As if Kara’s life couldn’t get more complicated.
Creative Staff:
Story: Steve Orlando
Art: Brian Ching
Colors: Michael Atiyeh
Letterer: Steve Wands
What They Say:
“REIGN OF THE CYBORG SUPERMEN” part two! Supergirl battles Cyborg Superman in the Fortress of Solitude-and there can be only one winner! But even a temporary victory can spell certain doom for Kara and her new home as her father’s plan at last comes to light! Meanwhile, the race for Cat Grant’s prized internship heats up, and Kara finds her human competition to be just as challenging!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With a pair of issues behind it so far, Supergirl did a solid blending of various interpretations to bring the character into the Rebirth DC Universe in a pretty fun way. I’ve liked the choices that Orlando made with her and the basic setups we had so far, which when handled by Brian Ching just hits a certain sweet spot. The action has been good, the civilian side has been interesting, and the flow works well overall. But the problem I run into with a book like this, similar to the Teen Titans book that I’m reading, is that it wants to do so much so quickly that it just feels very, very rushed. And that’s worse when it’s a monthly book as it really feels like it should be bi-weekly so it can space things out a bit more.
The use of the Cyborg Superman certainly is an interesting choice going into the run but it has an interesting twist as we saw last time with the reveal that he’s actually Zor-El. Kara’s obviously not going to believe that’s her father but through some creative approaches he’s able to actually convince her that there’s the potential of truth to it, going back to his submitting to Braniac and trying to save Argo City when Jor-El was only barely able to save his own son. The book wants to spend too much time on action in the first half with this but I appreciated the more mental and emotional approach taken in the back half with a forced connection he establishes with his daughter. I’m still willing to believe that it’s a fake out of some sort but the whole connected side between the two is definitely a frightening aspect, even if it gets Kara to realize that there may be truth to this.
Similar can be said of Kara’s civilian side as she has a lot to deal with here, such as trying to explain what’s going on to Eliza and dealing with the “parenting” aspect that she gets from her. This book wants to start establishing more of what Kara is up to outside of school and that brings the newly founded Catco into the picture, though in this iteration she’s looking for young innovators to try and help kickstart new avenues for the company. While Cat gets her guenia pig with Ben Rubel she also plucks Kara as she sees a spark in here. There are familiar pieces from the TV series here and you can see how they’ll work it, but it almost feels like too much is being forced into the book too soon in order to try and draw in different types of fans. I’m almost fearing an identity crisis for the series because of how much it wants to do while hitting such a rushed pace because of its monthly approach.
In Summary:
As much as I’m enjoying reading Supergirl adventures again that are in the mainline continuity, I’m still feeling wary on this book overall for the reasons stated above. I like what Orlando and Ching are doing with it in a general sense as they’re trying to find a cohesive version to work with but there’s just so much going on that it’s kind of an overload book when you get down to it. Ching has some really great sequences here, especially the creative aspects of how the Cyborg Superman modifies himself along the way, but I really just want more of seeing Kara as herself – not her high school self of Supergirl self – adjusting to life and being who she is. There’s a lot of potential to this book and I have a lot of hope for it, so I’ll be sticking around for some time to come.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: October 12th, 2016
MSRP: $2.99
