Review: Supergirl #41

Supergirl #41, released this week, was labeled the finale to the 'Who is Superwoman?' arc but in some ways it didn't feel like an ending. After last month's Lucy Lane reveal I was hoping that this issue would answer the myriad of questions that I had. What was Lucy's motivations? How did she get her powers? Why go through all this deception?

Some questions were left unanswered; some answers were hinted at. Now I don't need to be spoon-fed my comic stories. Heck, I read Grant Morrison and sort of liked Final Crisis. Still, when an arc is built around a mystery, I think readers deserve the answers.

Now next month's issue is listed as 'Questions and Answers, Epilogues and Homecomings' so maybe more information is going to be revealed there. Maybe this was the 'action' issue and next month is the 'exposition'.

Still ... I really was hoping for more information here. I went into this issue with some expectations that weren't met. Maybe I am just a month early.



As we saw in the Newsarama preview, General Lane had a front row seat for the battle between Supergirl and Superwoman.



And Supergirl asked the question that I have been asking since last issue's big reveal. 'Why?'

'Why' would Lucy put on an S-shield and do the things all the things she has done?

When I reviewed the clues after the Lucy reveal, I wondered if one of her motivations might be besmirching the S-shield and the House of El. I also think that Lucy is trying to earn the love of General Lane and Sam Lane hates Superman. So Lucy acting as Superwoman and doing evil would accomplish both goals.

Here she hints that I might be right. She tells Kara that the Superwoman charade really had little to do with Supergirl specifically but more about the House of El in general. She points to the S-shield and says 'it's about this'.

But it is a hint of motivation ... not a straight forward answer. And even Supergirl recognizes that. She tells Lucy that isn't an answer. Lucy responds that all mysteries aren't easily solved. In a metatextual way, it felt like Supergirl was acting the part of the reader and Superwoman was acting the part of Sterling Gates in a Q&A session. We as readers want cut-and-dried answers and they aren't coming yet.

One thing that is also revealed is that somehow Lucy's DNA now appears to be Kryptonian. So at least part of how she has her powers is known. By being organically derived we have an explanation for her heat vision and strength. Of course, this seems to contradict her immunity to Gold K. Of course, when I thought Superwoman was a Kara clone I explained it away with the suit.

Lucy does reveal that she still wants to be flying under the radar. The discovery of her killing Agent Liberty forced her hand a bit. So she flew to Metropolis to destroy the evidence, kill Henderson and then kill Supergirl, in essence implicating Kara for the Liberty murder. Sure sounds like she wants to tarnish the El family's reputation.

One thing that was good about this issue was that we actually got to see Supergirl cut loose. Superwoman had a hand in Zor-El's death, has deceived Supergirl with friendship, and has murdered Agent Liberty and possibly Inspector Henderson. Superwoman is evil and so deserves to be beaten to a pulp.

In fact, Supergirl is soooo mad she calls Superwoman a murderous 'babootch' a monkey-like animal from Krypton. Hee hee ... I love obscure Silver Age Superman references.

Supergirl actually gets the upper hand smashing Superwoman through the walls of the Police Station and temporarily incapacitating Lucy.

Again, we see Supergirl asking all the questions that I want answered. Why was Lucy on New Krypton? How did she get there? At least Sterling Gates understands what the readers want to know.

In the meantime, Lana has recovered from her nosebleed/fainting spell enough to be released from the Emergency Room with the plan for outpatient testing.

I don't know if I like that look from Cat Grant. I think she is intrigued enough about the night's events to start digging into Lana's life. Can some investigation into Linda Lang be far behind?

Before Supergirl can figure out exactly what to do with Superwoman, Reactron rejoins the fight. There is a great and humorous moment earlier where a couple of kids on the street mistake him for the Atomic Skull.

Reactron wades into the precinct, quickly depowers Supergirl with his Gold K, and slaughters a few police officers. One thing that was slick in this fight sequence was Kara actually counting down the fifteen seconds until her powers kick back in. As we read her mentally counting down the time, it added a nice layer of suspense to the scene. We are counting along, hoping the villains are stalled enough for Supergirl to get back into the fray.

