Supergirl Annual #2 // Review
Kara relives her final moments on Krypton. Memories of the past may be trapped in a strange present in the second Supergirl annual of the current series. Guest writer Robert Venditti fuses time periods in a special one-shot story drawn by Laura Braga with colors by Chris Sotomayor. The story delivers a look at Kara’s life as a Kryptonian that isn’t nearly as interesting or original as it needs to be to provide the kind of psychological insight that it seems to be going for. A look at life on Krypton is somewhat interesting, but the issue feels a bit uneventful overall.
Kara Zor-El has a big game in Kryptonopolis. She and the rest of her team from Argo City are up against a team from Kryptonopolis. In the youth Continental Championship of a game that looks a lot like a Kryptonian version of hockey. A star player from the Kryptonopolis team is a boy that she’s deeply attracted to: Rix. The catch? He’s a Zod...a boy from a family that is sworn enemies with her own. She’s going to have a little time alone with him anyway. Before she has a chance to get intimate with him and maybe even get that first kiss, she’s going to have to deal with babysitting her baby cousin Kal. Then there’s the small matter of total impending doom on the planet...and there are strange visions of something else...something darker...
Venditti tells an enjoyable story of Kara right before the destruction of Krypton. The life of Kara before the explosive death of her home world feels cozy enough. Her life as a sports star makes sense for someone who goes on to the very physical experience of a superhero on another planet with strength bolstered by Earth’s sun. It’s cute to see her babysitting a very young Superman. It’s all really, really fun. But seeing her life before Earth doesn’t provide any deeper understanding of who Kara is as a person. All of the details of Kara’s life feel a bit too closely tied to her life as Supergirl to add any new understanding of Kara’s psyche. It’s a fun look back, but far more could have been done with this unique peer into Kara’s memories.
Braga’s art has a pleasantly social feel about it. The action in the story present as it is in the Kryptonopolis game at the beginning of the issue doesn’t exactly feel all that interesting. From a dramatic angle, the passions and anxieties of a teen Supergirl feel vivid enough to engage the reader emotionally. The darker end of the story that begins to assert itself towards the end of the issue doesn’t feel strong enough, though.
It’s a fun novelty to see Kara before the tragedy that would come to define her life on Earth. The menace of the reality of what’s going on isn’t nearly as strong as it should be to deliver the darkness that launches this issue into the next chapters in the life of Supergirl. There’s so much more that could have been delivered in a look back at Kara’s earlier life.
