Comic Vine Review

64 Comments

Supergirl #106 - Red Faced

4

General Lane comes to town and Supergirl has to fight Red Tornado.

Note: there will be spoilers below!

No Caption Provided

Recap

Supergirl stops some road rage that almost ends with a group of kids getting run over. One of the driver gets mad at her. She almost loses it while the kids watch (and film her reaction on their phones, of course). Hank Henshaw chews her out at the D.E.O. base and Max Lord slams her on TV as well.

Lucy tells James her dad wants to have dinner with them. James later tells Kara her dad doesn't like him since he associates with aliens. Speaking of parents, Cat's mom visits her at the office. As an editor, she's on a book tour. Cat mentions her son would live to see her but she says she won't have time. She brings up the "Shouldn't she be called Superwoman?" bit making it clear she couldn't be bothered to read Cat's article on her.

No Caption Provided

Alex talks to Winn about breaking into the D.E.O.'s servers to try to find out about her dad. Since he admittedly has dad issues, he agrees to help. Kara and Alex are called to the D.E.O. base camp where General Sam Lane asks for Supergirl to be transferred to his unit. They've been working on a weapon and want her to help test it. Lucy comes with a court order from the President saying she has to help. The weapon is the robot, Red Tornado.

James and Lucy do really well during game night since they know each other so well. Things are pretty awkward. She also mentions meeting Supergirl and not being impressed. This gives Kara the desire to really fight something (the robot). She gets knocked back but soon gets the upper hand. When told to stand down, she keeps punching the robot. It goes into self-preservation mode and leaves. They can't track it since it's also in stealth mode. The robot's creator, T.O. Morrow, gets fired since it's been unleashed on National City.

No Caption Provided

The next day Cat is still upset her mom canceled on their dinner plans to go to another event. She yells at Kara until she finally snaps back at Cat. She realizes what she's doing and apologizes. Cat says they're going somewhere. She takes Kara out for a drink. She talks to her about getting angry at work. She says she can't get angry, especially because she's a girl. She says you have to find a different release. If a woman shows anger, it's different than if a man gets angry. She recounts a story where Perry White actually threw a chair out a window (that wasn't open). You have to find out why you're really mad.

Alex takes Red Tornado's arm to Lord. She says she needs his help finding it since it went rogue. Because he doesn't trust the government, she figures he'd want to help but he refuses.

At dinner, things are tense between James and General Lane. Lane tells James it's not that he talks to aliens he doesn't want him with Lucy, it's because he's not good enough for her. He says he's nothing special. Afterwards, Red Tornado shows up and attacks. Lucy is hurt but Supergirl arrives before he can hit the General. A mini tornado is unleashed and Supergirl stops it while Red Tornado flies away.

Lane tries placing the blame on Supergirl for letting it get away. Henshaw gets in his face. Red Tornado is lined with lead. He figures Lane wanted to use it against her and her cousin.

No Caption Provided

Kara realizes she's mad because she can't have a normal life. Alex calls and tells her Morrow is still controlling Red Tornado. He's trying to get revenge against Lane. Supergirl will keep Red Tornado busy as Alex tracks down Morrow. Red Tornado is being controlled by Morrow's thoughts. Both are fighting and Morrow ends up getting shot. Red Tornado is still operating on it's own. It's become sentient. She uses her anger to blast it with all she has.

Lucy tells her dad she resigned her commission. She wants to stay with James. He's obviously not happy with the "terrible mistake" she's made.

Winn tells Alex what he found. There was a file on her dad. Her father and another agent were both presumed dead. A month later the other agent showed up without a scratch. It was Hank. He deleted the files and is the last one to see her father alive.

At Cat's office, her mom yells at Kara for not calling a car for her to go to the airport. Cat comes to her defense saying she is not allowed to yell at her assistant who is good at her job. She leaves for the ladies room and Cat takes some aspirin. Her glass breaks and Kara starts picking up the pieces. To her surprise, she cut herself and is bleeding.

No Caption Provided

Thoughts

This episode was a huge improvement over last week's. We're also back on track after the last two episodes were flipped around. It's cool to see familiar characters from the comics like General Lane, Red Tornado, and T.O. Morrow appear. Lane was portrayed well and Kara's fight when Red Tornado was being tested was done well.

No Caption Provided

I still think Red Tornado looks a little silly. It actually works for the show to some extent. Morrow may be a brilliant scientist that's able to create Red Tornado but maybe it'd be too much if it looked too perfect. It was odd when he lost his arm but had both when he attacked the Lanes after their dinner with James. I guess it must have some self-repair setting as well, right?

A big complaint is how the show keeps driving home the point about girls and women having to stand up for themselves. As a father to a daughter, it's a good message but can get to be a bit much. Recent episodes have toned it back a little but Cat talking to her mom about Supergirl and then her conversation with Kara about getting mad focused too much on the topic. There is truth to what Cat was saying. Men can get mad without many repercussions but if a woman does, it's blown out of proportion. The show really needs to find the right balance in this.

Kara dealing with her anger was a handled nicely. It is a good reminder that she's not just a girl. We've seen it mentioned in the comics that she is more powerful than Superman before and it's good to see her unleash that rage. Again, Melissa Benoist is doing a great job handling the different aspects of Supergirl's life and personality.

I was impressed with how well Morrow could fight against a highly trained D.E.O. agent. Obviously it felt like too much as well. It's too bad he died but who knows what'll happen next. Henshaw's connection to the death of Alex's father was a little predictable. We know her dad probably survived as well and will show up later. It's almost funny how Henshaw keeps walking off camera towards the end of an episode with his eyes glowing red. You'd think someone at the D.E.O. might actually see it sometime.

The show has set things up for Kara to experience a little bit of a normal life since it seems unleashing her heat vision in full force may have temporarily drained her powers. Hopefully it won't cause problems next week.