suggest good stories to come, including the murder of Kara's father, the origin of Argo's advanced technology, a pre-New 52 Superman rogue lurking in the background, and the fifth of Reign's Warkiller aliens (it would be great if this turned out to be Kara, but that's unlikely). Unfortunately, what Supergirl: Last Daughter of Krypton delivers so far is no more, and really less, than what readers have seen before. Michael Green, Mike Johnson, and Mahmud Asrar should be commended for a respectful take on Supergirl -- that they achieved this quickly is no small feat, and that they achieved it right at the beginning of the New 52 is important; maybe with the next volume their story will be equal to the character they've created for it.

[Includes original covers, sketches by Asrar and Jim Lee]

Later this week, a guest review of Huntress: Crossbow at the Crossroads. Thanks!

By the way ..., as you may know former Supergirl writer Peter David (also of Young Justice and Star Trek fame, among others) is recovering from a stroke. Peter is a much beloved member of the comics community -- you can help Peter's family with the hospital bills by purchasing one of Peter's new ebooks, many for just $0.99. Please see this post on Peter David's website for more details.

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Review: Supergirl: Bizarrogirl trade paperback (DC Comics)

Sterling Gates's Supergirl: Bizarrogirl is an effective tribute to Superman stories gone past. Though Bizarrogirl was not originally intended as the last Supergirl collection before the DC New 52 reboot, it works to bring this Supergirl's story to a close and tie up a number of loose ends and plot threads -- both Gates's, and some almost two to three decades old. As a long-time Superman fan, I was more than happy to see Gates re-treading old ground one last time before everything changes.

[Contains spoilers]

Gates tells three stories here: that of Supergirl on Bizarro World, Supergirl teaming up with the Legion of Super-Heroes, and Supergirl and Daily Planet columnist Cat Grant investigating the Toyman. Each of these are quite firmly steeped in past stories; the first plays off what Geoff Johns established in Superman: Escape from Bizarro World; the second mashes up the continuity of this Supergirl and the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths iteration; and the third takes up both early 1990s Toyman stories in the Superman "Triangle Titles" and also Johns's recent changes to the Toyman.

All in all, I felt it had the positive effect of making this Supergirl -- a relative newcomer to DC continuity and something of a mis-fit during her first few creative teams -- actually feel like a character who's been part of the modern Superman mythos all along instead of a recent drop-in.

Like Bryan Miller on Batgirl, Gates had a lot of work to do in the beginning, and we'll pause a moment to recognize that. Though I thought the edgy, hard-partying, flirts-with-Captain-Boomerang-Jr. Supergirl of Identity was interesting if only for the risk DC was taking, but truly by the time Gates took over the title, DC did not have a tenable, consistent Supergirl to show for themselves.

That artist Jamal Igle subtly demonstrated that no, Supergirl is not flying around with a thong under her skirt was notably but only a cosmetic change, really, laid atop what else Gates was doing -- preserving some of the volatility in this Supergirl as created by Jeph Loeb, but also making her more heroic, more responsible, and more, essentially, normal. That we first meet Gates's Supergirl fighting Silver Banshee is significant because, y'know, that's what superheroes do.

Gates followed Who is Superwoman with a handful of collections that weaved in and out of the "New Krypton" storyline, with plenty of mystery and betrayal, especially strong themes at one point of faith versus science, and some excellent continuity nods to boot. While Supergirl might've thrown a couple fits, we never found her grinding away in a Metropolis club, just regular ol' superhero action. That "regularity" might have been why Gates's Supergirl never got the recognition that Miller's revitalization of Stephanie Brown as Batgirl did, but I'd venture Gates faced no less of a challenge and was equally successful in making his character readable.

