SUPERGIRL #48

Song Of The Silver Banshee

February 2010

Written by Sterling Gates

Pencils by Fernando Dagnino

Inks by Raul Fernandez

Cover by Joshua Middleton

Synopsis

In Suicide Slum, Inspector Henderson and the police barge into an apartment, which explodes.  Instead they find a corpse surrounded y a circle of runes.  Elsewhere, Supergirl confronts Lana Lang regarding her illness.  Lang tells her she has done all that she can, but the doctors have yet to find exactly what is wrong with her.  But Lana will not stop fighting.  At the Metropolis Metacrimes Division, Supergirl visits Inspector Henderson.  He asks her about Silver Banshee and Supergirl relates what she knows.  Siobhan McDougal attempted to take control of her clan, but she was deemed unworthy, so she was cursed as the Silver Banshee.  She can lift the curse only if she can retrieve seven heirlooms.  Henderson tells her that he has found one of the heirlooms.  Suddenly, Silver Banshee appears and attacks.  Supergirl defends Henderson, but is hit hard.  Supergirl then notices a heirloom on the ground.  She picks it up.  And turns in a Banshee.   

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

On the whole, this was a good issue.  I like the return of Inspector Henderson, the mystery of the Silver Banshee, and the conversation with Lana in which we find out what is really going on.  I think it helps that the issue is free of the current continuity of the Super-books, (although it still obviously taking place during that time period since it references current events).  Despite those little mentions, this story feels more like a self-contained story rather than a part of a larger story.  And I think that is a good thing, because the story gets back to Supergirl and her adventures, rather than Alura or Reactron or Thara or any of the other characters that have been part of this book for so long.  It is nice to see the focus back on the titular character.  Having said that, I don’t like the ending, which is stupid.  I hope Gates can adequately explain why touching an heirloom would turn Supergirl into a Banshee, but not Henderson (unless gender is a reason), otherwise it feels like a plot twist for the sake of a plot twist rather than an extension of the story.  Beyond the ending, however, I mostly liked this issue. 

I say mostly because, sadly, this issue falls into that growing trend in comics these days of using an older but little used character and trying to find a way to make it work today.  In order to that, we have yet again an exposition filled-issue that tells us the character’s history so that obsessed people can determine what is still in continuity or what has been retconned.  I don’t really have a problem with the idea, but it feels like it has been used too much these days.  Hell, it pretty much is the reason for a book like Flash Rebirth or Green Lantern.  It is no surprise both of those books are written by Geoff Johns, the one who brought Gates into the fold at DC.  Like teacher, like student, I guess.  

Let’s do a little math.  Inspector Henderson clocks his recovery at 10 weeks, then 2 weeks doing paper work, which makes it 12 weeks or 3 months.  He doesn’t say how long it took to follow the contents of the letter, but it might’ve been a short time.  Let’s call it 3 months.  Since the injury that put Henderson in the hospital occurred in issue #41, that means the events since then (The Hunt for Reactron) have taken about 3 months. 

I like the reference back to issue #26 (the little boy and his cancer) when Lana’s gives her reasons on why she didn’t want to tell Supergirl about her illness.  It not only does it show a nice sense of continuity, I actually think it is a very logical reason to not tell Supergirl, especially when you combine the fact that Lana doesn’t even know what is causing her to be sick. 

Here is an interesting twist:  could Lana’s illness have anything to do with issue #671 of Superman in which an alien Insect Queen used Lana’s DNA template to remake her own image? 

The corner of Austen and Byrne is a probable reference to writer Chuck Austen and John Byrne.  The former was the writer on Action Comics, beginning with issue #814, a short run that many people thought was horrible and actually ended several months early.  Byrne, of course, was instrumental in the reboot of Superman following the first Crisis.  I can understand why Austen Street would be placed in Suicide Slum given the way his writing was cursed and reviled, but there are a lot of people who liked Byrne’s vision of Superman.  Byrne deserves a better street location than Suicide Slum.

Comic Connection

Silver Banshee was created by, naturally enough, John Byrne as part of his reboot.  She first appeared in Action Comics, issue #595 (December 1987).  The other Suicide Slum honoree was the writer of Action Comics, issue #820 that also featured Silver Banshee. 

The bulletin board contains on the top left the cover to issue #11 (1996) of the first volume of Supergirl, a panel from issue #34 of the current volume of Supergirl (bottom right) and what looks to be a still from the animated movie Superman/Batman:  Public Enemies (her role was taken from issue #3 of Superman/Batman). 

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