Monday, May 2, 2016

Adventures of Supergirl Chapter #8 Review and *SPOILERS*




Ain’t Gonna Dream No More

Written By: Sterling Gates
Art By: Carmen Carnero, Sandra Molina
Letters By: Saida Temofonte
Digital Price: $0.99
Release Date: May 2, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

The first season of CBS’s Supergirl is over, but that doesn’t mean you need to stop the saga! Sterling Gates has been delivering cumulative, entertaining stories over here in DC digital for the last few months, and it looks like we’re going to cruise right past the show and on…into infinity! I hope. I mean, it’s not like we’re going to get a clue from DC Comics. Sometimes I feel like I am privy to some secret club by reading these comics, like if Dan Didio finds out he’ll get pissed off and yell at me to buy some more variants of DKIII. I already bought six! I had to hide them between my mattress and box spring or my wife will kill me! I still have no idea how I’m going to tell her we’re not going to Aruba this year! That’s why I need Adventures of Supergirl, it’s a relief from all these other comic book pressures. I hope it enjoys a sustained run, and by that I mean I hope you chumps are buying these at a buck apiece. Not convinced? Then read on!


Explain It!:

Prologue at the Department of Extra-Normal Operations: Vril Dox, teenaged Braniac, is acting wacky.

So after the harried late night phone call Kara made to her sister Alex at the end of the last chapter, there’s only one recourse for the two siblings: spontaneous road trip! This one finds Alex driving Kara in a D.E.O. vehicle in the wee hours of the morn, in what I assume must be a freak rainstorm somewhere near the Mojave Desert. Kara bristles at being confined to a car, and I must admit, she does look pretty silly sitting in the passenger seat in her Supergirl costume. There, Kara brings Alex and the reader up to speed: she wants to visit the site where some of the debris from Kryptonian supermax prison Fort Rozz (which followed Kara Zor-El out of the Phantom Zone when she absconded, do try to keep up) landed, and may contain the essence of former Fort Rozz psychiatrist Psi, who now exists in an ethereal dream realm—that yes, looks somewhat like a Salvador Dali painting—and seeks vengeance for grievances against her buddy and one-time inmate Rampage, committed by Alex Danvers in her capacity as agent of the D.E.O. Got it? Kara does a good job of explaining what has come before, but seriously, if you have decided to jump on with this chapter, just get the previous chapters. They are good.


So Supergirl used her super dream powers to discern that remnants of Psi still exist, buried underground at one of the sites where Fort Rozz shed some bulk during its descent. Supergirl easily rips open a hatch door buried half in the dirt, and she and Alex enter only to be attacked by Kryptonian robots, yammering in Kryptonian. Alex and Kara hold their own for a moment, then Kara reprograms the robots using a, uh, Kryptonian reset code, and they explain they are there to protect…the future! We are all interested in the future, aren’t we? Because the future is where you and I will spend the rest of our lives. Supergirl uses her X-ray vision to spy a room of creepy stalker memorabilia about her life on Earth! That’s when Kara remembers Psi saying a name: Facet. And wouldn’t ya know it? The very next chapter is teased with the title Enter: Facet!


This is the first chapter of the series that I would say really requires an investment from the reader in what has come before. I bet you could follow along okay, due to Kara’s recap (and particularly if you were familiar with the television show), but we’re clearly coming to the culmination of everything Sterling Gates has written for the series thus far, so you should have some knowledge of it. No complaints about the art or plotting at all, but this issue is a little light on the action. There’s an economy of space going on in digital, you don’t always get a chapter that is just ass-kicking straight through. For the character moments, and thread woven through the previous seven chapters, I really enjoyed this brief return to my pals from National City.

Bits and Pieces:

The sisters Danvers engage on a quest for Psi and visit one of her old haunts, from before she went all ghost-like. Sterling Gates is writing fairly pitch-perfect versions of the characters from the CBS TV show, and if you're jonesin' for Supergirl since the first season ended last week, well you can spend a buck and get another taste. C'maan, one taste won't hurt. What are you, chicken? I'm gonna tell everyone that you're a little baby that won't take their Adventures of Supergirl digital comic because you're a poo-poo head. No you. No, you. I don't want to get into this anymore, I'm telling mom.

7.5/10

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