Mariko Tamaki teams up with artist Joelle Jones to retell the familiar backstory of Kara Danvers AKA Supergirl. Now, you can’t reinvent the wheel but you can make it more fun and give it a good polish and that’s exactly what the team of Tamaki and Jones did with Supergirl: Being Super.
This rendition of the origin of Supergirl focuses on the fact that Kara is first and foremost a teenage girl with all of the entrapments of a normal teenager: parents, friends, high school pressure, and crippling anxiety about fitting in. Kara’s anxiety may be more heightened due to her literally being an alien with superpowers, but the idea of her struggling the same way any normal girl does makes this a much more grounded and relatable version of her origin than most.
The true heart of the story comes in the middle of the book where Kara deals with the traumatic loss of a friend. Joelle Jones really shines in these chapters as there are fewer words used and the grief, confusion, and anger is perfectly portrayed through Jones’ drawings.
My only complaint about the series is that it was far too short. I would have liked to see the story be more fleshed out so that we could spend more time with Kara as she navigates high school with her friends. Further, the villain is introduced near the end so we don’t get much in the way of the traditional superhero saving the day theatrics. This run could have used a couple more issues to make an impact on the storyline and character development.
I enjoyed this rendition of Supergirl because she wasn’t the one dimensional bubbly blonde of past stories. This Kara feels like a realistic female teenage superhero and I hope to see more female leads like this in the future.
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