Review: Brave and Bold 19

This week Brave and Bold #19, the second part of Marv Wolfman's Raven and Supergirl story, was released. As you may recall, this storyline seems a continuity throwback to the Joe Kelly style Supergirl, the brash opinionated young girl who does not want to be a super-hero and whose father is trying to convince her to kill Superman. Last issue she sought out Raven for help all while an unknown villain goes on a murderous spree on a college campus.


This issue starts in Kara's mind. She is on Azar meditating and is internally confronting her father. And so we start the issue with a foul-mouthed Kara flying through her father. Hopefully, as someone who does curse now and then, I am not being to much of a hypocrite here by saying I don't know if I want Supergirl to be a frequent curser. In fact, I think I could live with her not cursing at all.

Despite Supergirl flying through him, crushing him, and vaporizing him with heat vision, the Zor-El apparition reforms and continues his 'Kill Kal-El' rant.


Kara seems ready to continue this fruitless battle but is interrupted by Raven who feels they must head to Earth to stop the college rampage. Here we see an angry Kara stating she will do what she needs to do to keep Zor-El dead. Not the best sentiment, even if it is only a figment in her mind.

Also, for a storyline that seems to want to seriously delve into father issues, the above panel with the 'surprised Raven face' in a thought bubble seemed a bit too much like the Teen Titans cartoon.

Supergirl tells Raven she cannot leave because she needs to continue killing Zor-El. I think we get the point, Wolfman wants us to know that this Supergirl is willing to kill her father.


But Raven does not heed Supergirl and instead teleports them to the college to stop the villain of the piece. Supergirl does not like this and let's Raven know it by telling her that she could kill Raven many ways for kidnapping her. So rather than save people from a super-powered maniac, this Supergirl would rather kill an avatar of her father in her mind. In fact she wants to do it so much, she is angry to the point of threatening violence to another super-hero for interrupting. I guess Wolfman would call this 'Kara being edgy.'


And to hammer the point home we get to hear Kara again say she killed Zor-El three times. Now, I understand this was not actually killing someone and instead was more like trying to squelch a thought in her mind. But the word 'kill' is thrown around so nonchalantly by Kara here I just found it a bit unnerving.

Raven and Supergirl finally confront the man on the killing spree who is in some trance, hooked up to an experimental machine which will help him expand his mind and get in touch with his own father issues, a father we know had super-powers and may have been a villain.

Raven mind-links with him and discovers that the killer's father was Triumph, a super-hero turned villain in JLA history who may or may not be dead. In a bit of convoluted story-telling, Raven discovers that Triumph oscillates between this reality and other dimensions. Every time he manifests on our Earth, he takes a piece of his son's soul. I know ... I don't quite understand it either. Regardless, because of her mind-meld, Raven's soul becomes vulnerable to attack.


In a rare nice moment for Kara in this issue, she sees a vision of Trigon and sympathizes with what Raven has had to deal with all her life. She actually hugs Raven as a show of support and comfort!

But just when I think Wolfman might show some redeeming qualities in Supergirl, he has her almost defer from helping Raven defeat Triumph's son saying that 'do-gooders' will kill them all. At least he has Supergirl decide to join the fight after all.


But rather than listening to Raven, she attacks Triumph's son head-on, resulting in Raven and Kara being sucked into a quasi-reality the man has made. Kara states she didn't listen to Raven because she has a problem with authority. So she is a killer, a very reluctant hero, and now a rebel.

Within this Matrix-like environment (that's Keanu Matrix, not Linda Danvers' matrix), Supergirl and Raven succesfully face and defeat images of their fathers. They then realize they can make the super-villain face his own father in the same way.


When confronted with a vision of Triumph, the boy states he was only looking for love and answers. Triumph tells him that he is angry that his son has tainted his legacy by killing. That his son needs to give up his powers, and that he will love his son forever. The two disappear with an explosion and Raven and Supergirl are suddenly back on Earth.

As the heroes fly off, Raven tells Supergirl that she will not strip Zor-El from Kara's mind because she needs that pain to grow.

