Secret Origins #9 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Charles Soule, Paul Levitz, Van Jensen
Art By: Alessandro Vitti, Felipe Sobreiro, Alisson Borges, Matt Yackey, Pat Broderick, Marcelo Maiolo
Cover Price: $4.99
Release Date: January 28, 2015

Now Remember To Keep This A Secret

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Man, I'm super late on this review and really, I almost forgot all about it until #10 came out and I realized that I didn't remember doing this one.  You all know the score by now, we've got this book here and it features three characters from DC Comics and it says it's going to tell us a "secret origin" about each individual character, like this one has Swamp Thing, Power Girl and John Stewart but you and me both know it ain't going to be a secret........... or maybe it is, shit happens some times.  Either way, buckle up as we jump into a bunch of stuff we probably already know.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

I always find the "Explain It!" sections to these "Secret Origins" a pain to write because while you'd expect a simple origin tale........... If you haven't read these before, this title has a tendency to go over the entire history of the character and that's exactly what Swamp Thing does.  The Swamp Thing tale consists of Gaurav, the Sureen accounting the life and times of the Avatars of the Green and the time he's spent with the current Avatar: Alec Holland.  Like I said, the main bit to this story is catching everyone up on what's gone down in Swamp Thing in case you decided not to read it but in the end we see that Gaurav doesn't only consider Alec Holland the Green's greatest warrior but the most human and even though I'm usually against stories repeating, this last part was actually a nice little moment.

Next we move on to Power Girl.  With this segment, we have more of the usual as the story goes through all of Karen's history but the only difference here is, we haven't really gotten a lot of information about Power Girl on Earth-2 pre Apokolips War.  Yeah, it's the whole story where she comes down to Earth after Superman had already grown up, but on this Earth she arrived as a young girl and was raised by Ma and Pa Kent and when she came of age, Clark moved her to a secret tropical installation where he trained her to become Supergirl and hopefully the secret weapon in the war he feared was coming.  This whole beginning part of the story was nice because it was.......... Well, different from what we've seen in the Worlds' Finest series but then it hits the line and starts repeating things we've already seen.  Luckily though we're saved from monotony by the story ending and us finding out that the story is being narrated by Power Girl from a letter she wrote to Tanya Spears and we finally find out how the young hero acquired Karen's powers after she went back home.  It seems that she had always intended on leaving Tanya these powers and actually used a machine that Superman on Earth-2 had designed to try and give Lois powers but she wasn't willing to be a guinea pig, so it never happened.  This is actually a story I can get behind because while it's not the "Secret Origin" of Karen Starr, it is the secret origin of Tanya Spears and that's something I've been wanting for a long time.

Finally, we come to our last story and the New 52 origin of John Stewart.  Here we see that the Guardians watched John through his protest days with his mother to his Marine days in the military where he eventually was given a honorable discharge even after disobeying orders and threatening a superior officer.  It was during these days that the Guardians realized that even though this man sought peace, he was willing to fight and when he eventually became an architect and was working for Ferris Aircraft, a Manhunter came to Earth seeking out the Green Lantern.  After the robot threatened to kill Carol Ferris, John jumped into action and was granted a Green Lantern ring to take on the robot and get inducted into the Green Lantern Corps.  We find out in the end that even though the Guardians are worried about John's willingness to question authority, they believe that he might one day become one of their brightest lights.................. just so long as he doesn't discover that the Guardians sent the Manhunter to Earth to test him.......... Lousy little blue assholes.

That's it for this issue of Secret Origins and while I'm normally underwhelmed from what this book has to offer, this month around it was a little less lackluster than usual and it's solely because we finally got Tanya Spears' origin story.  Yeah, that's not much but it's more than I expected and it was told with the best art that this book had to offer.  This is always a weird book for me to review because I already know the material for the most part and it should really just be a refresher for someone if they haven't been keeping up on a series and want to get to know what's going on with a individual character that this series has chosen to feature each month.  So yeah, if you like the character and want some info get it, but for a regular reader, it's a little bit pointless.  Besides for the Power Girl section, I found the art in this book really muddy and wasn't something that I could fully get into........ especially the John Stewart section.

Bits and Pieces:

While I still find reading this book a bit tedious and pointless at times, this issue actually has something to offer in finally giving us the origin of Tanya Spears and even if that sounds like a small morsel, it was really appreciated.  It's the whole Power Girl section from it's story to it's art that was the high point of this book and in my opinion, the only reason to buy it.

5/10