Supergirl #35 was released this week, the mid-point of the New Krypton storyline and the second issue by new creative team Sterling Gates and Jamal Igle.
I'll start out by saying that this issue was great. The team continued their 'soft reboot' of Kara explaining some of the more frustrating things about her characterization in the title so far. Despite concentrating on moving Kara's character forward, they also continued to move the New Krypton storyline forward as well. It is not easy to accomplish both. How many 'cross-over' issues in individual titles have little to do with the event they are supposedly connected to? Or worse, how many 'cross-over' issues in individual titles seem to force the event onto the character and do little for the character themselves? This issue did it right ... advancing both stories in a very natural organic way.
I thought I would also show the Stephane Roux variant cover of the issue. It's a nice image of a Supergirl in battle mode as seen reflected in a Brainiac drone's eye. Yes, this has nothing to do with the actual issue, but it is still nice.
This was a 1:10 variant and my comic store had 3 on the shelf. Simple math tells us that they therefore ordered 30 copies of the issue, a nice sign about anticipated sales.
The book opens with Sam Lane talking about how concerned he is about the Kryptonian presence on Earth.
But the scene shifts to Lana and Linda Lang's apartment where Alura makes her feelings known pretty clearly. Alura wants Kara to move to New Krypton for her safety. She reminds Kara that the city hates her, that Doomsday was most likely sent by the government, and that Kara belongs with her family.
I think it makes sense for Alura to feel this way. After all, she has been living decades in the bottle wondering what had happened to Kara. She risked everything to save Kara. She loves her ... of course she wants her back home. Now, breaking the glasses is a bit dramatic and might be a reminder of Alura's physicality. She did beat Doomsday to death after all.
I love how Supergirl almost wrote 'Kara's room' on a box but corrected herself and put Linda.
Surprisingly, Kara doesn't want to run back home with Mom and Dad. She has built a life for herself on Earth and wants to continue it.
I was worried how this was going to be portrayed. Why would it really make sense for Kara who has longed for Krypton, mourned her parents, and been shunned most of her life on Earth not run back to Kandor?
But then I remembered how she has lived on Earth for more then a year and has been on her own for the majority of it. She is now an independent young woman rather than a frightened adolescent. She has left the nest. Others on this blog have said she has 'gone native'.
Part of adolescence is finding your own way, making your own life. It would be hard to go back to a bedroom on Kandor and listen to what Mommy and Daddy had to say. Kara might want her parents to be a part of her life now, probably a big part. But "you can't go home again". She can't go back to being a little girl anymore. The dialogue here worked, explaining Kara's feelings in a believable way.
Alura storms off and Kara has a heart to heart with her father in which she divulges her jumbled memories (3 Zor-Els, 3 origin stories), her mood swings, and her crystal blood. Like any good physician, he makes the diagnosis from the history ... Kryptonite poisoning. K-poisoning can lead to personality changes, difficulty concentrating, hallucinations, even death.
So, do I like this as a catch-all for all the nonsense that has happened in this title?Does this explain 'kill Kal-El' Zor-El and ranger Zor-El and this Zor-El well enough? Does it explain the rave dancer versus the aggressive loner versus the 'saving Thomas' optimist?
The answer is I can deal with it. There is no easy way to explain all those differences. So it needed to be one big semi-palatable answer. And, I guess, this fits the bill. Kara was in that Kryptonite encrusted meteor around her ship for 3 decades. You would think if she was exposed to Kryptonite forthat long, she'd be dead.
That said, I have plenty of Silver Age issues where low-dose Kryptonite made Superman delusional and feverish, so that must be the way Gates is going. Add to that presumed partial shielding of her ship, it becomes plausible.
The truth is I would gladly accept any even semi-plausible story that would explain and eliminate the hateful Kara from the first 19 issues.
Now how Zor-El knows so much about Kryptonite poisoning given his time on Argo and in Kandor should have been Kryptonite free ... well I have no idea. But I can overlook that slight stumble (or if someone can explain it to me); this works out fine.