Bizarrogirl wraps up two aspects of Gates's Supergirl run, one short(er)-term and one long-term. The former is the aftermath of the destruction of New Krypton; Gates could have handled this with a greater amount of pathos, but addressing it against the backdrop of saving Bizarro society offers Supergirl self-actualization without bringing the story to a standstill for four issues. The latter partners Supergirl with Grant, who's been Supergirl's detractor since Gates's first issue; it's no surprise Gates would end with Grant, nor that Grant's story ought involve the Toyman, who killed her son -- but it's clear Gates knows the pins he's set up during his Supergirl run and what need to be knocked down (including ending the book as he began it, with "This is my life"), and the final book is a satisfactory close.

Gates has the benefit, too, of his last Supergirl stories not quite running up against the DC New 52 reboot, so Bizarrogirl doesn't feel as rushed as Batgirl: The Lesson, for instance.

Taking up Cat Grant and the Toyman is something of an ambitious endeavor for Gates, given that the story in which Toyman killed Cat's son Adam (or, when Toyman's robot killed Adam, after Geoff Johns's Final Crisis-era alteration to the story) was published in 1993. The brassy, overblown Grant of the Superman-family titles of late is a somewhat far cry from the same character in the 1980s-1990s Superman stories that actually dated Clark Kent (the present Grant is more in line with Tracy Scoggins portrayal of the character on Lois and Clark); I wouldn't have been surprised of Gates and Johns had jettisoned Grant's past entirely, much like how Lucy Lane, who appears here, never married or had a child with Daily Planet reporter Ron Troupe.

Instead, Gates has Lana Lang narrate a through-way for Grant from the former characterization to the latter, throwing a bone to "Triangle Title" Superman fans at the end. Lana's saying, "[Grant] was different woman back then. Heck, we all were," is a cute bit on Gates's part, given that Grant was not so ostentatious, Lang was not a businesswoman who might one day head LexCorp, and Supergirl was a protoplasmic shapeshifter also called Matrix (you all know Matrix, right?). Here at the soon-to-be-end of the DC Universe, some looking back is warranted, and it's comforting to intuit that Gates has as much a touchstone with those old days as the readers do.

Speaking of old days, the Supergirl Annual that appears in the center of this book pairs Supergirl with the Legion of Super-Heroes -- that is, the newest iteration of the Legion, which itself is based on the Legion that DC published from the 1960s to 1986's Crisis on Infinite Earths. The mixture of new and old runs throughout the annual; the current iteration of Supergirl is a relatively new one that had her own adventures with Mark Waid's "Threeboot" Legion, as it's called, but Gates essentially posits this Supergirl as the same who had pre-Crisis adventures with the Legion, up to and including dying an untimely death (in Crisis, though Gates stops just short of showing said scene).

In essence, at the near-end of her title, this Supergirl becomes the "once and future" Supergirl, both her own character and the character she was created to replace, which also seems fitting. All of this brought clear to me that in DC's New 52, we understand Crisis on Infinite Earths never happened, so this major moment of Supergirl's death will no longer be a plot point. So strong was Supergirl's death in Crisis that even though the event is out of continuity, here twenty-five years later Sterling Gates finds a way to make it relevant again. Maybe that's what they mean by the New 52 jettisoning too many years of baggage -- a new reader couldn't reasonably be expected to go back twenty-five years to understand the greater meaning in a recent Supergirl annual -- but the fact that no character will refer to "when Supergirl died" again brought me up short.

(Or maybe they will. Legion continuity remains the same, so maybe they can just insert the New 52 Supergirl into the same role as this Supergirl as far as the future's concerned. The good thing, I imagine, about Legion adventures taking place in the future.)

All of that said, done, and muddled, then, it remains that Supergirl: Bizarrogirl is enjoyable, and caps off a nice Supergirl run by Sterling Gates. It was almost twenty years after Crisis before DC decided to bring back the Kryptonian Supergirl, relatively late altogether, and then it took them a while to get her portrayal right. Gates accomplished that portrayal, and it's nice that he got it right just before we lost the character altogether.

UPDATE: This review received this very nice response:

@collecteditions Thank you for the lovely write-up!

