Superman #25 came out this week and it was appropriate that it came out during Thanksgiving week. Because I am loudly giving thanks that this storyline is over and that (hopefully) we will never see the character H'El again.
This is the finale of Krypton Returns and, like prior issues, there is plenty here that makes little sense. Between multiple timelines, unclear actions, rapid scene endings, and an incomprehensible climax, there is a lot here not to like. Many of these concerns require the 'roll with it' panacea that Scott Lobdell has asked of readers in the past. If you don't understand it, just move on. And frankly, I deserve a little more than that.
The sad thing is there are actually several nice character moments in this issue but they are lost amidst the story problems. Like in H'El on Earth, Superboy has the best moments of the story with solid characterization that I only wish we saw in Kon's own book. Superman has one classic moment in the story but otherwise is stuck in some rough scenes. Supergirl's moments in this book are something of a mixed bag of good and bad. Some of them are actually very interesting and I might have thought we would finally have some character growth from her. But these better moments seem strange now knowing that in a couple of months she'll be donning a Red Lantern ring.
Kenneth Rocafort is on art and continues to produce beautiful work. From the more horrific moments to the more straightforward action sequences, he really shines.
The issue starts with an almost introduction page, showing the three super-heroes and where they are in Krypton's history. But it is the way that Lobdell introduces the heroes that makes me cringe. You can almost see Lobdell's pecking order of the Supers on this page.
At the top is Superboy, "his mind and body will be without limit". Pretty impressive.
Then Superman, "his actions can change the course of history". Wow.
And then Supergirl, wielding a spear before a rabid army. "A rage grows in her that could CONSUME worlds." Okay ... not so heroic.
I suppose it fits with the Red Lantern future ... but really. Supergirl has that much rage in her? I don't want to beat a dead horse but this is the problem with DC's current treatment of Kara. She isn't a hero. She's an angry young woman.
Now there is a lot in this story that you just have to take with a grain of salt. There are things that happen, there are lines of dialogue said, that make little sense. Here Superboy intuits that H'El must be weakening because he is fighting Supergirl in another time. Lucky guess?
Then H'El says this ... which makes no sense. He wants to save Krypton so that he can destroy Krypton? Why go through all this bother when the planet is doomed all on its own?
Suddenly I have no clear idea of what the hell H'El is doing in this storyline. Initially he wanted to save Krypton because he admired Jor-El. Now he hates Krypton. Why not just go out into the universe? Or take your revenge out on the few survivors?
In fact there are a lot of things about H'El that make little sense. The scars, the self-carved backwards 'S', his motives.
Of course, he simply disappears here. Given the timeline concerns, I suppose this happened because at some other point in time he is defeated (as we shall see).
And then the next part of the story that makes little sense. We know from Action Comics Annual #2 that in some alternate timeline, H'El ... working with Jor-El ... saves Krypton. Jor-El was part of that solution!
Now Superman meets an older Jor-El, the version that has survived in that timeline. Except now, Jor-El still rockets Kal to Earth (I suppose that needs to have happened for Superman to exist right now - time travel woes). Instead of being a friend of H'El and a hero for saving Krypton, he is imprisoned and called 'The Doomsday Man'.
H'El ends up taking over Krypton as its leader. (But I thought in the last scene he wanted to destroy Krypton?) Anyways, Jor-El in that new timeline escapes, finds a scrap of H'El's skin and learns its secrets, and then ... best of all ... somehow creates a time machine to get back to this moment.
All right, let's say that I can 'roll with' Jor-El being imprisoned to begin with. Let's say that I can even deal with him building a time machine. Why would he choose to go back to this moment in time?? Why not go back to when H'El puts his cell on the rocket? Why not go back to the point when H'El first appears with the Kryptonite in his chest? Is this the 'best' time to thwart H'El? He could stop H'El from ever happening. Why come to the time when he is most powerful? More time travel woes which leads to story woes.
