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astraeasversion's review against another edition
4.0
i always liked the idea of her getting a tattoo. idk why.
ageorges's review against another edition
2.0
A sloppy incoherent mess. The parts i could follow did not make like the protagonist. Supergirl came off a whiny, self obsessed brat who destroys everything around her.
howattp's review against another edition
2.0
This was a pretty disjointed and erratic story. It starts out with an interesting retrospective for Power Girl and then just blows up like nobody's business. It just didn't work for me.
There are some interesting parts, and the art was fantastic in some places; however, that didn't save it for me.
There are some interesting parts, and the art was fantastic in some places; however, that didn't save it for me.
jilldragomir's review
3.0
I like this..but, i didn't understand who in the name of god did we even got there? was that really Kal? a copy? uhg just confusing.
dr_matthew_lloyd's review
2.0
This was part of a mini-re-read of my Supergirl comics when I happened to be at home where they were.
I understand that the re-introduction of Supergirl to the DCU was part of the build up to the coming crises (Infinite and Final). But having just begun a new series, it seems very strange to have the second trade paperback volume of that series be a jumble of different stories from different sequences - several incomplete - which happen to relate to Kara Zor-El and Karen Starr. It's fair to say that, in re-introducing Kara, there were questions of identity surrounding Karen, never fully elaborated in the Supergirl comics I've read. And it's true that the two of them needed to team up for a while to sort out their differences (or exacerbate them, whatever ). But this collection doesn't really seem to explore either of them as fully-functioning characters for at least the first half.
Superman looms large over precedings, again. He's teaching Kara to be Supergirl, which means he hasn't had time for poor old Power Girl. Then, when Kara decides to join Donna Troy in battling evil in space or something, she feels she needs to ask his permission. Finally, when Kara and Karen find themselves in the bottle city of Kandor, the obsession with Superman which has been forced upon Kara by everyone else in the universe finds its expression in fighting and ultimately agreeing to marry Ultraman disguised as him.
The first problem is that the quality of writing is just quite poor in some of the earlier segments. Perhaps the most abonimable, vomit-inducing example comes in the Superman segment, when Kara says: "You and I share a gift half the human race will never know ... Life. We can actually make it. I might be only sixteen, but that much I understand." One might be able to read this, in her next statments, as simply an amateurish way of reaching out to another woman whom she happens to be fighting which naturally fails, because it's bollocks. But it's far easier to read it as a hack male writer, unable to fully comprehend that women are fully rounded human being too, trying to essentialise their existence to the fact that some of them choose to shoot out babies. Besides the rather pathetic storylines on show, it's the inability to characterise Kara beyond WOMAN (or rather, [super]GIRL) that's most offensive about this volume.
And then... Karen wakes up in Kandor, with Kara.
We're given no explanation about how they got there, and don't really need one - it's the aftermath of the crisis! My main problem was lacking context for Argo City and the histories of Nightwing and Flamebird, but largely it functions: opressed bottle city; ruler masquerading as Kal-El from Krypton; aliens and violence and resistance. It works pretty well, completely without context. More importantly, it further develops Kara's confusion, absent in the pre-Kandor sections of the collection, about why she was sent after her cousin and what she should be doing. It complicates their relationship as well as Kara's relationship with Karen, setting up the subsequent development of her character. The final part, when a depressed Kara is sharing her woes with Boomer, is perhaps the best one. It begins to develop relationships between Kara and characters who aren't Superman, the most interesting being Cassie Sandsmark AKA Wonder Girl, giving Kara something almost resembling the female friendship network which was part of what made Buffy the Vampire Slayer great. It might not quite get there, but it's a start.
There are troubles throughout: a lot of female flesh is on display in the art, despite the fact (as we are repeatedly told) Kara is only sixteen (although I guess seventeen "One Year Later", despite the fact that no-one seems to notice that) and thus "not legal". The male power fantasy body of Ultraman, on display in a couple of instances, does not serve to balance this out. I mind less about the bare midriff in the last part, "Big Girl Small World", as this is presented as clothing Kara has chosen to wear - rather than the costume Superman provided for her. While I like the relationship between Boomer and Kara, especially as it develops in the next volume, some of the things he says just don't fit into a comic which you'd think would at least try to appeal to girls.
The final word is that Candor, essentially, is rubbish saved only by its final parts. Where Kara Zor-El's story goes next, however, is much better.
I understand that the re-introduction of Supergirl to the DCU was part of the build up to the coming crises (Infinite and Final). But having just begun a new series, it seems very strange to have the second trade paperback volume of that series be a jumble of different stories from different sequences - several incomplete - which happen to relate to Kara Zor-El and Karen Starr. It's fair to say that, in re-introducing Kara, there were questions of identity surrounding Karen, never fully elaborated in the Supergirl comics I've read. And it's true that the two of them needed to team up for a while to sort out their differences (
Superman looms large over precedings, again. He's teaching Kara to be Supergirl, which means he hasn't had time for poor old Power Girl. Then, when Kara decides to join Donna Troy in battling evil in space or something, she feels she needs to ask his permission. Finally, when Kara and Karen find themselves in the bottle city of Kandor, the obsession with Superman which has been forced upon Kara by everyone else in the universe finds its expression in fighting and ultimately agreeing to marry Ultraman disguised as him.
The first problem is that the quality of writing is just quite poor in some of the earlier segments. Perhaps the most abonimable, vomit-inducing example comes in the Superman segment, when Kara says: "You and I share a gift half the human race will never know ... Life. We can actually make it. I might be only sixteen, but that much I understand." One might be able to read this, in her next statments, as simply an amateurish way of reaching out to another woman whom she happens to be fighting which naturally fails, because it's bollocks. But it's far easier to read it as a hack male writer, unable to fully comprehend that women are fully rounded human being too, trying to essentialise their existence to the fact that some of them choose to shoot out babies. Besides the rather pathetic storylines on show, it's the inability to characterise Kara beyond WOMAN (or rather, [super]GIRL) that's most offensive about this volume.
And then... Karen wakes up in Kandor, with Kara.
We're given no explanation about how they got there, and don't really need one - it's the aftermath of the crisis! My main problem was lacking context for Argo City and the histories of Nightwing and Flamebird, but largely it functions: opressed bottle city; ruler masquerading as Kal-El from Krypton; aliens and violence and resistance. It works pretty well, completely without context. More importantly, it further develops Kara's confusion, absent in the pre-Kandor sections of the collection, about why she was sent after her cousin and what she should be doing. It complicates their relationship as well as Kara's relationship with Karen, setting up the subsequent development of her character. The final part, when a depressed Kara is sharing her woes with Boomer, is perhaps the best one. It begins to develop relationships between Kara and characters who aren't Superman, the most interesting being Cassie Sandsmark AKA Wonder Girl, giving Kara something almost resembling the female friendship network which was part of what made Buffy the Vampire Slayer great. It might not quite get there, but it's a start.
There are troubles throughout: a lot of female flesh is on display in the art, despite the fact (as we are repeatedly told) Kara is only sixteen (although I guess seventeen "One Year Later", despite the fact that no-one seems to notice that) and thus "not legal". The male power fantasy body of Ultraman, on display in a couple of instances, does not serve to balance this out. I mind less about the bare midriff in the last part, "Big Girl Small World", as this is presented as clothing Kara has chosen to wear - rather than the costume Superman provided for her. While I like the relationship between Boomer and Kara, especially as it develops in the next volume, some of the things he says just don't fit into a comic which you'd think would at least try to appeal to girls.
The final word is that Candor, essentially, is rubbish saved only by its final parts. Where Kara Zor-El's story goes next, however, is much better.
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