— Sterling Gates (@sterlinggates) February 9, 2012

[Includes original and variant covers. Printed on glossy paper. Apparently Sterling Gates wrote a foreword or afterword to this volume that DC never published; still hoping we see it online one of these days]

The theme of next week is super-teams, with reviews of Outsiders and Secret Six. Also, get ready for a big DC TPB Timeline announcement ...

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Supergirl, The Patron Super-Heroine Of Bravery & Compassion: Kara Zor-El's Day

I'm not a man of religion, but I do have my own personal rituals that I tend to follow at Christmas beyond the cards and the presents and the meals with both close friends and strangers. "Bad Santa" needs to be watched, for example, and the "Bad Santa" drinking game may be attempted and then abandoned as a young fool's folly completely inappropriate for the more mature reveller. "It's A Wonderful Life" would then need to be enjoyed as something of an antidote, and something of a complimentary piece too.

Where comics are concerned, the various Christmas Spirit tales are always worth indulging in, as is of course so obvious a matter that it hardly bares thinking about. But the one superhero story that I always make sure I read over the holiday season is Alan Brennert, Dick Giordano and Mark Waid's "Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot". It's a tale that appeared just once, in 1989, and to my knowledge, it's never been reprinted, which is a genuine shame, for it's a fine and moving story that was very well-told indeed.


If you've never read the story, a quick net search will turn up its pages. And it's a tale that's well worth reading for itself, regardless of controversy or continuity implants. It's nominally a Deadman story, in which the ghost of Boston Brand despairs that all his attempts to help others go unacknowledged. Christmas, we're shown, is a very bad time to be a lonesome, homeless ghost. As his sadness and isolation overwhelms him, he's approached by what seems to be a young woman who can not only see him in his spirit form, but who clearly knows him, though he can't remember her. It swiftly becomes obvious to the reader, though not to Brand, that this is Kara Zor-El, the slain Supergirl, who like Deadman is walking the Earth to help others wherever she can. Unlike Boston Brand, however, Kara never once existed in this universe. Reality has been re-written so that even her vital and fatal contribution to the defeat of the Anti-Monitor has been expunged from everyone's memory, bar that, we must assume, of the insane Psycho Pirate, as Grant Morrison would later emphasise. Supergirl is a no-person, a shade of a hero from a destroyed existence. In that, "Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot" is a story which deals so exquisitely with the matter of souls caught up in the recasting of comic-book realities that it bears comparison with the far better known "The Nearness Of You", the deeply moving "Astro City" take on the subject by Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson, from where the scan below comes;


It's not that Kara shares the details, let alone the facts, of her identity and her lonely situation in so many words to Boston. It's left to the reader to put her words into context, which helps explain something of how powerful this story is. Because those of us who grew up with the original Supergirl are compelled by this story to recognise what a splendid character she was, and what a daft decision it was to remove her from continuity. In comic-book terms, it was, and remains, a tragedy.

The Kara of Mr Brennert's tale is something of a stern figure bearing up to her absolute isolation with immeasurable bravery and determination. She obviously comes from a far more traditional, even patrician, culture than was often recognised in her latter-day appearances, and yet such a reading is perfectly in keeping with her Silver-Age adventures. And by showing what a strong and self-sacrificing woman Kara Zor-El had remained even after her death, even while utterly alone in all of the DCU, her first appearances were cast for me in a somewhat different light. For


it's very easy to see the Supergirl who first appeared in Superman's life as something of a shrinking violet, a quiet, almost mousy girl, happy to hide in the shadows and to serve as her cousin's invisible, unacknowledged, emergency replacement. But what once appeared to be a portrayal of a subservient girl framed very much in the light of traditional gender roles now seems, as Mr Brennert's story casts its own version of her character backwards into Supergirl's past, to be something very different indeed. For this Supergirl was never weak, but she was modest, and she was never content to play a second-class role so much as to fulfil her part in life as her Kryptonian culture trained her to do. There's a dignity in her restraint and a tremendous moral strength in her sense of mission, and these positive ethical qualities are even present in the slight edge of exasperation she displays as she lectures Deadman on his duties to others;

"We don't do it for the glory. We don't do it for the recognition. We do it because it needs to be done. Because if we don't, no-one else will. And we do it even if no-one knows what we've done. Even if no-one knows we exist. Even if no one remembers we ever existed."