Meanwhile, hundreds of years in the past, Supergirl stands with a spear poised to kill H'El. She actually questions herself if she can go through with the execution.
Should I be happy that she has to question herself? Or sad? Why does Lobdell write her as such an angry, irrational woman?
Ready for more story moments that make no sense? H'El grabs the spear and stabs himself in the neck. He then disappears. Why does he do that? If he can move through time, why slice his own throat? It doesn't even make for a good story moment. There is no reason he should do that.
I did say above that there are some good Supergirl moments mixed in with the bad. Here is one of them.
Kara feels bad because H'El was solely motivated by hate. She says she needs to be better than that.
I am sad that we are 2+ years into the New 52 and Supergirl is still wondering if she should be fueled by hate. But at least here she seems poised to finally move beyond it!
That said, in 3 months she is putting on a Red Lantern ring.
Also, I still don't exactly know why this moment in time was so key for the Oracle. Maybe Lobdell was hoping to have Supergirl deal with her feelings about clones. But without a clear need, this felt a little forced.
In the Superman timeline, Superman and Jor-El travel to the 'diseased heart of Krypton'.
Now part of me might want to question why Supergirl lost her powers within minutes of being on Krypton while Superman can fly to the molten core of the planet without a problem. He uses superstrength, heat vision, all his powers, as though he was on Earth bathing in yellow sun rays, not a red sunned heavy gravity world. And didn't he have radiation poisoning 2 issues ago? But I guess I have to roll with all that too.
Anyways, Jor-El knows that in all the timelines, H'El always manifests here. Wearing a special suit, Jor-El captures in H'El in a force bubble that he floods with a disintegrating gas.
Amazingly, Superman stops this execution of H'El saying that there is 'always another way' besides murder. If I praised this line in Smallville, I suppose I have to applaud it here.
Still, the short time of the gas has done some damage. H'El looks ravaged, like a decaying corpse.
And now the best moment in the book.
Superboy realizes that Zor-El's gravitational devices won't be enough to get Argo City safely out of the Krypton's blast radius and gravitational pull. On the last day, he tells Alura to find Kara and say goodbye (fulfilling the scene we saw in Supergirl #0). And then he uses the last of his powers to push Argo and Kara's rocket out of harm's way.
He gives a nice speech, summing up his troubled and varied history up to that point. But in the end he knows he isn't a living weapon (his tag line) but instead he is 'a kid who tried'.
Why couldn't this sentiment, this characterization, have been present in Superboy's own book? I won't go over Superboy's varied manifestations in the New 52 again. But this kid trying to make a difference while dealing with his past would have been a book I would want to read.
This is a very nice moment portrayed with big art.
So who does it all end?
The old Jor-El has a shard of debris in his chest, I assume a killing blow given enough time.
I wish I could tell you. Superman realizes that he has to stop H'El from leaving and making another timeline, so he uses his super-breath, freezing the 'essence of H'El into a perpetual loop of freezing and thawing', trapping him.
If anyone can explain that to me, I'd love to hear it. I guess I have to roll with it. But this is the problem when you create a villain with ill-defined near omnipotent powers. You have to come up with something insane to defeat them.
The death of Krypton is months away. An older, wiser, but dying Jor-El is in the planet core. A younger Jor-El is on the surface building a rocket. Hmmm ...
Anyways, with H'El trapped, it is time for Superman to go. Kara suddenly appears with the boom tube. The two step in and hit the road.
We don't even see a goodbye from Superman to his dying old father in the core of the planet. Nothing. Just a walk through the boom tube. It is over far too fast, far too neatly, and with little explanation.
And no goodbye to Jor-El? Seems like a wasted opportunity.
At least the story ends on this nice moment. Realizing Superboy has died, Superman says they should honor his loss by being better heroes.
I might think between the moments of self-reflection and this capstone that Supergirl might actually turn around.
Except we know that in 3 months she puts on a Red Lantern ring.
