Wonder Woman #600 is awesome and a great buy. This thing is jam-packed. There are a ton of great ministories and an endless stream of amazing pin-ups (with only two clunkers: Guillem March’s and the porn-photo-ref guy). Where else can you get a story written by Gail Simone and drawn by George Perez starring over a dozen female heroes, followed by a Wonder Woman-Power Girl story drawn and written by Amanda Connor? Woo!

After three stories that illustrate Diana’s character in different and fun ways, we get a two part story setting up the new status quo. The stark visual distinction between the two halves signals a radical change in the universe. (It’s all very confusing if you flip through the book before reading it. I spoiled myself and got all worked up by reading the Behind the Scenes first :)

The prologue, whose credits come on the final page, is mysterious and tantalizing: we see a ghostly younger Diana ask her adult counterpart, “Don’t you wonder what’s beyond the next horizon? Let’s go see!” Diana follows her through a glowing event horizon of sorts, and then we’re into the next story with different art and a strangely-dressed Diana running down a dark city alley. Her costume’s gone alternate-timeline, she’s wearing dark eyeliner and lipstick, and she doesn’t know who she is. The timeline’s been change. Everything’s wrong and must be fixed. Duh duh DUH!

I’m not upset by the costume change or the timeline rewriting, because this change is supposed to be wrong and in need of correction. The weird thing is that DC is presenting the costume change as permanent rather than a temporary condition. Stracynski waxes on in the Behind the Scenes about how he thinks the new costume is an update and a reimagining for the 21st century (hahahaha), but I can’t seriously believe it’ll stick around longer than a few years. This new look only works within the altered timeline. It’s just not Wonder Woman.

There’s lots to complain about with a crazy-ass reboot that fridges the Amazons, depowers Wonder Woman, and suggests she’s as unimportant to the DCU as the 1985 reboot did. As always, these points wouldn’t be a problem if the book didn’t exist within a larger industry context of mistreating and disrespecting female characters and female buyers.

What I’m struggling with is how the DCU as a whole can possibly exist without Wonder Woman and Paradise Island having been in it for the past 18 years (when the timeline hiccuped). I also don’t see how she’s going to be a part of the DCU for the next year or so while she’s going through this quest to fix/reconcile the timelines. This reboot of Wonder Woman’s history invalidates every other DC book being published right now, which to me is a bigger problem than a reboot which isn’t really a reboot. The repercussions on every other character’s history are infinite and mindboggling. Without a replacement character for Wonder Woman, ala Mon-El for Superboy, Hippolyta for Diana, and all the other retcons that Crisis on Infinite Earths wrought, everybody in the DCU should be dead right now. That’s the problem with telling this kind of a story in a shared universe. I wish there were a way to tell this story contained within her own book.

Wonder Woman #600 is a terrific package to celebrate this momentus anniversary. This book is what Superman #700 should have been. Three boring and pointless stories that failed to set Superman up for anything interesting, no pin-ups, nothing to get anyone interested in where the character’s been or where he’s going. The mapping out of the upcoming storylines on the super books (reprinted on the DCU blog) was depressing in its lack of imagination (Supergirl being the exception). They’re literally repeating history with Superboy, Lex Luthor is taking over Action Comics, and Superman looks to be more boring than ever. For Superman and Superboy fans, this year looks like a big regression and a good time to drop three books. I expect Supergirl will continue to be the stand-out book just as it was during New Krypton.

Wonder Woman #600 shakes things up while celebrating all that she is, and while I think DC’s marketing of the costume change to the mainstream as the new status quo is ridiculous, I’m interested in the ride while it lasts.

Further reading

• DCU Blog: Unveiling Wonder Woman’s new costume, direction
• all the recent Wonder Woman #600 entries on DCU Blog
• Project Rooftop on The New Wonder Woman Costume

I’ve moved past my denial about them killing Alura and the (soon to be) entire population of New Krypton and into a kind of numb acceptance. With that comes a profound disinterest in the disappointing resolution to what promised to be a bold, exciting new chapter in Superman and Supergirl comics. I started buying SUPERGIRL again when Sterling Gates came on board at the same time as New Krypton, and I am depressed at the thought of returning to pre-New Krypton Supergirl after being given a taste of something so much bigger. I even bought a comic starring Superman for a whole year, and the comic version of Superman generally bores me (they then proceeded to make WORLD OF NEW KRYPTON all about Supes and Zod’s manly pissing contest, so look who’s the sucker!).