The Silver-Age take on Krypton was a clearly patriarchal society, but Kara came from the planet's elite, and I've always imagined that the women of her class had the relative independence and power often shown by Roman women during, for example, the last days of the Republic and the early days of Empire. Kara has the steel and determination of the natural-born minor aristocrat, but none of the snobbery or self-interest. That she should have come from such a tragically sad and alien environment, have suffered to such extremes, and yet remained so very admirable within the terms of her adopted world's common culture too, merely adds to my regard for her. She is obviously made of a far harder stuff than even a Kryptonian's skin under the rays of a red sun.

So, I can say without reservation that my favorite superheroine of all time, and perhaps my favourite superhero of all in the company of the Lee/Ditko Spiderman and Will Eisner's Spirit, is Kara Zor-El, and Christmas is undoubtedly her season. In a world where so many folks are seemingly far more obsessed with receiving than giving, the Supergirl of Mr Brennert and Mr Giordano and Mr Waid does nothing but give to a world which cannot even remember that she ever existed, let alone that she died to save them all.

My heroine.


Have a splendid day, and "Stick together!"

.

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Review: Supergirl: Death and the Family trade paperback (DC Comics)

With Supergirl: Death and the Family, Sterling Gates continues the great upswing this title has been on (just, unfortunately, in time to hear that Gates is leaving the title). His initial Who is Superwoman had maybe a touch too must angst for my tastes, but Friends and Fugitives offered a nuanced spotlight on the differences between secular Supergirl and her religious friend Flamebird; Death and the Family offers some similarly complex performances, as well as a nice take on some classic Superman villains and allies.

[Contains spoilers]

There's not anyone who actually believe Gates was actually going to let Supergirl's friend and mentor Lana Lang die, and as such I had found the false drama of Lana's ongoing illness somewhat dull. As well, if you ask most seasoned comics fans what villain is likely behind an illness striking Lana Lang, they'd probably get it right on the first try. To that end, there's a lot stacked against Gates to make Death and the Family succeed -- but he does. What helps this book make it? Gangbuster, Silver Banshee, and betrayal.

At a very critical moment just before the last full chapter (Supergirl #50), when we already know Lana's not dead and we already know what villain's going to pop out of the mysterious slimy cocoon, Gates changes the scene completely. The story jumps forward in time, and we're presented with the hero Gangbuster (one of my favorites, late of Kurt Busiek's Trinity) bobbing and weaving to escape killer insects. It's just the right move by Gates, and re-casts Supergirl's ultimate battle with the villainous Insect Queen into a post-apocalyptic space that's just different enough from the battle over Metropolis that we might have been expecting.

Given Cat Grant's heavy hand in Gates's Supergirl series, teaming Supergirl up with Gangbuster has just the right undertones (go look up Gangbuster, I'll wait). Again, Gangbuster is a favorite of mine as a long-time post-Crisis on Infinite Earths Superman fan, and Gates further makes this feel like a Superman title through the use of that character. Now if he can get Supergirl to stop by the Ace of Clubs to see Bibbo, and maybe find some way to rehabilitate Emil Hamilton, we'll be all set.

It's in this same vein that Gates pits Supergirl against long-time Superman villain Silver Banshee in two of the book's chapters. Supergirl's fight with the Banshee doesn't have the most bearing on the story, but Gates's origin and motivations for the Banshee hew fairly close to the original Byrne version, if I recall correctly, and as such there's something about the two-parter that says "classic" to me. At one point, Gates even has Supergirl banshee-fied herself, a moment both unexpected and entertaining. That is, I think, the quietly growing power of this book -- with the trappings of "New Krypton" set aside for a moment, Gates tells a believable story of a Superman-type case handled by Supergirl, and it succeeded in ringing true.

