Supergirl #31 Fights Her Own War For Justice
by Tony Thornley
Supergirl #31 finds the Girl of Steel deep in the crossover with Superman, as the House of El try to dismantle the conspiracy that destroyed Krypton and killed billions. While Superman has his own goals, Kara has hers. What lengths will she go to accomplish them?
Marc Andreyko, Kevin Maguire, Eduardo Pansica, Sean Parsons, Eber Ferreira, FCO Plascencia, and Tom Napolitano put Kara face to face with the conspiracy that destroyed her home.
Supergirl joins Superman and Superboy to battle Rogol Zaar and his allies from the Phantom Zone. They battle them to a retreat, which gives the family a chance to reconnect as they take a breath from the battle they just faced. However, Kara has a mission of her own- to bring Empress Gandelo, Zaar’s main co-conspirator in Krypton’s destruction, to justice!
If that plot sounds similar to Superman #12, that’s because it is – it’s the exact same plot. However, Andreyko doesn’t use that to take short cuts. He tells the story entirely from Kara’s point of view, which means that we see events that didn’t happen in the companion issue, and the ones that did are colored by Kara’s perspective. It makes it feel like a wholly separate experience, which is exactly what it needed. It also advances Kara’s war against the Circle and Gandelo at the end of the issue, separating it entirely from Superman for the next chapter of the story.
The art is uniformly good through the issue but the change is jarring. Maguire and Parsons do a great job conveying Kara’s emotional turmoil before transitioning into a fantastic action splash. Pansica and Ferreira take over for the rest of the issue, giving us thrilling action throughout the rest of the story, with layouts that pull the readers into the middle of the action, while still selling Kara’s emotional stakes in the events of the issue. However, Maguire and Pansica’s style is so different that it pulls us out for a bit of the story.
Kara’s war is about to end. Will she find the justice that Krypton deserves?
Supergirl #31 is available now from DC Comics.
