Even Catwoman and Starfire Have the Decency to Cover Their Knees.
Completely rebooting its title character, Supergirl's first issue is a good one but suffers from how it honestly doesn't offer much substance. Readers once again revisit Kara Zor-El crashing on Earth and... that is it. The moment of her awakening on Earth is handled well, but that moment is unfortunately decompressed to comprise the entire first issue.
Given years of inconsistent writing, I can hardly blame DC for going back to scratch with Supergirl. There was very little history to the previous version worth preserving, and thankfully, DC does seem intent on at least preserving some of the attitude rather than turn her into just a young, female Superman. However, you wouldn't really know any of that from reader this issue. I gather that from the solicitations.
There's no other choice, because this issue gives very little feel for the character of Supergirl. She spends the entire issue in shock trying to figure out what is going on and remember how it happened. Michael Green and Mike Johnson do handle that all rather well, but there's really not much substance to it. All there is to really learn from it at all is that General Zod still exists in some fashion and her costume is some kind of Kryptonian suit she was meant to where when she graduated. That is very little to learn in a first issue.
The issue is spent with Supergirl in Siberia fighting soldiers in armored suits, sadly not Rocket Reds, who try to apprehend her upon landing. This goes on until the predictable person shows up at the end. This is the start of one of those trade-written stories Dan Didio claimed would not be happening anymore and took a cheap shot at Marvel about. Personally, I usually don't mind such stories at all so long as each issue still has enough substance to and is entertaining. This is has that latter but not the former..
Mahmud Asrar's art here is good. I particularly appreciated Supergirl's facial expressions throughout the issue. That is sometimes a detail that gets phoned in by artists. As for Supergirl's redesigned costumes, it is not one of the best but it's also not among the worst. It's one of the redesigns that falls in the middle of the range. Her previous look was the better one, though. I know some people criticized it for being skimpy, but really, it was just a spin on a cheerleader uniform and that reflected the character's youthfulness pretty well. This look doesn't really reflect anything about the character besides her connection to Superman. There are some weird elements to it, but that weirdness comes off as just kind of awkward rather than alien. It's pretty standard and unoffensive, though it could use some fine tuning. The red lower part of her costume looks weirdly more like a... clipped on flap... than briefs. And again, are knees supposed to be sexy now? Did I miss this trend?
Supergirl is good for what it is but isn't much. It spends the entire first issue dwelling on the moment of her arrival rather than moving into the real substance of this latest revamp of the character. Honestly, you could probably skip this issue entirely and jump on with the second without actually missing anything. That is not a great thing to say about a first issue, but then again, this isn't a great first issue.