What can I say, there are some nice moments in this issue but with a lot of fluff and craziness around it. I might be damning with faint praise but at least this was better than H'El on Earth. Still, I will be thrilled if we never see H'El again.
Alas, Lobdell puts in an odd last page leaving the door open for another story.
And so, mercifully, Krypton Returns ends. I don't know if I could explain what happened but it happened.
My condolences to Superboy fans.
Overall grade: C
23 comments:
It occurred to me in this issue that the contrast between Argo-Kara and her Supergirl self are so marked and significant it is surely an indicator that Supergirl hasn't necessarily been suffering from editorial mandate but Post trauma from her abrupt awakening back in issue #1.
She has abruptly woken up on an alien world, some stranger says he's her cousin Kal-el all grown up, Krypton and her world is dead, Argo City is dead, cousin Kal is only passingly concerned with her, and to top it all off she has met only one person she can actually say she trusts - Siobhan. When you look at her in those terms her erratic and volatile behaviour makes perfect sense, this is a sixteen year old who needs some help, stability. Superman should be the one giving it, but because Kara is now so paranoid(?) of everyone around her that help is going to have a very hard time reaching her....
I liked you review, and I can't disagree with most of your points, though it was made a fact that the armour was acting to preserve his store of solar energy, hence he was faring better than Kara.
The issue was a rich mix of good and bad - what did seal it for me though was the lack of much introspection or emotion from Superman to being on his long gone homeworld and meeting his long missed parentage. There was so much scope for exploring all of this, and yet the direction never rises above the straightforward action/adventure genre. Everything rotates around H'el, I am surmising that he is indeed derived from a sample of Jor-els own blood, but this is never made explicit, neither as you say is his exact motivation make all that clear, but then this is a Frankenstein monster. He is an artificial lifeform with no true experiences of his own, and being soulless I can accept that his motives and logic is never going to make much sense to anyone outside of himself.
For his part Superboy gets sgreat send-off, a shame that there is so little reaction from Superman and Kara to his (ambiguous) fate but then as I say this lack of emotional content has been the single greatest failing of this storyline.
The symmetry and contrasts between Superboy and H'el are certainly ironic, but Lobdell has made so little effort in highlighting the parallels between the two I would almost think it was coincidence rather than design - If this plot had been made more of a struggle between questions of Identity and self determination it could have been very memorable and tell us something about Superboy's true self, but instead it is left up to the reader to fill in the detail and drw their own conclusions. H'el is Superboy's mirror image, his moral challenge as much as Jor-els, and yet strangely this isn't really a story about them... a shame. And a wasted opportunity. One among many however.
I do wonder if the original intent for this storyline was to make some kind of epic, but it was never going to be one given both this short length and the man in overall control of it. In an ideal world, H'el on Earth should have been a much simpler and much shorter story and could have been done in 4 issues or so, and this is the one that should have been longer. They were even seeding bits of this plot in the zero issues, they must have wanted that to mean something! But what it's ended up being is just a fast, messy way of tying up those loose ends from the zeroes and H'el on Earth quickly and prepping the Superboy and Supergirl books for their mid-season retooling they're both about to get. It's hard to take much away from it given that and I just want to get to Supergirl #26 so we can move on.
Kara's dialogue to H'el in this issue, weird as it is, is a pretty clear one-dialogue box indication of what the central dilemma of H'el on Earth should have been and in the hands of a better editorial team and writers that could have been a much stronger story for her. Moral and personal dilemmas make for pretty good drama, after all and having Supergirl be the centre of gravity for that storyline would have made a lot of sense, giving her the denial-then-acceptance phase of her hero's journey much earlier. But no points for ramming the message in now Lobdell, it's too late, you blew it and the damage is done. Aside from Superboy's death and the Kara and Lara scenes in Superboy 25 (which actually did serve as a bit of world-building, character development and foreshadowing all at once) I'm probably not going to remember much of this at all a few months down the line.