As readers of this blog know, I was never a fan of the ultra-edgy, self-absorbed, potential killer Kara that we saw in the Joe Kelly run. So I was never to keen on re-visiting that incarnation, especially after Kelley Puckett's run and the Gates/Igle issue. I am not asking for a cotton-candy 50's Kara. I understand that some edge, some conflict, some growth is necessary for Supergirl. This version just takes all of those to the extreme ... this is Supergirl written as Wolverine. Who wants that? Indeed, this issue reminded me of all the reasons why I did not really like that Kara.

She seems unfazed by killing, even if it is simply an image of her father. But it is her father; shouldn't that be difficult for her ... to symbolically kill a loved one?

She threatens Raven with physical harm. It did not come off like playful banter but more serious.

She does not want to do the 'super-hero thing' and only reluctantly joined in a fight against a super-powered murderer.

She has 'authority issues.'

Sigh. Hopefully with the current reboot by Sterling Gates and Jamal Igle, we will never need to re-visit this chapter in Supergirl's life, at least not in so extensive a way.

Phil Winslade's art is okay, with decent facial expressions and a sketchy style.

Overall grade: D

Review: Brave and Bold 17

Brave and Bold #17 was released last Wednesday, teaming up Supergirl with Raven. As clearly seen on the cover, the emphasis on the story is Kara's relationship with her father Zor-El. And, as seen by the outfit he is wearing and the maniacal look on his face, this is the 'kill Kal-El, crystal hell' mad Zor-El seen in the earlier issues of the Supergirl title. This version of Zor-El was quietly retconned away about a year ago in Kelley Puckett's first issues on the title. On top of that, the very day this Brave and Bold issue was released, an even newer, more Silver Age inspired origin for Supergirl was unveiled in Action Comics #869.

Now I treat Brave and Bold like I treat the Classified titles and the Confidential titles as being in quasi-continuity. By that I mean that I can pigeon-hole them somewhere into the chracter's timeline if it comfortably fits. If it makes no sense continuity-wise, I can simply ignore it.

Written by Marv Wolfman and drawn by Phil Winslade, this issue seems to be wedged into Supergirl's history somewhere around Supergirl #13.

I think this will be one of those polarizing Supergirl issues as to whether or not you enjoyed it as a reader. As readers of this blog know, I was absolutely not a fan of the anti-hero killer Kara as written by Joe Kelly. So when I saw the leering evil Zor-El on the cover I knew I probably was not going to like this issue. No big surprise, I didn't.

Now if you like the edgy troubled killer Supergirl, you might find merit in this issue. The truth is, if that origin is valid then a team-up with Raven actually makes sense. Both are young women struggling to be heroes, struggling to keep something evil reigned, struggling to break the mold that their individual fathers cast them in.

*sigh*

That is just not my Supergirl. Supergirl is not Raven.

Anyways, onto the story.

The book opens with Kara having a tumultuous dream where Zor-El keeps telling her that she must realize her destiny and kill Superman. Supergirl fights him throughout the dream and wakes in a cold sweat, realizing she needs some help from this relentless psychological torment.

Supergirl gets referred to Raven by Nightwing. She flies to Raven's high school and, while Raven is in her secret identity, grabs her and flies off. Not exactly a nice way for Kara to respect Raven's secret identity. I am sure Raven will have lots of questions to answer next time she goes to class.


Then, when Raven begins talking to Kara about her own origins, Kara smarmily replies "if I wanted your origin story, I'd pick up 'Who's who'. Just tell me you'll help me." Not the nicest way of asking for help. In fact, it is downright obnoxious.



And this panel encapsulates most of what I didn't like about the Kelly Supergirl (whose origin was probably an idea of Jeph Loeb's). I don't want to read a Supergirl who says 'I was taught to kill. Maybe that is all I am good for.'

I am not saying that chracters like this should not exist. But you shouldn't write Superman like Batman and vice versa. You shouldn't write Cyclops like Wolverine and vice versa. You shouldn't write Supergirl as a killer with confidence issues.

Nevertheless, there it is in print.