The triumph of the story, however, is when the Insect Queen suggests that Lana only befriended Supergirl through the Queen's machinations, and that Lana and Supergirl's familial relationship is false -- a notion Supergirl can't quite disbelieve. Against the backdrop of "New Krypton" villain General Sam Lane betraying his own resurrected daughter Lucy, Gates avoids a sappy sitcom resolution between Lana and Supergirl -- Supergirl expresses her distrust, Lana makes a reasonable rebuttal as to why the Insect Queen who possessed her is of course evil and not to be believed ... and ultimately, Supergirl can't accept it and flies off.

The ending is not happy, but the reader is left understanding completely how important Lana-as-family is to Supergirl and what the hero has lost. This is angst, but good angst, believable angst, and it suggests to me that Gates has indeed hit his stride on this title. Again, unfortunately, it seems the number of issues he has left here are limited, but there's at least one more trade in the offing, and Supergirl: Death and the Family has convinced me to pick it up when I hadn't been so sure just a few books ago.

[Contains full and variant covers. Printed on glossy paper.]

More reviews on the way. Thanks for reading!

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Review: Supergirl: Friends and Fugitives trade paperback (DC Comics)

Despite the series under which DC Comics released this book, Supergirl: Friends and Fugitives is actually both a Supergirl and Nightwing and Flamebird story (collecting both Supergirl and Action Comics). This combination serves both titles very well; whereas I have previously found the Supergirl character somewhat juvenile, and Nightwing and Flamebird more one-dimensional than Metropolis's other current protector, Mon-El, there's some great conflict between the three characters that shines in the hands of writers Sterling Gates and Greg Rucka.

[Contains spoilers]

DC has collected the Supergirl "New Krypton" stories mildly out of order between individual and "New Krypton" collections; as such, the relationship between Supergirl and her childhood friend Thara, now Flamebird, hasn't always been entirely clear. Friends and Fugitives clarifies it -- we knew they were essentially raised by the same parents, but I didn't know about their religious divide -- Supergirl firmly secular, Thara firmly spiritual.

Their conflict is firmly the most interesting part of "The Hunt for Reactron" storyline. Supergirl, mostly in mourning the death of her father Zor-El, blames Thara and her strange religious practices for not preventing Zor-El's murder; Thara tries hard, but the influence of the Flamebird entity keeps her from acting normally. This leads to a number of great scenes, and the ones where Supergirl and Thara argue quietly in Lana Lang's apartment are even for effective than when the two pummeling each other under the Eiffel Tower. This aspect of "New Krypton" has come down to one friend angry that the religious beliefs of the other friend impede their friendship, and it's a grounded conflict that makes all the characters much more interesting.

Indeed, every supporting character seems to get a boost in this collection. Nightwing Chris Kent is mostly window dressing behind Supergirl and Thara, but his kiss with Thara at the end will certainly have implications in the next Nightwing and Flamebird collection. Lana Lang and Lois Lane each get to fight and run from bad guys rather than sitting at home pining, which is always good, and it's also nice to see Lois and Lana as friends again. As someone who remembers Lois and Lana comforting one another after the death of Superman, their recent petty jealousies have bothered me; it cheapens Superman for his supporting characters to be that petty, and I'm glad the current writers are patching that up (and that Lois seems to have forgiven Supergirl for the last volume's trouble, too).

Also in the spotlight this volume is Supergirl's mother, Alura. I found Alura's initial reaction to arriving on Earth and the death of her husband slightly obvious -- it seems every alien civilization finds a reason to make war on humanity. But, Friends and Fugitives at least allows Alura to give some voice to her grief -- well-written by Gates -- and also shows Zor-El courting Alura; we see how her seeming emotionlessness has precedent throughout her life. The final scene where she appears to have learned from her husband's example, but ultimately is still on a dark path, was particularly powerful. Similarly, there's a nice one-off issue here where Supergirl argues with her mother about her coming-of-age ceremony (Kryptonian bat mitzvah, anyone?) in which I thought Gates gave a good slice of New Krypton's "normal life" amidst all the conflict.