And you're right. If Superboy had shown this much sense and been characterised like this much much sooner, his book might not have been such a chore for you to read and it wouldn't be in the danger zone right now. I'm honestly not even slightly interested in his replacement and I don't foresee that change making much of an impact on sales. Wolfman has even admitted that he's still implementing Lobdell's ideas on that book! I think it's doomed.
Oh well. Better Red than Dead.
Very nice review .There bunches of no sense but there a moments that I really liked in the entire story (Superman and Kara hugging, Kara been inteligent, changing her perpective about the clones, thinking about her rage). At least the story didnt went bad for supergirl how in "H'El on Earth" I m just glad its finished.
As for the rage thing (redlantern) I think we should give it a chance because we realy dont know what will happen to her beside for the obvious. Maybe it will be an arc for supergirl to fight her rage once and for all and then in the end the rage will be no concern for her , just a thinking. Or maybe will happen something more interesting ; I say, we have to give it a chance until it happen. And if the next month we know that in March ,supergirl will be evil I will join to the hate club for that desition.
Nice review again!!
You know, if I pretend that H'El is Silver Age Bizarro who somehow absorbed the energies of a
Guardian of the Universe, got Time Trapper powers, and wanted to turn Krypton into Bizarro
World and her people into Bizarro clones only to destroy it all because it's a too perfect
Bizarro world, this story would make a whole lot of sense to me. Weird.
Although I liked Superman punching H'El in his stupid face, it reminded me too much of how
Superman defeated that Superman nanite duplicate by smashing it into pieces.
You know, in the Superman comic's first storyline in the New52? Ugh. Don't remind me.
I expected better reactions to Superboy's death from Superman and Supergirl.
Especially Supergirl's. Where's the horror? Where's the regret?
I was hoping this story would end up with everyone at a Thanksgiving Dinner, maybe at a diner,
to commemorate their little Superfamily team-up. Nope. Kon is dead. Kal and Kara are sad.
Krypto is NOT here begging for scraps. And the only turkey I see is H'El, out-cold, and put on ice.
Nice review sir. Not having read the previous parts, I didn't realise just how 'just go with it' this is. I quite like Dave's 'he's a Frankenstein monster, why would he make sense?', but when the writer has given us about three motivations he should probably stick to one.
Thanks for the great comments!
Seems like lots of thoughts about this issue.
I must have missed the 'armor sparing the yellow sun rays' bit. Thanks for letting know.
Glad everyone agreed Superboy's death was a great scene. Too bad Kara no longer remembers his saving her. And I agree there wasn't much time for a reaction about his death, or about being back on Krypton and re-mourning it's passing.
At least it's over!
Anj,
Scott here again!
I salute your devotion to reading these issues and constructing these reviews. But I have to admit I'm not sure why you bother... it seems like such an unpleasant experience for you.
While there are a multitude of things I could point out to you where you once again spiral off into these kind of bizarre theories that you take pride in shooting down... I will settle on two.
1. The puzzling "radiation poisoning" that has you so befuddled was Lara referencing the fact that Superman's body is filled with yellow sun radiation -- which (considering there were no yellow suns anywhere near Krypton) would have been quite an odd revelation to her. One can argue whether Kal's body being infused with some 27 years worth of yellow sun might be read as "poisoning" but hopefully this will solve one of the many mysteries you've uncovered in this issue.
The second point...
2. It feels to me that you are so invested in pre-52 Supergirl that you are not giving 52 Supergirl her due.
That is, as another poster pointed out -- roughly six months ago (if that) Kara was a normal, happy, healthy teenager...
... who woke up to find her entire planet dead. (I'll repeat that again for effect: she woke up to find her entire planet dead.)
