Thursday, May 5, 2016

Book Review: Supergirl vol #5 (New 52)


Book: Supergirl volume #5: Red Daughter of Krypton (issues #28-33) by Tony Bedard with letters by Rob Leigh

Illustrations by Yildiray Cinar (issues #28-31), Emanuela Lupacchino (issue #30-33), Diogenes Neves (issue #30), Guillermo Ortego (issue #31) and Cory Smith (issue #31) and Jeff Johnson (issue #32)

Ink by Ray McCarthy (issues #28-33), Marc Deering (issue #30) and Scott Hana (issue #33)

Color by Dan Brown (issues #28-29) and Hi-Fi (issue #30-32) and Yildiray Cinar (issue #31)


Edition: Single Print Issue

Description:

She's done with people pushing her around, taking advantage of her and betraying her. She's done feeling helpless, lost and discarded. She's done with hope, faith and acceptance. Now, all that's left is rage. And she'll burn the universe down before she lets another person tell her who she should be. Supergirl's journey as a Red Lantern begins here.


Rating: 2 stars

Review:

Oh boy, was this bad. Just when I thought the Supergirl series was back on track with the 4th volume, it had to return to the abyss of bad writing.

This group of issues center around Supergirl's rage being the catalyst for her becoming a Red Lantern. These issues were also a crossover with the Red Lantern series but the writing and story for this was so bad I didn't bother picking up the RL issues, I doubt they could have improved this.

Volume #5 continues from the last issue with Supergirl and Lobo battling it out at Dr. Veritas hidden facility. As the fight continues, Supergirl's rage intensifies making it possible for the Red Lantern ring to find a wearer. Once the ring found her, Supergirl's transformation was instant which caused her to loose control. With her new rage fueled powers and inability to think clearly she wound up in another fight this time with her friend Siobhan. To have a fighting chance Siobhan had no choice but to turn into the Silver Banshee to try to stop Supergirl. However, unable to do that she found a way to get Kara to leave Earth.

Thanks to several Red Lantern recaps shown or explained throughout the volume, the reader learns that Supergirl joined up with the Red Lanterns who were being lead by Guy Gardner. However as a new Red Lantern, her rage was out of control and taking over her mind but thanks to a special treatment, she was able to regain control. From there she worked with the other Red Lanterns to fight off an invading alien army who were going around destroying worlds in order to make the survivors stronger. Yes, I know that really doesn't make any sense but that was the plot of this story.

After getting "fired" by Gardner, Supergirl was sent to find a way to remove her ring but as she was approaching her destination, she was attacked by the world destroying aliens. She found out something rather unbelievable about their leader. He was more than he appeared, and it required her to not only come up with a way to defeat him but to also finally get rid of the Red Lantern ring and the rage it ensued.

Throughout the volume, there was this weird subplot with this alternate dimension demon/alien who had been trapped in Dr. Veritas' lab. Once it escaped, it was trying to find Supergirl by tracking her down to her last known location on Earth.

I thought issue #33 was probably the best out of this group of issues, it was the only one that showed a Supergirl who was capable of doing something other than raging out. She managed to figure out a plan and finally achieved some growth. It's hard to find something good about this volume but the one consistent thing about this series has been the artwork. It really was the best thing about this.

Overall, this volume suffered from poor plotting, bad writing and no clear direction as to who Supergirl is.

The New 52 has not been good to Supergirl, it's as if all the writers just reached into a hat and pulled out random things to write about. Nothing pertaining to Supergirl (or for that matter the New 52 in general) seemed thought out. Something that sort of annoyed me was Guy Gardner, he was unrecognizable in this. From his shaggy hair and goateed appearance to his calm and collected personality he's Gardner in name only.

I'm hoping volume #6 which is the final volume will redeem Supergirl in some capacity because this series has been hit or miss. So far volumes #1 and #4 have been the only ones I enjoyed reading.

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