After Who is Superwoman, I was on the fence about continuing to regularly pick up the Supergirl trades, but this volume and the preview Sterling Gates of his Supergirl plans over at The Source have convinced me to stick around. Supergirl: Friends and Fugitives is a fair follow up to Codename: Patriot, and gives some crucial depth to the supporting "New Krypton" characters at exactly the right moment.

[Contains full covers]

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Review: Supergirl: Who is Superwoman? trade paperback (DC Comics)

Having read Supergirl: Who is Superwoman?, I'd like to nominate writer Sterling Gates for the comic book equivalent of the Nobel prize. The nomination, however, isn't for Gates' current work; though Who is Superman? is enjoyable, I nominate Gates in the spirit of current American politics -- not for his current work, but for the change his work represents and for what he might do in the future.

[Contains spoilers for Supergirl: Who is Superwoman?]

What surprised me most about Who is Superwoman? was how similar it was to Supergirl volumes past. Understanding from interviews that Gates wanted to break from the "screw up" persona that's marked DC Comics' current Supergirl, I expected a character specifically more poised and established. Instead, Gates' Supergirl remains as stubbornly headstrong, overly self-assured, and wildly emotional as she's been before; there's still the distance between Supergirl and the readers, who often shakes their head at the folly of Supergirl's actions.

Who is Supergirl? works because this Supergirl is naive, but no longer silly. Yes, this Supergirl gets so angry that she flies headfirst into an empty costume without realizing Superwoman is inside it, and yes, this Supergirl gets so mad at her mother that she bloodies her hand smashing a Kryptonian crystal, but these are actions that I can at least realistically attribute to a teenage girl. Gone are the days, first of all, of Supergirl hating Superman, and gone are the days of Supergirl in "riot grrrl" gear tarting it up in a nightclub. In comparison, Supergirl's bespectacled new Linda Lang persona is necessarily wholesome, more Clark Kent than Paris Hilton. Gates seems to realize that a "bad girl" Supergirl only reinforces the worst stereotypes of how comics portray women; better to err farther on the "nice" side, still without making Supergirl infallible.

Admittedly, I am tired of the "teenage superhero as well meaning juvenile" paradigm. It wasn't that long ago when sidekicks were precocious versions of their mentors -- Chuck Dixon's Robin, for instance, stumbled over his cape once in a while, but we ultimately knew he could handle cases just as well as Batman; today's Teen Titans, by contrast, bicker with each other about unauthorized parties in Titans Tower. An immature Supergirl isn't as interesting for me to read as the headband-wearing Supergirl of ages past who was a superhero on par with her fellows -- but then again, even that Supergirl took a while growing up in the Smallville orphanage, so maybe I'm idealizing the situation.

As far as the story, Gates' offers a cogent mystery in the identity of Superwoman. Read in conjunction with Superman: New Krypton, there's a bunch of red herrings as to who might be Superwoman, and Gates (with artist Jamal Igle) plays fast and loose with panel appearances to tease Superwoman and her secret identity in two places at once. Superwoman's identity ultimately ties directly into Supergirl's own troubles -- both are confused young women choosing poor paths in hopes of honoring their fathers -- and while Gates didn't explore this explicitly, I'm pleased to see the Superwoman mystery working on more than one level.

