Review: Action Comics #1071 Supergirl Back-Up

I have been away on vacation and so will try to catch up on reviews over the next couple of weeks.

Let's start right off with the Supergirl back-up story from last week's Action Comics #1071.

I struggled a little with the first part to this tale. From the lack of details to Supergirl's hypnotic mind-wipes of her friends, it was a bit of a riddle. Mariko Tamaki's story telling remains a bit dodgy. I hoped that things would pick up. 

But this second piece of the story just made me ask more questions. We still don't know much of the details about Supergirl's mission. In fact, she doesn't seem to know much about her mission either. That makes me question just what Superman knew about it before he sent her. If he knew nothing, it is a rough mission that he sending her out alone to do. If he does know more, then he is withholding information. That doesn't feel right either. 

But there are other questions about this story that stuck out to me. Things that happen, or don't happen, which make very little internal sense to me. The dreaded 'this happened to move the story along' thought creeped into my mind more than once. And in a short back-up story, that is never good. 

Skylar Patridge continues to be the star of this show. With a sort of rough pencil style that seems part Guy Davis and part Bilquis Evelyn, the art is quite captivating. The brief action in this chapter feels fast and violent. 

So far, however, this story hasn't grabbed me. On to the details.

You might recall the befuddling opening scene last book with Kara in some Thanagar military station. 

Supergirl enters an empty Thanagar space station court room and tells the judge that she is there to escort a prisoner to trial. The judge tells her that the trial is over. As both judge and jury she has found the prisoner guilty. 

So Superman's mission - to escort a prisoner to a court - is already wrong.

Supergirl is confused. I am too. 

She doesn't seem to know who the prisoner is, what they did, or how they were convicted. Why should she listen to this judge.

Okay, here is the problem. We have already seen that Supergirl's hypnovision is fast. We also have seen it work on Earthborn and Kryptonian (Power Girl). So why not just use it here to gather info. Heck, she could make the judge forget that she even asked the questions.

The problem of setting up an ability as powerful as super-suggestion is that there should be no reason not to use it.

Kara questions why the information isn't being shared. I am wondering too, especially when she has the power now to extract that info. And don't say she wouldn't do that ... she has done it to friends and family already!

Instead, we hear the vague detail that the fate of the universe hangs in the completion of this task.

Do we have any guesses on who the prisoner might be, if it is anyone we know. It can't be a small timer like Byth ...

And armed with her new hypnovision, why not just use it on the prisoner to have them go docilely?

Suddenly an intruder alert goes off. 

The judge says there is no military on this station as it is a courtroom not a military base. This is one of those plot points that seems to be there just to up the stakes. This is a facility with prisoners who seem powerful enough to destroy the universe. Are there no guards? Who escorts the prisoner to and from the courtroom? 

It looks like it is only Supergirl and this judge on the whole satellite. Does that make any sense? Especially for a culture like the Thanagarians?

The intruder arrives, a giant spider like being who is there to kill whoever the prisoner is. And this being will kill anyone who stops it from killing the prisoner.

Hmmm ... this thing has 8 eyes. Given this threat of violence, why not use her new hypno-powers on this thing?

See how adding incredible hypno-suggestion powers to Supergirl makes story-telling harder? Why not use it all the time, especially in times of danger? 

Instead Supergirl tries to fight it. And doesn't do to well.

This spider assassin clubs and stabs the judge and bolts off, essentially disappearing. 

So while we have learned that prisoner has a universe-threatening power level, we really don't know much else. Who is it? What did they do? Where are they going? 

And if Supergirl is in the dark, why not use her suggestion powers to learn all she can, subduing any enemy in the process.

I don't like the hypno-vision to begin with. But once added to the armamentarium and having seen her use it so easily, the writer has to tell or show us why Supergirl wouldn't use it. 

Two chapters in. Lots of question. Lots of plot contrivances. The art as of now seems wasted here.

Overall grade: C-