Supergirl: Being Super #1 –
DC Comics
Written by Mariko Tamaki
Pencils by Joëlle Jones
Inks by Sandu Florea
Colors by Kelly Fitzpatrick
Letters by Saida Temofonte
There have been many versions of Supergirl across all of media. We’ve had the unsure, the naive, the angry, the girl and the woman. How to define Supergirl is a debate that still rages on, but everyone agrees on one thing: She is a strong woman who deserves a spotlight. Fans enjoy the CW TV series like how grounded Kara is. DC Comics turns back the clock a bit and changes a few things in a new comic series, Supergirl: Being Super, with a nearly all-female creative team.
We start off with a high school aged Kara who seems to be leading the life of a normal teenager. The story is also narrated by Kara, so we get a bit of internal monologue as well. There is a change to her origin story, which I won’t spoil here, but I will say it is not all that unfamiliar. We get to find out a lot about Kara’s life, her friends and something heartbreaking that she is struggling with. For the longest time you’ll read this book and be surprised about how…for the lack of a better word…normal, it really is. An abnormal teenage girl with a secret, struggling with everyday problems. Then, on her “birthday”, something starts happening to Kara. That’s when everything starts to take a very odd turn. Normal becomes next level very fast, and there in lies the cliffhanger of this first issue.
I did not want to spoil any of this super sized first issue, so it was necessary to be short on details. I will say that I got lost in the story that Tamaki created. We were all teenagers once, and even as a guy, I felt like she was trying to show the readers what the life of a teenage girls is like. Normally in these situations, you keep waiting for something to happen. This time, I didn’t feel that at all. Tamaki was telling a deeply personal story of Kara Danvers, and it was captivating. Combine that with the gorgeous art by Jones and it just all felt right. When the inevitable happens in any superhero story, and things go sideways, you deeply care about what is happening to each of the characters you have been introduced to. I know that Supergirl has already had her Rebirth, but I feel like this is the story I was looking for all along. The only thing that upsets me about this book, is the fact that it is a limited series. Supergirl fans, Kara Danvers fans, need more of this.
RATING: PULL / BUY