Comics Fondle

If this issue came out today–or in the last five years–it’d probably be a six issue arc. As is, it should have been a couple issues at least. The issue opens with Linda Danvers discovering she doesn’t have any superpowers and, across town, Supergirl discovering she doesn’t have a secret identity. It results in a panicky, irritable Linda (who has one of those wonderful self-realizations Kupperberg writes every few issues… what if she never was Supergirl and it was all a delusion?) and a more aggressive, less sympathetic Supergirl. It’s a beautiful issue, mood and art-wise, as Infantino really conveys the quiet (on Supergirl’s part) despair, juxtaposing it with Linda’s loud (through dreams) confusion and distress.

Though there’s a comic book conclusion (comic book as a pejorative, things get wrapped up neatly and in strict continuity adherence), Kupperberg takes Supergirl on a great trip back through her origin as she tries to discover herself. It’d have made a great first issue, as the origin retelling in number one was incredibly problematic. The issue’s pacing is fantastic too–around page fifteen, I didn’t think Kupperberg could pull it all off in one, then, unfortunately, he proved me wrong.

The problem with not two-parting this story (at least) is Kupperberg loses a lot. He’s raising some great questions of identity, as well as Linda’s relationships with other people–and the idea of a college coed whose favorite movie is Citizen Kane… did college coeds in the early 1980s really watch black and white movies? Sorry, tangent. The whole issue sort of plays out with “Clair de lune” in the background and even though it’s got that (inevitably) problematic ending, it’s certainly the series’s most artistically ambitious entry. For the first nine-tenths, it’s worth hunting down.

B

Recommend on Mahalo