I'm not sure how many seventeen year old girls would respond to having everyone she knows, every family member, her entire planet's history and culture obliterated (to her) in the blink of an eye --
-- and not have some feelings of alienation and confusion and yes, even some rage at the unfairness of it all. (I know whenever I lose one person I love I often submit to the urge to rail against the Heavens... I can't even imagine what it would be like if I lost the entirety of planet Earth. Can you?)
Could I write Kara as a happy well-adjusted teenager whose entire planet has died and her only family is not a 27 year old version of the six month old cousin -- who has spent his entire life on this backwater planet -- who keeps a city of comatose Kandorians in his polar apartment? I guess I could... but why would I want to? Why would you want me to?
I love Kara -- I think she is an awesome creation. I love the notion of a young girl who -- unlike Clark who is only dimly aware of Krypton -- doesn't think of Earth as anything other than second place to the world that she would so desperately like to see again. Clark can love Earth all he wants... and maybe Kara will someday as well. But for now, can't she deal with her feelings they way they are and maybe not the way that you would like to her feel?
My final thought on this subject, I'll add in the following post (because I tend to exceed the limit)...
Nice one, Scott, for popping by to defend the stories. I see the point about why Kara would have some tough feelings to deal with - I'd sure like to know why Superman isn't trying to help in this area.
OK, so he's not actually imprisoned her in an orphanage, but he might be at least trying to spend some time with her.
And one way she could become a bit happier would be if DC writers actually gave her a break. Scott, maybe you could do an interview with Anj?
Drat! See? I wrote a long FINAL THOUGHT and then it got deleted. Sigh.
I will sum it up:
You are not the first reviewer to point out the "her rage may one day consume worlds" like (paraphrasing) as evidence that I somehow don't find Kara to be heroic -- or that I don't think she will some day be heroic...
... which could not be any farther than the truth.
Do I think she has a lot of unresolved issues (for reasons listed above) -- sure.
But think of it like fire. Yeah, fire can burn down a house and kill everyone inside. =( But fire can also cook food, purify water, heat a house in the winter.
Can the rage she is (justifiably) coping with now consume her? Possibly. But it could also fuel her to make sure (eventually) that no one ever suffers a similar loss like the one she's experienced.
In that way, she can use what happened in her past so some day become the greatest champion or Earth or other planets throughout the cosmos.
Why is it so important that we speed ahead -- rob her of her ability to deal with this stuff through experiences as they come rather than because you miss Happy Kara from the Pre-52?
To be clear, again, I adore Kara... and I see a lot of great things on her horizon.
Martin, I would be happy do to an interview with Anj!
Regarding Superman "helping her cope"... I hosted my 19 year old niece last summer during an internship, and as much as I love her to pieces, she was a holy terror. Not because she was evil (she certainly was not) but because teenagers have their own view of the world that often conflicts with reality. (LOL!) While it might be possible that Clark has some insight into talking reason with a teenaged girl (who used to babysit him when she was 17 years older than him but is now ten years younger!) I am not aware of those particular super powers! =)
p.s. I don't feel like I am defending anything -- I'm just having a dialogue!
Thank you Scott, for the dialogue ;) and feel free to pop by my own blog sometime. (It's best to visit in a non-He'l month, though ... )
Guys I would love for Scott to answer my questions someday,and even though you guys don't like how he is writing things, or his answers the writer of the book you the are discussing is giving you the time that I would love to have. Not because I think he is a genius or perfect, but because he is the mastermind behind everything Superboy in the new 52.
Now saying that I hate that he killed off kon,it pisses me off more than anything, atleast in comics, but he wrote his part pretty damn well in this issue.so he pisses me off for killing him,but he sends him to his death very well and I appreciate that.
I too agree that Superboy's death was very well written and I am so pissed that they even killed him off at all and I'm so anxious for the issue in which he returns. But as for Superman and Supergirl's reaction to it, I don't think that they actually took it as well as it seems. If you look at the last panel on the page in which they leave for Earth, it kind of looks like they're hugging each other. Maybe that scene was supposed to be more emotional than it looked. I'm just saying that that's how it looked to me.
