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Sep 28, 2011 Web Exclusive By Mark Redfern

Writer Jeph Loeb and artist Michael Turner already nicely reintroduced Supergirl into the DC Universe back in 2004 in Superman/Batman #8. That really wasn’t that long ago, so it’s curious that with the New 52, Supergirl is one of the characters they’ve decided to start from scratch with again. Granted, unlike Batman and Green Lantern, Supergirl didn’t have an amazing recent continuity that was worthy of keeping. Supergirl’s 2005 to 2011 solo series got off to a strong start, thanks to the work of Loeb and artist Ian Churchill. But as it continued to switch up writers/artists, the series became less than inspired (despite some nice integration into the New Krypton saga). So from that standpoint, it makes sense to reboot the character. So far, however, her new reintroduction doesn’t compare well to what Loeb did with her. But this first issue also doesn’t really give you much to go on.

Supergirl crash lands in Siberia and a team of English speaking commandos in robotic suits intercept her. She’s confused, only speaks Kryptonese, doesn’t know how she got on Earth, and doesn’t even remember Krypton exploding. Supergirl panics and fights back, surprised and bemused as each of the new powers she didn’t have on Krypton manifest themselves. And that’s really all this issue is about, one long fight between a confused Supergirl and some soldiers, until the last page, when an expected guest star shows up.

Hopefully with issue #2 we’ll get to learn more about how Supergirl left Krypton and why she doesn’t remember anything, because this first issue doesn’t give us much to go on in terms of where writers Michael Green and Mike Johnson might take the story or how this will be any different/better than Supergirl’s last re-launch. The art by Mahmud Asrar is fine (he’s no Churchill or Turner), but I much preferred Supergirl’s last costume to the new one. (www.dccomics.com)

Author rating: 5/10