Spooky Little Nightmares — Reviewing ‘Supergirl’ #6

Even the most light and hopeful beings have to deal with the darker moments that plague or haunt them. Fighting through the ways that our own mind can pick out the worst moments, as if they somehow define an entire life.

Being a hero means these types of moments are frequent, and Supergirl #6 brings Kara Zor-El face to proverbial face with her own darker side. A hauntingly intriguing issue comes from Sophie Campbell, Rosi Kampe, Tamra Bonvillain, and Becca Carey.

Dream domains, or in this case nightmare domains, are a common situation in superhero comic books. That kind of thing tends to happen when you’re on call all the time saving lives or the world, bottling things up, and regularly battling Gods and foundational concepts of the universe given form.

Depicting those things is not that hard to do since an artist can just change the visuals while the colorist can shift the palette. It’s great seeing the same artist shift things in that way to differentiate the difference domains or aspects. Even greater is tapping a second artist to really allow spaces to be unique.

Campbell is the writer and usual artist for this series, but she always makes room for other artists in her works. After stepping in for the previous issue, Kampe returns to give a really different life to the nightmarish moments. Seeing their two styles shifting in and out of one another was really neat. Especially since they share some common stylistic DNA but are also very different in their own ways.

As with the last issue, a consistent rougher texture can be found under Kampe’s pen, adding a different sense of weight and depth to everything. This makes it feel hard and soft, but also a very pressing and distressing situation. The contrast it brings to the softer more whimsically exaggerated, similarly deep and weighty, artwork from Campbell is an inspired choice. Both really hit that kind of slight exaggeration to the artwork that grounds the characters and gives it that richer overall feeling.

These are panels that really remind us that these are fantastical comic book stories. They’re full of colorful characters of various designs, engaging in amazing things. Each panel just flows so smoothly as they brim with energy.

Also rich are the color tones Bonvillain brings to each page and art style. She really pulls all the vibrant possibilities to the forefront in the same vein as mentioned above. That’s all in the name of really showcasing the vast boldness possible in the medium and genre. This adds plenty of harder or darker colors as needed for contrast and fleshing out across realms and pages, peppering in more of that sweet aforementioned weightiness.

Finding a way to really reach across the breadth of DC Comics history without really weighing things down is tough. Continuity when used best is like a guide more than an anchor, but too often it becomes that in a lot of cases. Campbell wields the canon of this universe like a master, finding ways to weave in a variety of events from across the eras of DC with ease. She really leans into the current idea of Hypertime where anything that ever happened with a character, no matter when it happened in our world, has happened.

From moments of the first Crisis to Silver age to New 52 and everything in between. It’s all up for grabs and we see it play out in Kara’s nightmares. All the moments that things have been tough, she lost someone, or she even died.

I love how much Campbell makes this book feel classic but totally truly modern at the same time. Just good kind of one-off stories with subplots that carry over. Great depth, character moments, and a supporting cast. Damn, I sure have missed great supporting casts in comic books. Especially since so many of the iconic superhero characters we all love excelled because they had such strong compelling supporting characters.

All the whimsy and fun don’t stop with the plot or the main visuals. No, Carey is always there to carry the emotions of the world right into the words with a visual flurry. Swirls of colors and shifting fonts come into play. All in service of wringing the most energy out of any given words. Delivering a uniqueness that the dialogue benefits from time and time again. So that characters have their own little flair at times, sparking that fun that can be baked into comic books when prepared right.

Supergirl #6 is now available from DC Comics.