Hello again Mr. Lobdell and thanks once more for stopping by and giving such great comments and insights. It is great for us fans to know that creators are out there and care enough about our opinion to weigh in.
Reading and reviewing comics is never unpleasant for me because I love the medium so much. And if you reread my review there was actually quite a lot about this issue (and the last) that I enjoyed. Most of those moments were character moments which really made these folks more well-rounded and three dimensional.
As for my wild theories, I don't often have this many (if you read my reviews of other titles). Sometimes I try to guess what a team is planning, or who a mystery villain is. But here, I felt at times we were shown Point A and then Point F and we needed to fill in the rest. I have been reading comics for 3 decades. I don't need it spelled out for me. But I need to know what's going on.
Given the size constraints of the comments, let me discuss the 2 issues you brought up in my next 2 comments.
The radiation poisoning issue-
In that scene, Lara appears and round kicks Kal to the ground with some force, cracking his armor and seemingly knocking the wind from him. When I see that, as a reader, it makes no sense for me that Kal should still have all his super-powers. If he does, she shouldn't be able to do that. He's invulnerable.
She then says 'You look ill'. Okay maybe that is because he just got slammed to the ground.
She then says 'You have radiation poisoning'. Now poisoning has a negative connotation. Not 'radiation exposure', not 'odd raditations' ... 'radiation poisoning'. These are her words.
The next time we see Superman is the following issue, on a rooftop. We don't see how that Lara scene ends, how they left it, what he says to her, whether or not she realizes it isn't poisoning. Why would she let the intruder go? How much time has passed between the last scene with Lara and this one.
I have to leap there and I have questions which, left to my own devices, might lead me astray.
So I made a bad leap.
As for Supergirl-
It is a common error for people who hear me talk about her to assume I want a Silver Age Kara, super-sweet and innocent, babysitting orphans and falling for bad guys. That simply isn't true.
Two of my favorite interpretations of her were Peter David's and Sterling Gates.
David's character was flawed, with a dark edge, who made mistakes. No one was pushed harder or treated harsher that that Linda. Her low point, inducing a heart attack in someone.
But as I said recently, there was always this undercurrent that she wanted to do good, was struggling to do what was right, was learning. She had hope.
Gates' character starts out the victim of a smear campaign, had just been an enemy of the US. In his run she sees her father die, has a rough relationship with her mother, sees her mother die, sees her planet redestroyed, punches any number of heroes, and even quits being Supergirl for a while. But always ... ALWAYS ... was this feeling that she knew what was right and was trying to get accomplish it. She was trying to be a hero, falling every so often, but always striving to be better.
I have rarely seen it in the New 52 Supergirl. The end of issue #6 for her, her defending Inoxia, even several moments in Krypton Returns! But those are never movement forward. The next moments are always 2 steps back to 'Hell on Wheels' or 'Holy Terror'.
I don't want Supergirl perfect. I love her because she is on the hero's journey. But it is the HERO's journey. I am still waiting for her to say 'I want to be a hero and I am going to get there.'
This issue you have her asking hard questions of herself, her rage, her hate. I loved that! A possible turning point! The first step of the journey!
But I know she dons a Red Lantern ring in a couple of months. One step forward to steps back.
I mean it ... I truly truly appreciate the dialogue. I can't thank you enough for coming. Thanks for all your thoughts! And I would love to take you up on your offer for an interview.
Scott again!
I will let you in on a little sausage making:
If it were up to me I would never ever have a hero reference them wanting to be a hero -- starting or ending a hero's journey. The very thought of it makes me ill.
Imagine if Star Wars opened up with Luke out in the desert plains of Tattoine pining that some day he wants to be a hero. (Ugh!)
Imagine if Jean ValJean was in prison praying to God that some day he could be a hero. (Eeew!)
