Review: Supergirl Woman Of Tomorrow #7

Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow #7 came out this week, the penultimate issue in this mini-series. 

I don't think this is a good Supergirl story.

 And while the laudatory reviews and awards keep heading towards writer Tom King, I'll be the madman, living in the wild, surviving on honey and grasshoppers, and trying to tell you my truth. 

This isn't a good Supergirl story.

The issue revolves around two events happening simultaneously. One is Supergirl trying to fend off Krem's brigand army in space, hoping to hold off the varlots from rescuing him. The other is Ruthye left alone with Krem on a planet, trying to fight her urges to kill Krem. Neither seems to go exactly as planned.

King tries to build up the heroics of Supergirl here. At one point he says she lived a life of kindness. In another place he says that Supergirl 'doesn't hate anyone'. We learn this space pirate fight is one which has become legendary in song and poem, even having the planet renamed in Kara's honor. And all of that seems fine.

But if you take a step back, you realize this is King once again 'telling us', not showing us. Yes, we saw her kindness in issue #4 when she nursed aliens back to health. But where was her kindness when she watched someone get stoned to death? Where was her kindness when she let Ruthye witness that stoning? Where was her kindness when she stomped on the arms of the foe she had defeated already in issue #2? You can't tell me she lives a life of kindness and show me the opposite.

King has Supergirl say that as Supergirl she doesn't hate anyone but he follows that up with some text that makes it clear she is lying. 

And he doesn't exactly do her any favors in the story. Usually the hero of the book defeats the villaind. In this issue, he has her lose to a ship of space pirates. You would think, given her powers she would just disable their engine or cut down their mast and have them drift until the law shows up. But instead he has her engage in hand-to-hand and lose. Once more she has very little dialogue in her own book. The only lines she has are at the end of the book when she has been defeated, her lines trying to keep Comet from coming and rescuing her.

On the planet, Supergirl has left Comet with Ruthye so the young girl won't kill Krem. But Supergirl leave Ruthye with weapons at her disposal. And Krem is simply tied to a tree. If you are worried about Ruthye's bloodlust, why not take the weapons away? Super-speed build a prison cell to keep Krem and Ruthye apart? Put him in a well ventilated cave and collapse the entrance? Is Krem being tied up even safe enough to insure Ruthye is going to be okay?

I read this book hoping that maybe we would finally get Supergirl as a hero in her own mini-series. Instead she barely talks, wades in like the Hulk without thinking, and loses. There are plot points that make little sense that seem to be done to move the story in a certain direction.. You can't tell me this is a good story for her. 

What's worse, I think there is almost no place to go with this take on Supergirl afterwards. Who wants to read a monthly adventure book about the extremely depressed, PTSD victim who is simply going through the motions of life?

As always, a saving grace to the mini-series is the art. Bilquis Evely and Mateus Lopes continue to stun me with their beautiful art. It is a gorgeous book to look at.

On to some specifics. 

The Supergirl parts of the story are told in the standard 'True Grit' flashback style of the book. 

We are now 7 issues into Ruthye's overly verbose, stilted prose style. I wonder how many of you out there are like me and are tempted to sometimes skim or even skip her wordiness.

I did like this two page splash showing the size difference between our hero and the Bonnie Prince Charlie pirate ship. But again, I have to wonder why someone as smart as Kara would think she would need to defeat all the pirates to a man rather than simply disable a ship which look ripe for scuttling. 

Meanwhile, on the planet surface, Ruthye talks about how even though Krem hasn't given up the antidote for his poison, she just might kill him.

Comet saying 'neeigghh' is like 'nay'. He won't let Ruthye go through with it.

The battle begins with Supergirl being buffeted by cannon fire and other projectiles. 

Initially, Ruthye talks about how everyone will think the outcome of this fight is a foregone conclusion given Kara's power levels. Ruthye reminds us there are always new things to be discovered, bigger more powerful weapons. 

I will admit the 'no one has a monopoly on power' is a great line.

But you would think that once it is clear that she is in for a bigger fight than anticipated, Supergirl might change her tactic.

At one point, she is knocked unconscious and plummets through the atmosphere.

In a nice breath of fresh air, we hear a happy memory of Kara's early life. We hear how Zor-El would try to make her a snack on the griddle and would mess it up. How he would tell her not to tell Alura. 

We only saw the trauma of Kara's life. In fact, King has only given her life trauma. I was glad to get these couple of lines to show it hasn't all been ashes and death.

That memory seems to spur her awake. She can't die. She has to live to maintain these memories of hers.

After flying through the ship, demolishing it from the inside, she flies to the deck, fists clenched, to brawl.

This was my favorite panel in the book. You can really feel the impact of her landing here. 

On the planet, Krem is ungagged and begins a back and forth with Ruthye. 

We knew Krem wasn't a nice guy. I mean, he partakes in genocide for money.

But here we get a little back story. It seems like as a 'Kingsagent' he was something of a tax collector.

We learn that he killed Ruthye's father because the father didn't laugh at his joke. In fact the father took on an air of superiority to Krem. And that led to this murder.

Another brilliant panel by Evely and Lopes. The startled look says so much. The red palette works so well.

But killing someone because he didn't laugh at your witty banter? Crazy.

The battle is getting rougher on board. 

Supergirl is losing, being strung up in chains laced with Kryptonite.

Here is where we get the 'I'm Supergirl, I don't hate anyone.' Something Ruthye describes as a 'lie told well'.

Finally, we get some dialogue from our hero. Indeed, her lines appear only on pages 20 and 21 of this 22 page book.

Trussed up in K-chains and staring down the barrel of a gun armed with a Kryptonite bullet, Kara knows that Comet will be flying up to save her. That means Ruthye will be left alone with Krem.

We see Kara pleading, lines which could initially sound like her begging the pirates for mercy but which become clear as her telling Comet not to leave Ruthye alone with Krem.

I suppose it is noble that Kara wants to make sure Ruthye doesn't do anything the child will regret. But this is obviously suicidal. And I will say again that leaving Ruthye in the position to have access to killing Krem seems more like a plot device than common sense.

And so we get to the end. Comet streaks off to save our hero from the fight she just lost. The hero of the story loses the big fight.

We get one more issue of this. Remember, this started with us hearing Supergirl kills Krem. So we'll see. But given the way this has unraveled, I can't imagine this ending any other way.

This is not a Supergirl story.

This is certainly not a good Supergirl story. 

Overall grade: C