A newsie outfit can be pretty flattering…
Creative Staff:
Story: Marguerite Bennett
Art: Laura Braga
Colors: J. Nanjan
Letterer: Wes Abbott
What They Say:
While Supergirl and Powergirl’s fight continues, we take a look back to what valuable lessons Supergirl learned during her time spent with Wonder Woman in Themyscira.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Leningrad storyline has certainly been interesting overall as there are a lot of things going on with the diverse cast of characters that have shown up here. Marguerite Bennett has largely done a great job with this series in giving us lots of time with fan favorite characters so they get their time to shine – even as it feels like so many could spin off into their own books. With this issue, we’re still dealing with a couple of distinct things and Laura Braga returns on the art duties, which is a big plus in my book as she continues to do some great stuff with the layouts and character designs that harkens back to the intent and style of the bombshell mindset.
Though there’s the two-track approach here once again, it’s not something that really runs in parallel as much as past installments. What we get here is initially seeing Lois and Andrea (aka the Reaper) going to try and discover more of what’s going on by tracing the signal where they think Hugo Strange and his strange experiments are going on. It leads them to an old church that’s been stripped of much of its gold and there are some decent pieces thrown into this between the two. What I like the most is the dynamic between the two women considering they were on opposite sides for a while and they’re each coming to respect the other more than they thought they would based on that. They’re on an adventure together that’s also a dangerous mission, one that takes them down below to where the other track is going.
With the Supergirl and Power Girl storyline, that’s mostly kept to a lot of fighting as Power Girl has the upperhand as she’s not being held back by her emotions. Kara’s been through so much and what Power Girl is throwing at her, with Strange urging her on in the background with his grandiose plans, is just whittling away at her. A lot of what’s fueling things is the way that Power Girl believes that Kara had abandoned the country and its people and that provides Kara the chance to tearfully talk about what she had been through after the death of Kortni and her retreat with Diana. It’s a useful interlude to recap to some degree with how Kara found more of a sense of self and purpose after such loss, with what truly defines her, but it’s similar to the last couple of issues where the touches on the past feel like it’s slowing things down a bit rather than tightening up the story enough.
In Summary:
The Bombshells material in Leningrad is working through some solid material and bringing in a fun cast of characters to deal with. This one narrows it down to just four of the women primarily along with Strange and that works fairly well. It doesn’t feel like it’s a rich story installment but it’s a solid character one for both the Lois/Andrea pairing and for what Supergirl and Power Girl are going through. Laura Braga delivers some very fun fights in the back half and some good exploration material in the first all while bringing out what I want in the character designs and the movement of it all. Fun stuff all around.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: March 10th, 2017
MSRP: $0.99
