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Mild Mannered Reviews - Supergirl Comics

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #20

Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #20

Scheduled to arrive in stores: July 19, 2006

Cover date: September 2006

Writer: Mark Waid & Tony Bedard
Penciller: Barry Kitson & Adam DeKraker
Inker: Mick Gray

Reviewed by: Jeffrey Bridges

Click to enlarge



The book opens with the unveiling of the new government-funded Legion headquarters, which sports a big "Sponsored by the United Planets!" logo. This causes some unrest in the young fans camped outside the building, which only grows when the U.P. shows a "promotional film" for the Legion which advises that "real rebels embrace authority!"

A team of Legion members crash into the U.P. HQ and level accusations at the people there, until it's revealed that they did nothing wrong and that approval for public relations campaigns was covered in the document that officially made the Legion part of the U.P., which Lightning Lad signed without bothering to read. There's suddenly attacks all around the world by giants from Big City, Colossal Boy's home. Teams of Legion members are sent to stop them, but before any of them can get to the task at hand Supergirl swoops in to save the day.

Incidentally, it's revealed that Big City, which is in Antarctica, which is now near the equator due to a shifting of earth's polar axis several hundred years ago. Australia is now the South Pole (hey Steve, get a warm coat for the future!). Then, two hundred years ago, Bizarro-Brainiac attacked McMurdo City and thought, since the original Brainiac shrunk Kandor, he'd take McMurdo City and enlarge it. Hence a city of giants.

Okay, I admit it, I now REALLY want to see Bizarro-Brainiac someday.

And now the fictional future-history lesson is over. You'll be quizzed on it tomorrow. Extra credit to anyone who can figure out why the "Supergirl" book is always late. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

No?

Back to the review.

Colossal Boy tries to find out why his fellow giants went "Crazy", attacking and trying to steal seemingly arbitrary things from around the globe. One almost lets slip something about the torch getting passed from the Legion to... well, he's roughed up by another of the giant criminals before he can finish.

Cosmic Boy is upset about Supergirl showing up to save the day at all of the giant attacks, especially since he didn't send her on any of those missions. When asked why he doesn't send her, especially where a lot of power is needed, he hems and haws until it comes out that she makes him uncomfortable, and it's because he thinks he might be in love with her.

While all of this was going on, Brainiac 5, Light Lass, Element Lad and Atom Girl are aboard a ship created by one of Brainiac's ancestors. Brainy explains that the force field he placed around Dream Girl immediately when she died has preserved all of her "information", and he's done the same with the body of Praetor Lemnos, who had the power to gather and move information. With Atom Girl's help, Brainy rewired Lemnos's brain to concentrate all of the information on Dream Girl, which he preserved with her corpse.

Brainy then plans to take that information and, combined with power from the pulsar that their ship is near, use it to deconstruct Dream Girl and then remake her from scratch, as if she'd never died.

4Story - 4: The story is absolutely back on track from last issue, although some of the flow seemed to get mucked up here and there. I don't know if this is from the addition of Tony Bedard, or exactly what input he had on the issue, but in a few places it felt a little off, especially some of the dialogue.

Story-wise we're right back into it and it's as good as it's ever been.

4Art - 4: There were a couple of other artists besides Kitson on this issue, though I'm not sure the book suffered for it. The reason I knocked it down from a 5 to a 4 is because some of the poses seemed odd or just entirely goofy, and I've not noticed that before. I don't know if that was Kitson or someone else, but either way I found it a little distracting at times. On the whole, though, very little to complain about.

4Cover Art - 4: I love Supergirl on this cover. I think it's one of the best shots of her that's been done by any artist since she's come back, even if she is staring up over her head at the impending doom of a giant foot.

It takes a few liberties with the story, but it's a great action shot and even if the rest of the cover was just blank white space, I'd still give it a 4 just for how good Kara looks.


Mild Mannered Reviews

2006

Note: Month dates are from the issue covers, not the actual date when the comic went on sale.

January 2006

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