Supergirl #32 – Review

By: Tony Bedard (writer), Emanuela Lupacchino (penciller), Ray McCarthy (inker), Hi-Fi (colorist)

The Story: Worldkiller-I takes a particularly literal interpretation of the phrase “you can’t go home again.”

The Review: Between this issue and its predecessor, it’s becoming clear that Supergirl is not the primary title in the “Red Daughter of Krypton” crossover. In fact, if the two separate notes leading to issues of Action Comics are to be trusted, it’s possible that Supergirl isn’t even the primary title in Supergirl! Nonetheless, Tony Bedard does his best to continue his tale of a young girl seeking somewhere she belongs.

Thematically it comes together very well. While the Red Lantern Corps have been very kind to Kara, one of the dangers of adolescence is becoming dependant on the acceptance of others rather than being empowered by it. This theme of getting caught up in a comfortable dogma or in someone else’s crusade shows up throughout the issue and works quite well.

With this in mind, it makes perfect sense to pit Supergirl against Worldkiller-I, another Kryptonian survivor who treats the loss of a homeworld as a chance to become strong, and his Diasporans. Kara is caught between her nostalgic past, one that’s actively attacked by her father’s Worldkiller experiments, and the comforting, metatextual assurance that it’s a good thing that Krypton exploded. She needs to make her own path and not get caught in the wake of someone else’s mission, which is exactly what Worldkiller-I is threatening.

There are some nice moments of levity throughout the script and a satisfying twist ending that makes sense of the hints Bedard has laid and calls back to the fears of Kara being the final Worldkiller. Despite this, however, there is a lot of time spent dealing with the fallout of Red Lanterns and playing catch-up for any recent adopters. After that there’s really just one big fight and, for all that fight’s thematic resonance, it’s not immediate enough to get the blood pumping the way the series’ best have. Perhaps it’s the somewhat expository nature of Kara’s inner monologue that separates this from successes like the Silver Banshee fight.

Despite the absence of assisting pencillers on this issue, Emanuela Lupacchino’s artwork doesn’t look as distinctively hers as it has in previous books. Lupacchino’s normally flat, expressive style, seems caught between two and three dimensions at times. I would guess that it’s a coloring problem, but it’s the same colorist as in previous issues so I don’t know why it turned out this way.