Supergirl: Survive #1 Review
“Doomed Planet. Desperate Scientists. Last Hope. Kindly Couple.” – is there a superhero origin so succinctly summarised as that? Even with hundreds of takes on the origin across adaptations, elseworlds, and reboots that will always remain largely unchanged. In Supergirl: Survive, by Ethan S. Parker, Griffin Sheridan, and Rod Reis, the twist is on those last two as we explore an obvious, but by my knowledge largely unexplored take on the Super-cousins origin, “What if they travelled together?”. The issue opens on a simple declaration as Kara meets her newborn baby cousin for the first time as she holds him close and whispers, “I will protect you with my life”.
The differences between Supergirl: Survives’ Krypton and your run-of-the-mill classic Krypton don’t start with the origin however, as we spend most of the first issue exploring an alternate Krypton that serves as a close mirror to modern day America. We see Kara in high school, making plans to ask a boy she likes to the Equinox Formal, and she hides under her desk for an Atom Attack drill. It makes Kara’s life seem painfully mundane, and while it serves to emphasise the “everyman/girl” aspect of Kara, it doesn’t exactly make for the most thrilling read, especially with how US-centric the high school experience is shown to be.
Simmering underneath the main plot of Supergirl: Survive is a political plot seemingly at the heart of the fall of Krypton, as an older Zod serves as a clear parallel to the many nationalist leaders of our modern era, spouting vague rhetoric about protecting families and Kryptonian values. There are off-hand comments to the murder of protestors, declared by the media as terrorists. Vague comments are made about citizenship issues. And that’s the issue, it’s all very vague. Krypton’s fall has often been used as a metaphor for climate change, and I have no issue extending that to other modern issues, but the parallels are all so vague that if the book is trying to say something, it’s very unclear what. This extends to the relationship between Jor-El and Zor-El, Superman and Supergirl’s fathers, who are implied to have stopped talking because of Kryptonian politics, which is introduced as quickly as it’s tossed aside for the necessary “desperate scientists”.
My biggest problem with this issue is that despite the name, Supergirl doesn’t do a whole lot of surviving. So much time is spent endearing us to Kara and her life on Krypton, when the beauty of an Elseworld is you can really skip over all the familiar beats of the story, especially as mentioned earlier one as frequently told as Superman/girl’s, to get to something new. Right now you could take away a couple of pages and this could just be a main universe Supergirl book.
The star of this book is, without a doubt, Rod Reis, one of my long time favourite Marvel artists making his DC debut here (not counting some Arrow tie-in comics). While the more mundane setting of the first issue doesn’t give him too many opportunities to shine, his expressions for Kara are a large part of why I’m immediately endeared to her, and one string of panels in particular showing a ranting and raving Zod makes it clear he’s brought all his talent with him, and that clear Sienkiewicz influence really pops out. Lucas Gattoni, who letters the book, meshes with his style so well I was surprised it wasn’t all done by one artist, with some great onomatopoeia that adds to the pulp-ish designs.
Supergirl: Survives‘ first issue is full of potential, but the slow start and the time it takes to get to the actual surviving leaves it a very underwhelming issue. The strong premise and incredible art leave just enough to make me want to come back for the second issue, but it’s vague politics and underwhelming and overfamiliar Krypton adaptation leave me apprehensive to want to commit to the full series just yet.
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