My guess is that anyone created for New Krypton will be killed or returned to status quo by the end of WAR OF THE SUPERMAN #4. Zod and Ursa will live (Non might die for angst). Luthor not only lives, but will get a starring role in the Superman comics, because that’s something fresh and interesting that people want to see *sarcasm* Brainiac is spirited off to R.E.B.E.L.S. General Lane will live. DC villains are sacred and can never be killed off if they’ve been around since the Silver Age, no matter how overused they’ve become or implausible it is that they’re still around. I doubt Lucy will be killed, but she probably won’t remain Superwoman much longer. Nightwing, it’s hard to say, given that he showed up earlier. If they don’t kill after Thara sacrificed herself, it’ll look bad politically. But if they do, there’s that whole child-killing problem again. Then again, they never addressed the hugely problematic and creepy situation of Thara having a physically romantic relationship with a child so that won’t come up.

In the weekly Newsarama interviews with James Robinson and Sterling Gates (Week 1, Week 2, Week 3) Gates stated that

I’ve heard from people who are really upset that New Krypton was destroyed, that a planet with such potential was blown up, its inhabitants killed. I agree; it’s a traumatizing and polarizing event.

But that’s what we’re saying with it: Death and destruction don’t care about potential.

Comparing the waste of storytelling potential to the wasted potential of human life in actual war is a bit out of proportion. Fans have a legitimate beef here. DC publishes serialized stories that go on forever, generally of uneven quality and at a price not conducive to impulse buying. New Krypton was their meal ticket to years of potentially rich stories to mine and they threw it all away for nothing. That’s the potential of the planet they blew up. After the underwhelming stories that did get told in SUPERMAN, ACTION COMICS, and WoNK, I’m even more angry about wasted potential.

The completely awful waste of Mon-El this past year (I dropped the book after they outright told us *in the book* that his year-long run would be all for naught). The thing with the evil gorilla scientist was completely unnecessary and unwanted. The Flamebird and Nightwing book went places it shouldn’t have with their own run-in with an evil scientist, and they never addressed the child-in-a-man’s body issue. Add to that the resolution of the Project 7734 backup in SUPERMAN (I think?), and there was too much torture going on.

I don’t want to think about the years of great storylines that could have come from New Krypton. I don’t want to think about how grateful I was that Alura was finally a relevant and vital character who had an important, complex relationship with her daughter. I don’t want to think about how happy I was that Alura and Kara appeared to have healed their relationship, and my mistake in thinking that the two of them were about to take charge of the war and turn it all around in a rare example of intergenerational female butt-kicking. I don’t want to think about how Alura’s legacy is using her daughter to get to Reactron to torture him. I don’t want to think about how I won’t get to experience a new era of Supergirl comics where she learns and grows through her relationships on new Kandor, trying to fit into their wacky caste-based society, with her mother as their leader.

The return of Krypton and Kara’s renewed relationship with her mother were the best thing to happen to Supergirl. But I don’t for a second think that most of the men at DC grasp the importance of Alura. They don’t live in a world where adventure stories about fathers and sons just don’t exist. They had to kill off Zor-El to do it, but for a brief time they actually gave us a story where a mother was the powerful leader of an entire goddamned planet of superbeings and her daughter was a superhero. That’s too fucking awesome to be tossed aside for some lame-o story called “War of the SuperMEN”.

“War” seldom makes for an interesting story in superhero comics, which have long since pumped that well dry. Shock and awe aren’t actually all that interesting once the shock wears off, so “crisis” stories are seldom worth revisiting. I won’t be doing individual reviews of these issues because I can’t come up with anything interesting to say about a series of fight scenes beyond, “Lots of people die. I’m sad.”

I’d much rather be able to talk about New Krypton in the future as a backdrop to the super books, one which added to the richness of the mythos without overwhelming it. I never expected New Krypton to remain the focus in all four books, but it gave them something different (if not entirely original) to work with which they really needed. Instead they chose to return to the status quo, again.

I haven’t read WotS #4 yet, so no spoilers in the comments please!

Noooo! They killed Alura!