The world outside the Kryptonians keeps turning however.
One human taking advantage of it is Cat Grant who continues her merciless journalistic attack on Kara, here insinuating that Supergirl is leading a 'Kryptonian invasion'.
And Sam Lane isn't sitting pat either. He goes to area 7734 (get it ... it's hELL upside-down) and coaxes Reactron back into military action.
Knowing now that her jumbled memories and personality twitches are the result of K-poisoning, Kara gets put into a 'regenerative chamber' which will drain off the remaining radiation and cure her. Zor-El knows that the chamber might not be able to hold the energy drained from Kara, but still stays in the room with Alura to make sure Kara survives the process.
I show this panel for one reason.
That's right, there are bike shorts under the mini-skirt! I, for one, think it makes sense for Supergirl to wear them given all the flying she does. And, thankfully, it takes away the potential for the pandering and gratuitous panty shot we sometimes have been subjected to. It also eliminates the need for the skirt to defy physics and always stays down. I am completely okay with it.
But I know that when Renato Guedes added them to Kara's costume in his issues, the negative feedback about it was unprecedented and (I feel) unwarranted. Buckle up Mr. Igle ... my guess is the same folks might complain again.
The chamber works, draining Kara of the radiation. But as feared, the system overloads and a major bolt of K-energy hits Alura. More on my guesses behind this later.
With the Kryptonite drained away, Kara's memories of Argo City are restored.
She remembers how Zor-El reversed-engineered the force field from a Brainiac drone recovered from the Kandor site. She remembers her father trying to convince the Argo Science Council to consider evacuating Argo with space ships only to be refused (much like big brother Jor-El). And she remembers Brainiac's attack and being rocketed away to safety.This 'new origin' takes a lot of the Silver Age origin but updates it by including the Brainiac angle (both for the dome and destruction) and takes away the anti-Kryptonite and meteor angle.
Again, this all works here.
With her memory now intact, Kara now knows how much her parents love her ... enough to risk everything on Argo to save her, enough to risk everything right then to save her.
It leads to the tough question. She can't have both lives. She can't live as a Kryptonian and live as an Earthling as Linda Lang. She needs to decide which path her life will take.
She tells her family she needs some time.
But the K-poisoning is gone ... and with it all the terrible nonsense that I could not stand from the Kelly run!!! Hurray!
In some ways, Gates and Igle have a semi-clean slate onto which they can write their version of Kara. So far, so good.
The issue ends with our first glimpse at Superwoman. Here she is, in Kandor, watching the news while donning her outfit. While her hair looks brown here, she is in shadows so it could easily be blond.
She watches some footage of Kara and then hears the Kryptonian word for help.
And here is the first big shot of her.All right, so everyone has been trying to figure out who this Superwoman could be. Some think she's Thara Ak-var.My initial thought is that she is an update of Lesla Lar, maybe as a Kandor or Argo orphan taken in by the Els to fill Kara's void.
Then I thought it might be a Kara clone. Maybe Zor-El so missed his daughter while in the bottle, he cloned her.
But now I wonder if it isn't Alura. I have heard people on other boards and even on this blog (I think Mauricio) guess this. She has been very vocal in her desire to have Supergirl move back home to Kandor. Maybe a way to do that is to 'replace' her thus severing Kara's ties to Earth. And now we know she has been shot full of K-poisoning (getting back to the above panel) which can make you act oddly, taking on new personalities. Maybe the Superwoman personality is Alura's subconscious way of bringing Kara back into the fold.
Maybe it's time for another blog poll? Who is Superwoman?
Anyways, there was a lot to get through here. The big thing is we have a solid origin now, one devoid of crystal powers, Phantom Zone entities, and murderous tendencies. And it was explained in a neat plausible manner and in one fell swoop.
I have to say, it has been a while since I have been truly excited about this title. But I am now. The plot was great and the dialogue was spot on. The art continues to be amazing. Great job by the creative team!
Overall grade: A
