Supergirl # 43 - Guilding Day

 Issue #43 of Supergirl is, at its core, a transition issue. Writer Sterling Gates needed it to bring Supergirl's Planet of New Krypton stories to a conclusion while also setting up his next batch of Supergirl stories for the Codename: Patriot crossover. It's also a story set to transition Supergirl from life on Earth to life on New Krypton. The format Gates chose to perform these transitions was a letter that Supergirl wrote to her recently murdered father, Zor-El. There's nothing new about using a letter to a dead relative to tell a story, but Gates succeeds relatively well in the execution of his letter. This is probably due to the strong mother-daughter dynamics he set at the center of this story. You get to see a very tender, vulnerable side to Kara as she writes to her dead father about the distance growing between her and her mother (like the distance between most teenage girls and their mothers). The Kara-Alura relationship feels believable and lead to a logical conclusion at the issue's end. Unfortunately, we had to go through the process of watching Kara choose her Kryptonian guild in this issue so soon after watching Superman go through nearly the same process in Planet of New Krypton. I feel like we just went over the same information we've been fed about the Krypton Guilds since the New Krypton story began (and I for one didn't need a refresher). So that felt old and it was also hard not to feel like Gates fell into some of the same, old melodramatic clichés that one is bound to fall into when utilizing a teen girl letter to a dead father. But, like I said, he told his story well, so some of this can be forgiven. Jamal Igle's artwork made Kara resemble an actual teenage girl which definitely fit the story, and I never felt he rushed the job (though he never quite dazzled me either). All in all I felt like this was a solid 3: A well done, yet run-of-the-mill effort.