But, if I still had some difficulty with how Gates portrays Supergirl, I had even more trouble with how Gates portrays the people around Supergirl. Yes, I understand that the public's mistrust of Supergirl is a parallel to how normal teenagers can't catch a break, but I find it hard to believe that Metropolitans, used to Superman, hate Supergirl that much for interrupting a baseball game to stop a supervillain. Moreover, Lois Lane's reaction to Supergirl having accidentally killed Superwoman is gigantically over-the-top; it's obvious to the reader that Supergirl isn't at fault, and so the prolonged scene of Lois kicking her husband's only living relative out of their apartment instead of listening to and helping Supergirl (this, the same Lois Lane meant to have coddled the young Chris Kent not too long ago) seemed like more unnecessary drama in the life of Supergirl.

Who is Superwoman? is less perfect than I thought it would be, but it's still a marked improvement over Supergirl volumes past, and that alone is saying something important. Gates puts as Supergirl's primary focus catching bad guys, and Jamal Igle's art is clear, attractive superhero fare similar to Dan Jurgens or Jerry Ordway, without sexualizing Supergirl more than is necessary or appropriate. I wonder, frankly, whether Supergirl (or Teen Titans) is a book for me or not, but at least it's a Supergirl title I'm proud of and that has a place now in the DC Universe.

(For more on Supergirl, the Supergirl Comic Box Commentary does a nice job recapping issues collected in this book.)

[Contains full covers, introduction by Supergirl actress Helen Slater, Origins & Omens pages.]

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Review: Supergirl: Way of the World trade paperback (DC Comics)

A couple years ago, someone at DC Comics had the good idea to bring back the one, true Supergirl, but since that time the company's struggled to decide what to do with her. Supergirl: Way of the World, by writer Kelley Puckett, has some entertaining moments, but continues to wallow in a meta-textual search for a real basis from which to write the character. Most readers might very well skip this trade and begin with writer Sterling Gates' run as part of Superman: New Krypton.

Puckett pairs Supergirl here with Mitchell Shelley, DC's latest incarnation of Resurrection Man, and it's a team-up that works exceptionally well. Shelley's hard-traveling sarcasm offers funny moments paralleled with Supergirl's headstrong determination to do the impossible and cure a boy's cancer; I believe fans of the Resurrection Man series will enjoy the continuity notes here, too. I was only surprised the story didn't acknowledge that Resurrection Man had a similar crossover with Peter David's previous incarnation of Supergirl, though DC may be trying at this point to sweep appearances of any Supergirl prior to this one under the rug.

I've also appreciated Puckett's flair for the sudden and absurd in his two Supergirl volumes. In Way of the World, as in the prior volume Beyond Good and Evil, Puckett interrupts the story (sometimes in mid-conversation) to take the reader to a sci-fi future where events influence the current action. These cut-aways are purposefully jarring and serve to break up the mundanity of what's at times an all mope, no action story. Ultimately these parts add up to no more than Elseworlds Supergirl stories, but they're some of the best part of the storyline and demonstrate a depth to Puckett's writing that he's not able to show through most of the book.

Readers that might've been freaked out by writer Joe Kelly's "good-girl-gone-bad" take on Supergirl will be comfortable here with Puckett's more traditional take; but unfortunately, this Supergirl is at times impossibly dull. Her quest to cure the boy's cancer seems naive both to her fellow heroes and the reader, and as such it's hard to be sympathetic with just how melodramatically sad Supergirl is afterward, letting alone that much of the aftermath is handled by fill-in writers and not by Puckett himself.

Given the end of Puckett's tenure on Supergirl, as well as Supergirl's failure to save the boy she befriends, it's unlikely we'll see the involved characters again; it makes these two volumes of Supergirl tragically unimportant. Much of these first thirty issues of Supergirl have been spent on the character's angst and guilt -- first, over apparently being sent to Earth to kill Superman (later explained away) and here over the general death and destruction of Krypton, ad nauseam. This is a merry-go-round that the Supergirl title has been on for some time; with the end of Puckett's run and the beginning of Gates', hopefully the book will find a direction it can stick with.

[Contains full covers.]

On Thursday, learn the unlikely connections between Birds of Prey and Death of the New Gods with our review of Birds of Prey: Club Kids. And coming soon, Batman: RIP and guest review month!

