SUPERGIRL #52

Last Stand On New Krypton, Part Seven:  Distraction

June 2010

Written by Sterling Gates

Pencils by Jamal Igle

Inks by Marc Deering and Jon Sibal

Cover by Joshua Middleton

Synopsis

[continued from Adventure Comics #10] On Brainiac’s Ship, General Zod and his officers have escaped the re-bottled city of Kandor and are in search of Brainiac.  Elsewhere on the ship, Supergirl and Brainiac 5 search for the heart of the ship.  In Kandor, Commander Gor tortures Reactron to learn about General Lane’s Doomsday plan.  Suddenly, Lex Luthor appears, killing Gor.  Reactron thinks he has been saved, but Lex has other ideas.  Meanwhile, Brainiac 5 and Supergirl fight off Brainiac’s drones and find the heart of the ship, which Supergirl dismantles by literally flying right through it.  An explosion rocks the ship.  Brainiac 5 realizes someone has entered the ship.  It is Superman.  Elsewhere, Lex Luthor emerges from Kandor.  Nearby, he sees another city pleading for help.  Lex decides to help himself.  He takes the city.  [continued in Superman #699]

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

The core of this issue is the relationship between Brainiac and Supergirl, a relationship that I did not know about until I read this issue.  That is not a knock on Gates; I have never been a fan of Legion so my knowledge is basically limited to whatever has occurred in the Superman line of books recently.  The only thing I thought I knew was that Supergirl had worked with the Legion (Supergirl and Legion of Super Heroes book in 2006), so I thought that was where they fell in love.  But that doesn’t seem to be the case.  Somewhere in the middle of the issue, there is that little editorial box that asks the reader to check out Supergirl Annual #2 coming out in the fall.  This suggests that their romance hasn’t been written, yet.  Based on what I was reading I think, that makes sense, but at the same time it makes everything even more confusing, since neither character seems to recall that they knew each other previously.  Or has DC decided to retcon her time in the future and forget it ever happened? Or maybe they never did know each other; maybe Brainiac was never in those comics.  I don’t know.  All I know is that the characters acted as if they never knew each other, but I cam into the story thinking they did know each other and thus it made for an odd reading experience, made all the more confusing by the usual time travel wackiness. 

As for the rest of the bits and pieces in this issue, Gates makes sure to hit the plot points in the main story, pushing a few items here and there forward, but mostly just reminding the reader of what is going on so they don’t forget when they get to the next issue.  This is mostly about Supergirl and Brainiac and their relationship (whatever it is) as they complete their mission.  Sadly, this wasn’t a good issue given the convoluted time travel within the story and the convoluted publication history of their characters in the real world.  Gates has done some good things with reboots and origins, but he couldn’t make it quite work with this pair.

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