Supergirl #50

As I'm particularly late with this review, there has already been a lot of discussion about this issue, mostly over at Supergirl Comic Box Commentary.  Anyway heres are my possibly jumbled thoughts on it.  Spoilers, obviously.

Firstly, I hate the regular cover:

I don't think much of Didio's taste if he had this hanging in his office.  She looks like a bloody pixie.  And there's that ridiculous supertorso as well.  I have liked some  of Turner's Supergirl stuff, I still have a soft spot for his first issues with her, but this cover, is horrible.

So you can imagine that I'm rather gutted I didn't see this beautiful thing:

 

That is beautiful.  Done by Josh Middleton, he's done a post about it here.

Onto the story.  Bullet points first, then some discussion:

• We are shown  that Lucy Lane is alive.  Interesting developments ahoy!
• General Lane is a prick.
• Who the hell is Gangbuster?  Should I know him? Should I care?  Having said that, I do like his inclusion as it helps flesh out the DCU, and he wasn't introduced in a manner that required prior knowledge of the character.
• I was rather confused as to why Kara was in a pod.  I thought I'd missed something.  Then it got explained.  I pretty much adore the idea of the Insect Queen.
• I'm glad we could see her shorts when she's in the pod.
• Minions of the Insect Queen!  I do like minions.  I mena, who doens't think giant insects are cool?  I even thought the giant Amazonian bees in Amazons Attack were cool.  The rest of that mini was terrible, but the giant bees were good.
• Some people didn't like the flashbacks in this book..I did.  I thought it worked well, and neatly recapped previous elements.
• I also like that Kara is obviously a science nerd.  More nerd heroes are needed.  Especially ones that are also girly.
• There's some great character moments for Kara in this issue.  All too often character moments are missed because writers seem to go for the easy dialogue, so when a few random things are slipped in, I think it's great.  That's what makes a good book.
• Finally, Kara fights with a newly human Lana, Kara flies off and Lucy Lane gets back in the Superwoman suit.

Now, about Kara fighting with Lana (when Lana is human again).  Kara saying she's leaving Lana's life was fine.  Her reasons, that Lana lied, didn't ring true.  Or maybe I didn't want them to ring true.  Because this means that Kara is really self centred.  No one is owed anything by anyone else.  Getting in a strop and deciding to leave because someone close to you has not chosen to tell you of their illness is selfish and smacks of entitlement.  I do not like this.


On the other hand, maybe we just haven't seen enough of the Kara/Lana (Klana?) relationship for this development to feel natural and a godo representation of their relationship.  Kara is adamant that Lana should tell her everything.  Why?  I've always read their relationship as a mother/daughter one, not a sister/sister one.  Because Lana is older and cos she took Kara in and clothed and housed her, comforted her when her real mother was being vile.  It's parental, not equal.  Then I see Kara complaining that Lana hasn't told her everything, well no, no mother does tell her daughter everything.  Why would they?

Lana's response to Kara rang true - putting a sulky child back in he rplace.  Explaining how friends and family support the Super folks (and by the way, how did no one on Supergirl Comic Box Commentary spot the Superman 2 movie reference?).

However, Kara's flying off - 'Maybe I don't want to be human' - that seemed more acceptabel to me than her previous actions.  She doesn't yet want to take the responsibility that wearing the S sheild entails.  She's trying, she's trying very hard, but she's not there yet.


Anyway, overall I liked this story.

Now for part 2.  Art by Cliff Chiang, story by Jake Blake and Helen Slater.
Generally I love Chiang's art.  His stuff for Green Arrow/Black Canary was wonderful, but I'm not sure he'd suit Supergirl full time.  Now for soem trivia:
The first show of Supergirl is modelled on the promo shots for Kara in Smallville.
The flying shot is modelled on Helen Slater's performance in the Supergirl movie.

This brings us neatly to Helen Slater.  I don't feel the story really showcased Slater's talents as a writer.  It wasn't a bad tale, but there was not a lot new in there and it basically recapped Supergirl's story since she got to earth.  I would have preferred to see a villain fight, or an everyday story or anything else.  Something with imagination.

I know Kara's story, I've been reading since issue 1.  I don't need a recap.  But maybe recaps are just what you do for 50th issues.  This interpretation added nothing new to the Supergirl mythos or history.  It was nice to see what other people thought of her, but tbh, we pretty much already knew those views anyway.

Ahh well, it wasn't badly done and it passed the time.