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Review: Supergirl: Beyond Good and Evil trade paperback (DC Comics)

You may want to skip Supergirl: Beyond Good and Evil and the following trade, Supergirl: Way of the World, and just start with the Sterling Gates creative team that comes along after. After Joe Kelly's madcap, just-so-wrong-it's-right take on Supergirl in Supergirl: Identity, writer Kelley Puckett and artist Drew Johnson offer a more traditional take on Kara Zor-El that ultimately has less controversy ... but also seemingly less substance.

I firmly believe that Kelley Puckett's run on Batgirl, along with art by Damion Scott, should be listed as a definitive Batgirl (Cassandra Cain) creative team. It was obvious Puckett understood the character, writing a series of nearly-silent one-shot issues that developed Batgirl while remaining true to the core of the character. To this end, I expected very much to enjoy Puckett's work on Supergirl; he's shown he can write young, female characters in an even, unexploitive, interesting way.

The difficulty is that Puckett writes Supergirl here almost as if she were Batgirl. There's great, great swaths of silent pages here, as Supergirl exchanges knowing glances with Superman as she looks back into Krypton's past, or fights the classic Supergirl-villain Reactron (in a new, fairly generic form). This silence only reinforces the plainness of Puckett's Supergirl story; as opposed to Joe Kelly's bad-girl Supergirl, Puckett's Supergirl has an equal stranger-in-a-strange world vibe, but shows it only through the generic superhero tropes of saving civilians and battling bad guys.

Puckett, to his credit, is moving toward a larger tale where Supergirl, bucking traditional superhero tropes, tries to cure a disease-ridden boy instead of just stopping robbers. This is not new territory, though Puckett does imbue it with some suspense, as in the final pages an alien whisks Supergirl off to a future she's destined to destroy by aiding the boy in the present. Unfortunately, this glimmer of uniqueness comes only at the end of this tale, and it takes a while (a long, silent while) to get there.

Indeed, the middle of the story has Supergirl looking back on Krypton such that she sees her father sending her to Earth -- an origin story that conflicts with Joe Kelly's origin just one trade earlier. I understand the thematic reason for this, as Supergirl's seeing Krypton die again makes her that much more determined to save the dying child, but again it's a far less edgy, more "vanilla" origin for Supergirl than what DC Comics recently established. Over in the Superman titles, Geoff Johns has slowly rolled out a new vision of Krypton, and my guess is that Supergirl needs to be revamped to go along with that; it's an awkward post-post-Infinite Crisis retcon (a la the current second revamp of Hawkman) that would no doubt confuse more casual readers.

While we're on the topic, I also continue to be bugged by how writers portray Superman in the Supergirl title as this worrying fogey. I distinctly remember a conversation between Superman and the Kon-El Superboy where Superman talks about his love for Metallica albums and dance contests; Kon saw Superman as a friend and mentor, not as a third wheel. I don't mind some conflict between Superman and Supergirl, but as a fan of both titles, it's tiring to see Supergirl groan about Superman over and over, when the reader's supposed to relate to Superman elsewhere in the DC Universe. It makes me glad Supergirl will be a greater part of the Super-family with the next creative team, as maybe things will be more aligned.

I was glad, by the way, to see Action Comics #850 reprinted at the beginning of this trade. While it suffers from some of the same "fogey Superman" troubles I mentioned above, the completist in me is glad to have it. I like the watercolor-like art from Renato Guedes here; Drew Johnson, who's work I liked on Wonder Woman, does an nice job on Supergirl, though she looked much older here than with Ale Garza or Ian Churchill.

Kelly Puckett's Supergirl isn't bad, insulting, or embarassing by any stretch ... it's just slow. I'm eager for a team that can find a balance on the character where she's not over the top, but also has interesting adventures.

[Contains full covers.]

Up next, a bit of Teen Titans (also featuring Supergirl) and then some Blue Beetle.

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