SUPERGIRL #49

Song Of The Silver Banshee

March 2010

Written by Sterling Gates

Pencils by Fernando Dagnino

Inks by Raul Fernandez

Cover by Joshua Middleton

Synopsis

At Hammersmith Tower, Lana Lang falls down, bleeding profusely from mouth, eyes, and nose.  At the Metropolis Police Precinct, Supergirl has been turn in a Banshee when she touched on the ancient relics the Silver Banshee need to remove the curse.  However, Super-Banshee reveals it wasn’t a curse, but a test to determine a leader’s worth.  A test that Silver Banshee failed over and over.  Nearby, Inspector Henderson, who has one of the relics embedded in his hand, threatens to destroy unless Supergirl is freed.  When it refuses, Henderson stabs a knife through his hand.  It works, Supergirl is free.  Then, Silver Banshee thanks Henderson for finding the relics and lets him she owes him.  Then she leaves.  Just then, Supergirl hears that Lana has been taken to the hospital.  When she gets there, it is too late.  Lana is dead.  Supergirl demands to see Lana in the morgue.  When she gets there, she finds Lana encased in a cocoon. 

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

There is a moment in this comic that I thought was handled perfectly.  It is the scene when Supergirl is racing to the hospital and she is describing all of the sounds that she can hear, except for the one that she can’t hear.  I though that was a beautiful, heart-wrenching moment that informed the reader and the character at the same that Lana had died.  Then, when she gets to the hospital and is told the news, I liked the way Gates (and Camp) showed us Supergirl’s grief.  More importantly, we also see her resolve, her coming to grips with what might’ve happened, and trying to learn more.  It is a key moment, showing that Supergirl has grown up and is not going to run away from a bad situation.  Those pages were fantastic.  Sadly, the rest of the comic gets in the way.  I liked the opening scene, but the drawing of the blood loss was too much, almost laughable to the point where you realize this is a comic story rather than a tragic moment for a beloved character (if you can understand the difference I am trying to point out). 

The scene with the Banshees felt rushed and next to the hospital scene perhaps a little garish.  In fact, I am not quite sure what to make of the Banshee storyline.  It feels like filler.  Not much was accomplished, other than to give the Banshee a slightly modified origin and a new purpose in that she’ll be searching for the relics.  It changes her character from someone who was cursed to someone who is out for power, much like a lot of villains in the DC Universe.  So, if that was what DC wanted to do, then in that regard it worked.  But otherwise, there was nothing to the story and with the Banshee just walking out at the end, a little bit anticlimactic. 

Speaking of the end, it looks as if Lana is slowly turning into the Insect Queen.  I am not sure if we needed the little bug at the beginning.  Thinking about it, I wonder if there were other such clues like that before this issue.  Anyway, it will be interesting to see what Gates does with this, especially with the upcoming Supermen War potentially derailing Lana as Queen story. 

I should point out the defibrillators (the paddles) were not only placed incorrectly, but you don’t use them when a patient has flatlined.  The paddles are to correct fast or slow heartbeats, not to jump start the lack of a beat.  And even if the heart were to re-start, it would probably fail again since there is less blood to pump.  Lana lost a lot of blood; a beating heart can’t continue with less than what it needs.

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