SUPERGIRL #13

Love At First Fight

February 2007

Written by Joe Kelly

Pencils by Ian Chruchill

Inks by Norm Rapmund

Cover by Ian Churchill

Synopsis

Supergirl awakens at STAR Labs after she was injured during a mission with the Outsiders.  Yellow sunlight therapy has healed her injuries and she is allowed to go home.  Lois Lane visits and suggests Kara should contact Superman, but Kara refuses.  Then Powerboy arrives and the two talk while rescuing people from a hurricane.  In Tibet, an unidentified person gets another unidentified woman to send a group of meta-humans after Supergirl.  Later, Powerboy visits Kara at her apartment and the two fly around the world.  Their flight is interrupted by Gakidou and Sakki, who feeds off the hate of his enemies.  Sakki comments that Supergirl must really hate Superman.  Supergirl tells him she loves Kal-el, but hates herself.  She then flows that hatred back in to Sakki and defeats him.  On the peaquod, Grace tells Captain Boomerang, Jr. that he needs to stay away from Kara because she is crazy.   Grace then tells him that Kara left STAR Labs three days ago and never told him...

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

“I don’t hate Superman.  That’s why I left.  That’s why I ran and hid in a bottle.  I love Kal-el...I hate myself.”

Enough already.  Yes, we know that Supergirl was programmed (or taught) by her father to kill Kal-el and bring down the house of el.  We’ve read it.  We get it.  Now, we need for this particular plot device to move forward, get resolved, so we can learn more about Kara as a person and not some lame plot element.  It seems as if we have gotten the same issue from Kelly with just a different window dressing. 

This issue, I think, made me realize a part of the problem I have been having with this series and it has to do with the slapdash way the story is being told.  The story and the events are presented in such a herky-jerky method. I find that I have to orient myself to what the characters are doing or where the scene is supposed to take place that actually what happens in the scene becomes secondary.  And I’m not talking about the linearity of the story, although issue #11 has its problems there.  No, I’m just talking about transitions.  Take for instance this issue in which we go from the hospital (located in Metropolis given Lois’ appearance) to a hurricane in Mexico.  Okay, so how did hey get there?  Why did they go there?  Why would Kara even care to help out others after being in the hospital? And what did they talk about before they got there?  The dialogue seems to be continuous from the hospital scene, but obviously there is time between the two events.  This happens a lot in this book and, to me at least, it begs more questions than it answers.  Such as, what happened with the Outsiders and the pirates from issue #11? 

I am disappointed in the ending to this issue.  I was really rooting that Kelly would write Boomerang’s involvement with Supergirl as not romantic at all and that he might stick around and act as the older brother.  But the ending suggested he was hoping for more and did not get it.  Shame.  Worse, Supergirl’s actions in this story are no even plausible, unless one puts it under “dipsy teenager,” but that is just a stereotype; not all teenage girls are that irresponsible.  Her characterization in previous issues towards Boomer was always brother-like, so for her to not call Boomer just made absolutely no sense. 

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