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| Front cover of Supergirl volume 1 Last Daughter of Krypton TPB |
Score (out of 5 Capes)
2/5 Capes for an origin story reboot that misses the mark in too many ways.
My Review
In celebration of the upcoming Supergirl movie's release, we are reviewing a cross-era sampling of Supergirl graphic novels and trade paperbacks. This one comes from her DC Comics New 52-era ongoing series.
Every new Supergirl ongoing series we've looked at in this series is a significant change from the previous one - Is she Kara Zor-El? Linda Danvers? Both? teenaged? college-aged?
This volume collects the first seven issues of the New 52 version of Supergirl and brought a new reset of her origin myths.
She is Kara Zor-El, in her middle teenage years. She was launched in a one-person spacecraft by her father, to escape the doom coming to Argo City. Now, she has arrived on Earth but seems completely overwhelmed, shocked and confused by the change.
Will she respond with Fight or Flight? Definitely Fight. Anything and everything sparks a violent response due to her fear, confusion and anger.
Writers Michael Green and Mike Johnson used much of the first two issues to imagine the onset of her super-powers under Earth's yellow sun and her reaction. The changes only added to the fear and confusion overwhelming poor Kara.
When super-hearing brought a cacophony of sounds, she fell to her knees, overwhelmed.
The arrival of X-ray vision also freaked her out, and artist Mahmud Asrar depicted it in a series of panels peeling back the layers of human anatomy - first the skin, then blood vessels, then muscles, then bones.
Super-stregth. Flight. her powers emerged over a matter of hours, a far more ferocious sudden onset of changes to a body than puberty could ever muster.
When cousin Kal-El showed up and removed at least the language confusion, her flashback of holding his little infant body just three days earlier, in her time, produced yet another reaction of rage and violence.
Through those flashbacks, showing a girl learning the ways of Krypton's scientific classes, as well as the rigours of physical combat training (and her shaky grasp of its concepts), we met someone thoughtful and articulate, patient, kind and eager to please. Such a contrast to the rage machine that emerged from the spaceship.
If her response to danger is to dig in and fight, it is a new personality trait compared to the flashbacks.
The kindness visible in the flashbacks also must have been lost in space. She only intermittently realizes the side-effects of her strength and violence - most notably after smashing Superman through several layers of the Great Wall of China. Or working briefly with one of the guards holding her prisoner to tech genius and billionaire Simon Tycho.
But then the kindness disappeared again and she trashed Tycho's entire satellite, and nearly him as well.
In the second half of the collection, Supergirl battled four Krypton-spawned Worldkillers. Green and Johnson gave them a range of powers and physical appearances, and Asrar depicted the running battle, crossing multiple chapters, with great energy and excitement. Even with the confrontation ending in a draw, it felt like a victory for our heroine, who again found a tiny scrap of compassion for others and saved some innocent bystanders.
In all, this collection is a mixed bag. Kara's constant, over-the-top reactions of rage and force are so unlike the girl depicted in the flashbacks. The re-imagined origin hews more closely to the classic than it at first seemed - the brave new direction not so different after all. And while Asrar's visuals have some very strong moments, such as the beautiful depictions of a range of emotions in Kara's face, other times they are filled with shortcuts and rough outlines of less-prominent figures.
The result is a disappointingly one-dimensional take on a classic heroine. 2 capes out of 5.
What I loved
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| Great range of emotions in her face |
Artist Mahmud Asrar packs so much emotion into Kara's eyes and lips, such a delight to look at!
In this high-conflict book, he is most often called upon to show anger, determination, fear. And he nails those standards, of course.
But he finds and exploits other opportunities as well. In this panel, for an early example, Kara Zor-El has arrived on Earth but faced with unrelenting strangeness of her environment, she can only conclude it is a vivid dream. Asrar endows her face with a sly, wistful and affectionate look.
What I didn't love
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| Reacting with violence does not fit the scared, confused girl of the rest of the narrative |
When she emerged from her crashed space craft, a roughly 16 year old Kara Zor-El was understandably frightened and confused. And when her first contact with humanity was an encounter with mechanized warriors bent on control and violence, she responded in kind.
But she responds with anger and physical force to, well, everything, long after that first encounter.
It makes for a high-energy, conflict-filled thrill-ride. But it is also completely out of step from everything the flashbacks and other back-story elements tell us about who she is.
The constant anger, the quick and willing resorting to physical violence don't fit. Can this sweet, intelligent, science-minded youth really turn into a rage-machine so easily?
Related Reviews
Supergirl Silver Age volume 2, stories from 1962-63
Daring New Adventures of Supergirl (volume 1) from the early 1980s
Supergirl by Peter David (Book 1) from the mid-1990s
Ghosts of Krypton from Supergirl's 2005 ongoing series
Quick Reference Details
Writers: Michael Green, Mike Johnson
Artists: Mahmud Asrar
Published By: DC Comics
Published When: Oct. 23, 2012
Parental Rating: Teen
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| Back cover of Supergirl volume 1 Last Daughter of Krypton TPB |
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