There was no body though – could she, by some implausible miracle, still be alive? I’m holding on to a thread of hope here, but it’s pretty thin. DC, don’t break my heart! To take Alura out of Kara’s life would be a huge loss of an awesome and interesting character who makes Supergirl’s story immeasurably richer. I’ll wait until we see for sure what happened to Alura before I start talking about that.

I can’t believe they exploded the entire planet of New Krypton. What a waste. Thousands of Kryptonians fridged just to provided the survivors with angst to go to war. It appears that the only survivors are the soldiers that were enroute to Earth. If the bomb housed inside Reactron was that powerful, how did Kara possibly survive simply by being behind a blast door a few feet from the initial blast?

All in all, pretty disappointed that DC went this route. Destroying is easy, carnage is easy. Tossing away years of potentially rich storylines for one big shocking moment that will be forgotten and swept aside (at least in Superman’s books) in a few months is easy. Keeping New Krypton around, working it into the DC universe and making it meaningful – that would have been something creative.

Oh, and Superman “saving” Brainiac from Zod’s execution at the last minute? Pissed me right off. I’m sick of so-called heroes constantly saving the worst of the worst so the writers can avoid killing off a villain they want to reuse in the future (I’m really tired of villains that have been rehashed for decades – I was pleased when Luthor got his neck snapped, and very disappointed when it turned out to be a trick yet again). Have him escape some other way, preferably through the actions of another villain, but don’t make it through the deliberate actions of Superman (or Brainiac 5 spiriting him away to the future). Doing so doesn’t make Superman appear heroic, it makes him appear inhuman. I just can’t have any respect for him as a character when he keeps doing absurd things like that.

Jump to Supergirl #51 review

Superman: Last Stand of New Krypton #1

March 10/10
“Part One: Invaded”

Brainiac is back: his scary spaceship-head-o-doom hovers ominously over New Krypton and the inhabitants on the streets are under attack from the waves of terminator-drones. The Kryptonians are making a better show of defending themselves this time with superpowers, but some are still being killed (and it will get much worse). Zod’s response is immediate and devastating: he attempts to penetrate the ship’s forcefield through brute force by using the “global defense cannons” – without giving anyone enough time to get out of the way. The Kryptonians surrounding the ship are vaporized as everyone watches in horror.

That’s it. Kal-El can no longer work under Zod – he rips off his military uniform to once again become Superman. (He was wearing his Superman costume underneath his skintight uniform? That’s…wow. Superman can do anything!)

Kara fights side by side with her mother briefly, but more drones appear and she sends her mother to safety, to meet with Zod and request protection for the council which is being targeted. (Kara protecting her mom is awesome!) The fight turns nasty, as Supergirl realizes that the terminator-drones have been upgraded with palm-mounted “red sun” beams (gah! there is no such thing as “red sunlight”!) and are therefore able to slaughter superpowered Kryptonians. Kara gets a welcome hand when Superboy, Mon-El, and the group of Legionnaires who have been working undercover in the 21st century (see Adventure Comics #8) show up. Hurrah!

Zod is totally uninterested in their help, of course. He not so subtlely insults Mon-El (Superman’s “spy”) and Superboy (“Commander El’s clone) – anyone associated with Superman is a “terrorist” in his eyes. Kara vouches for Superboy, not getting Zod’s hostility when he says she and Kal-El are “thick as thieves”. Superboy is touched when Supergirl refers to him as her cousin – it’s nice to see Kara thinking of Connor as family.

Zod sends Supergirl off to fight the Brainiac drones and Mon-El joins her. The moment they’re gone, Zod orders his guards to arrest the Legionnaires. Ooooh!

Meanwhile, Superman has found a way to slip through Brainiac’s forcefield, but of course Brainiac is waiting for him. Along with Lex Luthor. Dun dun DUH!

Supergirl #51

March 17/10
“Part Two: Leaders”

This issue starts off really well with a tension-building scene. A group science guild children have escaped the devastating attack underway on Kandor, their teachers trying to keep them from realizing what’s happening. But these children have superpowers, and superhearing… One cute little girl removes her headgear to tell them that she can hear the people screaming :(

(I love the kids in their science guild costumes. But I shouldn’t think Kryptonian children would wear exactly the same clothing styles as adults; the guilding ceremony was shown to be significant enough that I’m sure they wouldn’t be able to take those robes until Guild Day.)

