There has been an interesting trend at DC Comics in the past year.  Instead of portraying its young adult and new adult heroines as hopeless children, it has started to show more characterization, dealing with problems that might actually affect them, in addition to dealing with superheroics.  With Supergirl it seems as though the same approach is being taken, though due to the nature of the character it is perhaps not as pronounced.  This goes back to the same problems that all of the Super characters have lobbied against them, namely that with so many superlatives next to their names and their powers, that there is just not as much to draw the reader in.  The characters are never really threatened who cannot be harmed, and while some readers still adore these characters, others find the lack of a real threat to be boring.

What has worked so well for instance for Batgirl is thus a little dulled down here.  Supergirl is still on the Crucible and even though its true nature is not yet revealed, it would seem as though something is not right about it.  This is still an engaging environment for her, only just not as engaging as those faced by either Batgirl or Olive Silverlock.  At the same time, for the first time since Siobhan, there are supporting characters in this series that have more going for them than being stock secondary characters, and there are even two, in Tsavo and Maxima.   Tsavo particularly plays an important part in this issue as his background comes back to haunt him and he is forced to intervene on his home planet with his new allies.

The end result is an issue which shows that this series is moving in the right direction.  So often in this series it has felt like the character was waiting inside her own universe for some kind of purposeful meaning, and it seems as though it might finally be finding it over three years later. I thought that the cover was clever as well, as though it seems to be a representation of Kara’s search for an identity, it is actually tied into the issue in an interesting way.  This is not the best material that DC has to offer, but it is still a fun read and every issue seems to be getting better, and for those that have been waiting for a good time to finally pick up this title, this might be the start.

Story: K. Perkins and Mike Johnson Art: Ema Lupacchino
Story: 8.3 Art: 8.8 Overall: 8.3 Recommendation: Read