Raven tries to help Supergirl achieve some inner peace through meditation. Unfortunately that doesn't work. So Raven takes Supergirl to Azareth where she hopes her teachers and priests will be able to calm her through more meditation and some magic.

Dispersed throughout the interaction between Supergirl and Raven, we read snippets of a tormented young college student with variable powers (glowing hands which can change people's attitudes, fire beams, and kill people) breaking into a research facility. He also has father issues as his mother never told him who his father was and also warned him to not go looking for him.

This student finally kills some college security guard and reaches a level of evil that is palpable in Azareth. Impressive if somewhat contrived. Raven implores the priests there to awaken Supergirl so the two of them can deal with this threat, but the priests refuse. They say if they awaken Supergirl from her meditation/trance that she 'will never know peace.'

Sometimes I read comics and I simply don't know what to say. This issue was on the bottom of last week's pile because, after Kelley Puckett's decent job of rehabilitating Supergirl, I did not want to go back to the 'mad Zor-El days'. It did not help that I also read Kara's new origin in Action Comics, already called dogma by the new creative team, before I read this.

As I turned each page I kept saying to myself, this is not a Supergirl I want to read.

The truth is, since I knew this was a 'quasi-continuity' story, I might have liked it if Marv Wolfman did a better job of mining that similarity between the characters. There is a lot of potential with these two characters (assuming you have a 'mad Zor-El' origin) given Raven's past with Trigon. Instead, a lot of page space is devoted to this villain character and his issues, thus truncating any chance of some meaningful dialogue or interaction between the two stars.

And Supergirl pretty much acts like an insensitive ungrateful angry woman the whole issue. Wolfman writes a much more sympathetic and engaging Raven, no big surprise given he created her. But it just felt like this issue was designed to make Raven look better at Supergirl's expense ... much like the way Supergirl was written in the 'Terra' issue of her own title.

So what can I say, I bought this issue for Supergirl only to read a version of her I do not like in a story that is otherwise bland. Winslade's art is somewhat sketchy and is colored nicely with a soft palette.

Overall grade: D-

June 16 - Big News Day; Item 3 - September solicits Brave and Bold 17

Also solicited for September is The Brave and the Bold 17.

Written by Marv Wolfman

Art and cover by Phil Winslade

Supergirl and Raven team up to save San Francisco from a new super villain with deep roots in the DC Universe!

I think it is great to have another issue showcasing Kara to the DCU. I enjoyed the way she was handled by Mark Waid in earlier issues of this Brave and Bold run.

It should be cool to see how Marv Wolfman handles her, especially in an issue with a Wolfman creation, Raven.

But is that the crazy Zor-El on the cover!!!

Really!?

The crazy/evil Zor-EL??

ARRRGGGGHHH!

I cannot express how much I loathed the 'Mad Zor-El, kill Kal-El, crystal hell' storyline which was in the title until the Puckett issues. What an absolute worthless plot.

Allow me to briefly summarize the insanity. Zor-El thinks ghosts from the phantom zone are possessing Kryptonians and that his 'sun crystal' science is the only thing that can save those people and Krypton. He peforms experiments on Kara to infuse her with crystal powers. Zor-El learns that Krypton will explode and Jor-El plans to rocket baby Kal to Earth. Zor-El knows the ghosts will follow Kal and so to save Earth he plans to rocket Kara there as well with the plan to kill baby Kal and stop the spectral invasion.

Let's revisit some of the more cringe-worthy moments closely...

Here he is stating his plan to have Kara kill Kal-El (issue 5) ...

And then having his 16 year old daughter parade around him naked (also issue 5) ...

And discussing her classmates before he has her mow them down with a crystal flechette gun Colombine-style (issue 10) ...

And persuading her to kill her 'possessed' mother (issue 16) ...



But wait ... didn't Kelley Puckett ret-con that guy out of history? Remember when Supergirl saw images of her loving father just 6 issues ago!!!


And didn't Will Pfeifer corroborate that just this month?


Yeesh ... I thought that awful part of this version of Kara was behind her. That the current team was trying to rehabilitate her into a more heroic figure.

Hopefully this is just some mind game from Phobia or some other villain. Because if he comes back, I think I'll vomit.