Supergirl and Mon-El fight side by side for a bit. Supergirl’s pretty awesome :)

Then Mon-El receives a telepathic message from one of the Legionnaires that Superman needs help – he’s been captured by Brainiac. Mon-El prepares to take a solo trip to the ship to save Superman, on what is possibly a suicide mission. He tells Kara that her people need her to lead them, and if she can, save the Legion. It’s a tall order, and Supergirl is doubtful of her abilities – she hasn’t had much experience in leading. But Mon-El gives her a pep talk, before heading off. It’s a nice scene between two junior members of the super-team.

Then very unexpectedly, Supergirl flies after Mon-El and kisses him real hard, grabbing his suit.

So, what, Mon-El gives Kara a pep talk and she…kisses him for it? You’d be forgiven for thinking you’d missed the page where it’s hinted that Kara has feelings for Mon-El, because it doesn’t exist. Kara tells him that her kiss is “For luck. Just for luck.” Really. And here I thought women kissed men because they were attracted to them. Nope! And of course, instead of being freaked out when a friend and colleague with whom you have *no romantic relationship* suddenly crosses the sexual barrier, Mon-El is merely bemused by Kara’s behavior. Because women’s sexuality exists to bolster men’s morale.

SIGH.

This scene could have been so awesome if used at the right time for the right characters. (The streaking effect of Kara’s hair and cape in superspeed is cool.) I wish it had been saved for an occasion where Kara was actually expressing genuine feelings towards someone (not Mon-El). A character building moment. Here there’s no justification for it, so it comes across as just another gratuitous use of female sexuality for (hetero) male ego-boosting. (There’s not a chance in hell the same thing would happen between Superboy and Mon-El. Although I’d love to see that. Mon-El has never struck me as hetero anyway.)

* * *

Cut to the Legionnaires, who have made quick work of the guards. (Superboy is looking way too overmuscled for my taste. His bulging arms are grotesque.) They’re just getting back on their feet when Alura bursts in, angry as hell, and looking a lot like her daughter when she’s on a tear! (Alura’s hair changes from blond to red halfway through the issue – three different colourists.) She calls Connor a “terrorist” and is pissed about people with “human DNA” appropriating her house symbol.

We then get to the scene on the cover (misleading as always) – Supergirl hears her mother commanding Superboy to “Put me down!“, and is appalled to find Connor holding Alura by the throat! She sends him flying across the room. Not the best family introduction!

Then the terminators burst in, a black soldier with pupil-less eyes (??) gets brutally impaled through the head, Supergirl thinks fast and shoots a REALLY BIG GUN (wooh!) but still they keep coming, until Connor comes about and TK’s them. Phew.

Kara convinces her mom to have the Legionnaires released. This is a tiny bit but it’s very cool and an important development: Alura is open to going against Zod’s orders, having the empathy to understand how important it is to free the other bottled cities (something that would *never* be a priority to Zod), but she still feels unable to oppose him. Kara talks her mom into overruling Zod. Finally! This is the only way anyone is going to wrest control away from Zod. When he finds out what she’s done, Zod is so pissed. :)

As usual, Ursa doesn’t get to do anything in this issue but ask Zod “Shall I deal with her?” In Last Stand #1 all she got was a “Yes, General Zod”. She has *no agency*. Which is why it’s a big deal when Alura calls for Zod to be summoned *to her*. Looks like things are coming to a head between them very soon.

I love how Alura has, since this invasion began, accepted Kara’s role as a front line soldier and now leader in the battle. She trusts her abilities, something Kara has struggled with earning for a long time.

Kara recognizes that the Kryptonians’ fatal flaw is their inability to cooperate across guild lines, and sees Alura as the person who can unite them. This is the role which Superman usually takes, but he cannot be that person for his people. Both women have grown into their leadership roles and support each other. It’s a rare thing to see in these stories.

This issue ended far too quickly! I was all excited to see Kara reunited with the Legion and leading the charge, and it was over! The last page gives me goosebumps. I don’t care if it’s cheesy: I love Starman’s “Up, Up and AWAAAY!” :)

Read more: Newsarama has a very favourable Best Shots Review of Supergirl #51.

Happy anniversary! I never thought this series would make it this far. I certainly never foresaw that by SUPERGIRL #50 I would be enjoying this series so darn much.

COVER

Michael Turner’s cover is here as a memorial, I get that. It’s still terrible anatomy (what’s up with the elf ears??) and the blue on blue of costume against sky is amateurish and dull. The variant cover is a typical teaser scene and not an iconic heroic pose, so neither cover really hits the spot for me.

