Comics / Comic Reviews / DC Comics

Supergirl #51

By Andy Frisk
March 18, 2010 - 21:03

Supergirl and Mon-El battle their way through Brainiac’s probe bots as a team, but they’re the only super powered beings attempting to do so. New Krypton’s many varied Guild members stick with their own, and therefore the New Kryptonians, as a whole, can’t seem to muster a unified counterattack. When Tellus, the telepathic member of the Legion group sent to liberate Brainiac’s other collected bottle cities, alerts Mon-El to Superman’s plight onboard Brainiac’s ship (and how to sneak into the ship), the pair splits up. Mon-El is off to help Superman and Kara is off to find out what The Legion is doing on New Krypton as Zod’s prisoners…

“The Last Stand of New Krypton Part 2: Leaders” picks up when Superman: LSONK #1 left off. New Krypton is under full assault by Brainiac’s bots and the Kryptonians can’t seem to organize a coordinated response. Zod is too busy playing power games, and The Guild members stick together, failing to recognize their common plight and need to cross Guild lines and work together. The tension between the need to work together, Zod’s machinations, and the misunderstanding between Kara, Kon-El (Superboy), and Alura really punctuates the need for a leader as the title suggests. Mon-El suggests that Kara should rally the planet. Kara in turn suggests to her mother that since she is the Council leader, she should rally the New Kryptonians, but it’s painfully obvious that it’s going to take someone of the stature of Superman to unify the planet. Kara pounds on Kon/Superboy nearly as harshly as she pounds on Brainiac’s bots. With Superman at Brainiac’s mercy, things look pretty bleak.

Jamal Igle really delivers with this issue. He does a great job taking on the chores of drawing not only Kara, but Superboy, Mon-El, Alura, and tons of Brainiac bots. He brings the same detail and great sense of emotional distress, anger, concern, and joy to the faces of his characters. It still is astounding how the many great artists who work on the Superman Family of books (of which Igle is undeniably one of the best) manage to recreate an incredibly consistent vision of New Kryptonian tech and architecture from book to book.

New Krypton is in grave danger, but it’s also in great hands artistically. Gates and Igle continue to steer Supergirl in the right direction. There has rarely been a better time to have followed Superman’s exploits, but there never has been a better time to follow his younger cousin’s than now. 

Rating: 8.5 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12