As one of the outliers in the Superman titles, Supergirl often gets the worst treatment of them all.  Throughout 35 issues the character has struggled to find a singular direction in its stories and character development, instead often getting caught up in the Superman crossovers.  While the initial issues were going along well enough, it eventually got stopped in its tracks by the H’el story arc, and once the series seemed to have recovered from that it was thrown into the Doomed story line.

Below it all is an engaging character that all too often has her character development thrown out the window for the sake of some easy cross-coverage.  While that is not exactly the case here, it is clear that the Superman titles cannot just leave the character alone, which is evident here even in the words of Supergirl, asking to be left alone as she addresses Kal.  There is incidentally relatively few moments in comics where reality imitates art as well as this.  Much as with Batgirl in the Bat-titles, the character of Supergirl really needs some space in order to grow into something more than just another tie-in to bigger Superman stories.  By the end of this issue that starts to take shape, but it is at the expense of other recent developments (such as her budding romance from the other recent issues.)  What happens here at the end is to throw Supergirl into yet another offshoot of her own story lines, once again drawn into space beyond her control, but this story arc at least looks to be engaging (including re-introducing Maxima.)

What happens is that the series once again seems to have some promise to stand on its own, something that it didn’t have since the first year of its stories.  While readers and fans of the character might be waiting a long time for some eventual stability within this title as opposed to outside interference, it would appear that this might be that issue where it starts, even if Superman is here for about two pages.  As one of the few titles featuring a female superhero, this title could definitely use the attention which it deserves from both the fans and the creators, but it is to the creators to make that happen, and hopefully this will be the first step.

Story: K. Perkins and Mike Johnson Art: Emanuela Lupacchino
Story: 8.5 Art: 9 Overall: 8.6 Recommendation: Buy