STORY

Finally we get to see what happened after Lucy’s return from the dead in SUPERGIRL ANNUAL #1. Yay! Sadly it is anything but a triumphant return. Poor Lucy. At first her father appears to be overcome with compassion for his daughter. But she quickly receives a rude awakening when he deems her a monster and hands her over to the heartless military. Lucy’s transformation into full blown deranged villain at the end did surprise me: I expected her to finally make a break with him following this betrayal, when she broke free of military control and took back her identity as Superwoman. Up to that point, her psychology has fit Generalized Stockholm Syndrome fairly well. Her loyalty to her father in the face of his blackmail is dependent upon his pretense of kindness at opportune times. To take control the way she did and rewrite the terms of their relationship seems to deviate from that psychology. Yet she appears to have completely subsumed herself to the identity of Superwoman, in thrall to her father.

From the way she asked for General Lane’s “next assignment”, I expect that Superwoman will (appear) to be the one in control from now on, but still be tied to her abusive father in a way she’ll have difficulty freeing herself. And General Lane will find himself playing a much more dangerous game with a pawn who is unstable and less controllable.

As I guessed at the end of the previous issue, Lana’s mysterious transformation is linked with Insect Queen. This version of Insect Queen was reaallly creepy, with the extra limbs and the creepy crawlies. I liked the underground scenes, blowing up the bugs, Supergirl in the pod, and beating them to a pulp.

I wish Kara’s method of bringing Lana back wasn’t so nasty. It was unpleasant when Zor-El used his crazy science machine to “cure” Kara of kryptonite poisoning, and this was even more disturbing with Kara and Dr. Light strapping Insect Queen!Lana into a giant MRI machine and burning her to a crisp. I like science-hero!Kara, but this was just brutal. Kara never even considered whether Lana might be aware or able to feel what Insect Queen experienced.

There are so many great images of Kara in this issue, it’s hard to choose my favourite. This one makes me think of Nancy Drew or Samantha Stevens :)

This one on the other hand was more creepy-ugly than badass. Supergirl is supposed to look menacing after breaking out of the pod, but the dead eyes and the way her teeth are drawn just make her look possessed.

Just when Lana’s okay, Gates throws us a monkey wrench by having Kara pull a hospital bedside break up with her because Lana “didn’t trust her”. Oh, how I hate that trope! But I do agree with Kara’s rejection of Lana’s belief that the people closest to Superman (and thus Supergirl) exist primarily to support their heroism.

I’m not a supporter of the view that “Unless we’re about to be run over by Ben Hubbard’s thresher, or we’ve been kidnapped by Lex Luthor, or we’re lost in time or something, you shouldn’t have to worry about us. We’re here to support YOU.” It makes me impatient when Clark’s parents, or Lana, get all “we’re nobodies who exist only to emotionally buttress you”. Just because they’re fictional supporting characters doesn’t mean they should view themselves as such.

I hope Kara can reject this male-centric version of heroism and convince Lana of its moral vacuity. I hope she never comes to believe that isolation from others is the price of her heroism. She’s worked so hard to gain strong human (so to speak) connections. Ironically, pushing Kara away was the last thing Lana wanted to do. My heart breaks for both of them.

So much happened in this issue – 40 pages! – yet it never dragged. Lucy, Lana, and Kara have all reached a crisis point in their lives. I can’t wait to see what happens next.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

- Dr. Light, yay!

- Supergirl in the pod looked so cool.

- What kind of scientific tests can determine that someone’s DNA has been “magically altered”? Ah, comics pseudo-science. That’s the kind of doctor Lana should have gone to. Why didn’t she get a referral to S.T.A.R. Labs?

- “I’m Kara Zor-el of Kandor” – I love when Supergirl announces her name like a title.

BONUS FEATURE

One word: SQUEE.

This short and sweet back-up is like a delicious dessert following the issue’s main course. It’s such a simple story – six pages recapping some pivotal moments and presenting us with the impressions of some ordinary people whose lives have been touched by Supergirl. The art is adorable. We’ve seen some of these scenes before, but their reinterpretation by Clifford Chang and Dave McCaig is so delightful, so full of joy, that I want DC to give these artists an all-ages Supergirl book so I can enjoy it every month!