The familiarity of Strange.
Creative Staff:
Story: Marguerite Bennett
Art: Carmen Carnero
Colors: Sandra Molina
Letterer: Wes Abbott
What They Say:
Supergirl wakes up in Hugo Strange’s laboratory, where she is forced into an arena to fight…Powergirl!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Though there’s a lot more material to come for the Leningrad portion of this larger arc, this ends the three-part storyline under that name and it serves to put most of the pieces into place for it. Marguerite Bennett has handled the large cast and locations – and subplots – that are going on well over the course of this series as it’s expanded and it plays well as you can see the way things are coming together. This installment has Carmen Carnero returning on the art duties and that’s once again a welcome event as she’s got the look of it down well and I adore the way she designs the hair for the period as it’s distinctive without being distracting or over the top. With a good flow for the action and some engaging moments of tension, there’s a lot to like with this book once again.
The two-track approach is more cleanly divided in this installment and that’s a good thing as it keeps the flow for each story moving along. Kara’s return to Leningrad isn’t what she expected as Hugo Strange has her all sealed up, revealing that he’s acquired her genetic material from years ago during the testing done prior to her becoming a Night Witch with her sister, which means some amusing genetic elements here. What he’s done is to push forward his agenda of a perfect race, which he uses the resources of three great and opposing forces to accomplish with, and has created the first of an army that he’ll change the world with. Naturally, he has to test it out on Kara to prove that it’s superior and you can kind of understand that. It’s an interesting way of bringing Powergirl into the mix, and nudging her familiar uniform a bit while giving it something that reminded me of one of the Rocky movies in a way, while also giving us a solid fight to get started between the two to showcase their abilities.
The other track is an interesting one that builds off of Kara’s as Strange talks about her father as a way to get at her and we see in the back half how he’s doing with the hard labor. It’s something that shows the cruelty of it all in a light way since it’s not trying to dig deep on it, but I love that it comes with his being rescued by his wife as she’s brought in Whitmore from way back in issue 23 or so to provide the logistics for it and give him a chance to atone for what he’s done in supplying the Reich with weapons. Varvara is definitely a badass here as she does what must be done and sets in motion some ground forces that will be making their way to Leningrad as well now that they’re freed. There’s a lot of chaos going on in this region and it’s all centering on that city that’s being strangled hard and the way the tension is ramping up is definitely exciting.
In Summary:
Bombshells does a lot of setup here and doesn’t have quite the payoff that you’d want but it delivers a lot of good stuff. Varvara’s story is one that will delight a number of readers that want to see her continuing to be the strong character that she is, like so many people from this period that just stood up and did what needed doing and pushing the cost and strain of it from their minds for as long as they could. I would have liked more with Powergirl in getting that moving forward but what we get is interesting and I’m excited to see where it goes from here with Bennett’s interpretation. This is a solid issue throughout and Carnero delivers some fantastic pieces in the back half with the work camp storyline in giving us some bleak landscapes as well as just how Varvara looks amid it as she parachutes down and gets things done.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: February 24th, 2017
MSRP: $0.99
