|
By Jason Bourgeois
This month's topic is one I wish I could have covered last month, but I was very late to the table with the issues in question. I wanted to follow up my Action Comics thoughts with the new direction on Supergirl, but I didn't have the first part of the current storyline in time to read and write up something, so I killed time with the Agents of Atlas. Not a bad way to kill time, if I do say so myself. I finally got the issue I needed, and sat down and read the entirety of the "Who is Superwoman?" storyline, aside from the epilogue which just came out, and even that's been read now. I've got a good, solid and complete storyline under my belt to dive into Supergirl with.
Simply put, this is the best that this version of the title has ever been.
Anyone who has been following the title knows that it has a long history - which is amazing for a title only three years old - of not exactly being stable. Creative teams have been used up faster than a Flash in the Anti-Monitor's base. All this has done is reduce Kara Zor-El to little more than a cipher in her own book. She's never had a stable, interesting personality since she was introduced back in Superman/Batman. Not to mention a rather ridiculous costume that has been the object of much mocking.
Granted, some people might argue that she's never had much of a personality beyond "Superman with breasts" or "Superman's cousin" and that's not entirely off base, but she grew over the years. It's always a challenge to take these distaff versions of characters and impart them with something that makes them unique, but still part of the original, part of the family.
The new writer on Supergirl, Sterling Gates, has gone to great lengths to give her something of a personality. Something more than the bland, directionless character that's been floating from storyline to storyline with no clue what she's doing. I wonder if the writers were injecting some of themselves into Kara with her clueless directionlessness.
He started with the base of "Superman's cousin" that is a natural starting point, and built up from there. Gates has very clearly cast her as a teen, struggling to find her place in the world. Something everyone has to go through as they grow up, and something that can only be infinitely more difficult for a person who is living in the shadow of the world's greatest superhero and Boy Scout. When that is the example, that would put an amazing amount of pressure and worry upon anyone's shoulders to try and live up to. At the very least, to not ruin the good name she's carrying around. It may not be the most original idea, or most brilliant insight, but it's not really been followed up on, and is a very good role to cast her in. It works with almost usual themes that kids go through and can identify, yet heightens them to appropriate comicbook levels.
Sterling has also worked on giving Kara a life on Earth, outside of her superheroine role. Something she has seriously been lacking for her entire run this time around. It makes her harder to relate to, and makes her nothing more than a Kryptonian, an alien. Giving her a normal life gives her that chance to just be a normal girl. Superman is only half a character if you take away Clark Kent.
The new artist on the book is Jamal Igle, someone I've sort of followed since first encountering him on New Warriors back around the turn of the century. He has a very clean, realistic style. His people feel real, but he can put them in amazing situations. You don't feel too much like you're looking at supermodels, although they do have the usual baseline of perfection and looks that are part of the superhero style. He's also very good at rendering clothes and outfits that look like clothes. Again, while still fitting well within what you expect to see in comics, without pushing things to that over the top level some artists do. They may wear skintight clothes, but they rarely look painted on.
Speaking of costumes, Igle has been subtly working at Supergirl's over the top costume, and over the course of a number of issues, has been changing it so slowly, that they've almost been imperceptable from issue to issue, but looking at it now, and in the beginning of his run, the changes become more clear. That's a good way to do it, to slowly tweak it and make the changes you want, without just diving right in and jarring the audience. He has lengthened the skirt, and actually made it a skirt, not a very wide belt of fabric, and added shorts underneath, in order to keep her better covered up while flying and fighting. And really, it makes sense, doesn't it, for a character who flies with a skirt, and is long overdue, I think. He's also made just the slightest little changes to how her top is drawn that don't amount to anything more than cosmetic changes, but overall they've made a better look for the character, and it looks a little less silly. While not a costuming choice in a recent number of issues, she's also been flying around with a backpack, which I just thought was a fun touch that helped make her feel youthful and real, needing to carry things around.
I missed out on the first batch of issues, since it was mostly involved in a crossover with the other Superman books, but I jumped in with the Superwoman storyline, because I've always been intrigued by that character, and wanted to see what this version was about, with the bonus goal of checking out the new direction.
Sterling played very fair with the mystery of this new character, slowly building up who she was, who she wasn't, and actually laying down clues that paid off fairly with whom she turned out to be. Most mysteries in comics tend to do the opposite and pull the reveal out of thin air, and might even ignore clues, as things can change from the time the story started being written, for various reasons. Reading the entire arc in one sitting, you can really see the skill with which he used in crafting the mystery. And no, I won't spoil it. There's still some details yet to be revealed, mostly with regards to her origins, but the story is more or less complete, but set up things for the next bunch of issues.
Supergirl has gone from a running gag of rotating creators and pointless stories, to one of DC's better, and more fun, books. It is a drastic change from the past, and I recommend it to any fan of the character, who may have been turned off from the past issues of this version. Those have almost nothing to do with this character. She's come a long way in a short period of time, with newfound stability in all kinds of ways, with the thanks of a very capable creative team, and I'm sticking with the book for some time. A great turnaround for a deserving character.
Jason M. Bourgeois
|