Imagine if Steve Rogers enlisted in the army -- not because he wanted to serve his country but because he wanted to be a hero. (Blah!)
People who are on a hero's journey don't talk about becoming a hero, or taking the first steps towards being a hero, or sit down in an easy chair at the end of their hero's journey saying "Phew. That was some journey. I am so glad I wanted to learn to be a hero."
It just doesn't happen that way. Nor should it.
"But Scott -- in this very issue you have Superboy say something to the effect of 'now I can be the hero I was always meant to be!"
It doesn't happen very often, but sometimes I get rewritten by people who think they have a better idea or a better turn of phrase.
When that lettered page came back to me I sent an email asking that the line be stricken -- because 16 year old boys don't dream about being heroes.
And... I also complained about the rewrite on the page where Superboy dies. It was similarly rewritten to read "I'm not a living weapon. I'm a hero."
I asked that they change it to "I'm just a boy who tried."
So I got my way on one page, but not the other. Sigh.
But again, I would hope that no one ever has Kara referencing wanting to be a hero, start a journey, comment on her hero's journey, etc... but that's just me.
I don't think Anj meant it literally. That would indeed be incredibly corny.
Hey Scott what was the phrase you wanted instead of the "hero I was supposed to be" phrase?
And yeah I like this back and forth, keep it coming.
Anj,
Really quick and then I have to run out the door! (Not trying to be short).
Superman just saw him Mom -- and she held a knife to this throat and kicked him "in the head" as it were: I would venture to say that, yeah, Kal was looking a little pale. LOL!
And from your point of view -- yes, Superman's body is irradiated with incredible solar power that makes him the most powerful man on Earth...
... but from Lara's POV, you have this guy standing in front of her whose scan shows that his body is irradiated with yellow sun energy -- she doesn't know he can fly or that he's invincible or that he has x-ray vision. All she knows is that his body is reacting to some strange radiation inside him on a genetic level.
Oh, last thought: You mentioned something above about how Kon took a guess that Kara's fight is having a direct effect on H'El -- but he sees H'El bleeding from a wound that didn't come from him.
I love dialoguing but I don't want to get into a point to point analysis of every element of the story -- how much fun would that be? LOL
Okay, off to walk the dogs!
S!
Wow ... thanks for coming back! I have been at work so sorry for the late responses.
From your earlier post, I certainly didn't mean that there should be a scene where Kara says she wants to be a hero and wants to be on a journey. That would be bizarre. I meant it more as the literary pattern that Joseph Campbell discussed. And I did love the 'kid who tried line' very much.
From your last point, I suppose that Lara could feel that yellow sun energy is a poisoning. But I had the other parts of the scene (her beating him up, her saying he looked ill) and her using the word 'poisoning' that clearly added to my confusion.
As for Superboy's 'guessing' it was Supergirl, I know he saw a wound he didn't make. But it is the problem with time travel stories. How did he know it was Kara in another time (she was sent to quell a clone revolt not fight H'El) and not Superman (who was supposed to fight H'El at H'El's moment of victory) or even Kon himself in another time? I will admit that was a bit of a quibble.
And I agree, that dissecting each panel and point wouldn't be much fun.
Again, thanks so much for visiting and commenting!
So does this mean Argo City is still alive and out there or no? Just wondering.
I was hoping your review would explain some of the confusion I felt while reading his issue, but it sounds like everyone else was just as confused.
It just felt like a mess to me.
Interesting for Scott to return and provide more responses, but I feel that quite a few of his counter-arguments are setting up straw man versions of your points instead of addressing the real criticisms. The hero comment was an extreme example of this - you clearly didn't say what Scott interpreted you as having said.
Heroes don't say "I want to be a hero". What they say is "I just want to help people and make a difference." This is what Kara ISN'T saying, hence her being so far from her former heroic self.
Oh - and I totally called it. I TOLD you guys that people in DC were using experiences with teenage girl family members as the basis for Kara's angry new character! :P
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