Luckily ... amazingly, Inspector Henderson is able to recover from his heat vision chest wounds. (As a doc myself, I wonder how that's possible ... but anyways.) Noting wryly that lead stops Kryptonite, he shoots Reactron in the eye. I always knew that skull mask didn't provide enough protection. Despite his powers, Reactron is just a guy. A bullet to the eye should stop him if not outright kill him.

This was my favorite moment in the book.

When the fifteen seconds finally elapse, Supergirl says 'time's up' and makes a fist. There is such determination and anger and power in that panel. Wonderful.

When Reactron was shot, he accidentally destroyed one of the yellow disks on Superwoman's costume which caused a feedback of some sort. Lucy screams in pain and is out of commission for a short period of time allowing Kara to recover.

Figuring the disks are some crucial part of Lucy's power grid, Supergirl starts ripping them off and crushing them.

As Kara destroys them, Superwoman begs her to stop. Lucy tells Kara it isn't the disks at all. I suppose if she has some quasi-Kryptonian DNA than it isn't the disks. But when they are destroyed it does seem to hurt Lucy. Even the Project 7734 folks watching the fight note that Superwoman's 'containment field' is in severe flux.

After destroying all the disks and pummeling Superwoman, Supergirl rips the S-shield off Lucy's uniform stating she doesn't deserve to wear it. It is another great moment ... one of pride in her family. I can't believe that 2 years ago Supergirl hated her insane father and was trying to kill Kal. Unfortunately destroying the suit seems to have a greater effect on Lucy than smashing the disks did. Lucy's body becomes suddenly unstable contorting and expanding until she literally explodes. Pretty disgusting. It reminded me of Tetsuo at the end of Akira. Her body simply couldn't contain the power.

At least we know why Lucy was glad Reactron didn't compromise the suit in issue #39. Brrrrrr. One guess is that somehow General Lane was able to splice Kryptonian DNA into his daughter giving her powers. However, this amalgam proved too unstable and so needed to be fortified by a containment field. The same field may have shielded her from any Kryptonite exposure. Or her hybrid genome may have made her immune to K-radiation. The suit and disks somehow provided that protection. But this is educated conjecture rather than revealed truth.

But here is my latest guess and it's one I like.

I wondered about the purple color of the energy swirling around Superwoman and if that has some significance. Could it be Phantom Zone energy? Could Lucy be somehow possessed by either a Phantom Zone criminal or even one of the Phantom Zone phantoms from Joe Kelly's run? That would explain a lot. It would explain the grudge against the House of El, how Kryptonians are 'her people', why her DNA looks Kryptonian, how she had a place to go to on Kandor, and even partly explain the powers. That would explain why Sam Lane said 'I know who you are' to Superwoman/Lucy ... he knows who is possessing her. That might even explain why the suit needed to protect her ... it kept her in our dimension. Without it, she popped back into the phantom zone. Supergirl didn't kill 'Lucy', she put her back into the Zone.

This was my second favorite moment of the book. General Lane actually shows some emotion, some grief over the death of his daughter. It is the first crack in his armor that I have seen since he was re-introduced in New Krypton.

The issue ends with a somewhat battered Supergirl wondering if she killed Lois' sister.

So this is a tough issue to grade.

The truth is that there was a lot to like. It was great to see Supergirl show some resilience and finally throw down ... show how powerful she is. It was great to see her thrash Superwoman. There were some powerful individual moments. And we learned some things about the hows and whys of Superwoman.

I thought Fernando Dagnino did a fine job standing in for Jamal Igle. In particular, I think the fight sequences were done very well. His stuff here seemed to be more polished than the recently released Codename:Patriot covers, maybe due to Raul Fernandez inks. (That said, I am looking forward to Igle returning).

But my expectations might have been set too high. I was really hoping for more information about the Lucy reveal. The whole mystery of 'Who is Superwoman?' is somehow lessened since I still have no understanding of Superwoman's origins and motivations, of the small details like her time on New Krypton or why she would befriend Kara. Now all of this might be revealed in next month's epilogue. and maybe I am jumping the gun a bit. But without getting that information when expected, I felt just a little let down here.

Overall grade: B