Note: This picture is from #1 of the monthly series, but I believe that the trade will have the same artwork.
Writer: Landry Q. Walker
Art: Eric Jones
Publisher: DC Comics
What's it about?
Simply put, this is a retelling of the Supergirl story. It's aimed at younger readers but has been loved by many adults too.
Twelve year old Kara Zor-El crash lands in Metropolis, thwarting Lex Luthor's evil plans and meeting bumping into Superman at the same time. Upon discovering little Kara is his cousin, Superman enrols her in Stanhope boarding school and gives her the secret identity of Linda Lee. She must learn about earth ways, make friends and navigate her way through the eighth grade.
Along the way she encounters evil doppelgangers, duplicitous best friends, super intelligent feral cats, time travel, flying horses, meteor induced superpowers and the possible end of the world.
What's good about it?
This book is an absolute riot. It received near unanimous praise when released in the monthly format, and it's easy to see why. There's expressive art, sarcasm and dry wit, plenty of laugh out loud jokes, commentary on the human condition and well developed and well thought out characters. Eric Jones even draws the schoolkids as being from a variety of ethnicities! This is all wrapped up in an imaginative and creative package that melds together all sorts of incidents from the Supergirl mythos, in a way that makes it seem fresh and accessible to anyone! This book is a gem.
What's bad about it?
Nothing. There is nothing to criticise about this at all. It's pretty damn near perfect.
What's the art like?
Cute, expressive, with superhero chins for the men and the best kittys outside of Amanda Connor's sterling work:
Scans gratefully stolen from Supergirl Comic Box Commentary, an excellent site for all things Supergirl.
Other information:
ISBN: 1401225063
Potentially on sale 23rd December 2009. Highly recommended as a Christmas present!
This looks like a great book, and I'll definitely keep an eye out for it.
ReplyDeleteI think the aims of this blog are excellent, but have you also considered covering first issues of comics that haven't yet been collected into trade books? That would encourage people to go into their local comic book store too - the only way that stores will stop being exclusively the territory of white men is if more people who don't fit into that category start frequenting them!
I lurved this series and bought every issue (backw hen I had money >_>) when it came out and it is greats :D esp the way they handle the two LLs (dun wanna give too much away) and that villains aren't necessarily evil evil evil :] (since you know me, you prolly get what I mean when I say that I've always felt this is a very "me" sort of book the way it handles heroism and evil villainy :] )
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