Supergirl #5 Review

Writer: Steve Orlando / Artist: Brian Ching / DC Comics Supergirl’s Rebirth continues to be everything it’s meant to be: light-yet-dramatic action, complete with last-second saves – two of them in this issue – and heroic dialogue to plainly express her determination to do the right thing, a comic fit for a CW script familiar to fans watching Supergirl’s iteration in the TV network’s Arrowverse. It’s fun so long as you take it at surface value and not looking for anything especially unique in Kara’s story (for that, I recommend Supergirl: Being Super, a new series by Mariko Tomaki). We begin where issue #4 left off, with Cyborg Superman attacking the city, complete with all the clichés you likely suspect and enjoy.

Communications are blocked so the city is isolated? Check. Catching someone falling from a building? Check. Supergirl explaining right and wrong, and why she chooses right? Three issues in a row for those counting at home, but it’s a conversation always worth repeating because the mid-fight superhero locker-room speech is what we’re here for.

And while nothing here takes itself too seriously, Supergirl still manages, impressively, to raise the stakes issue by issue without feeling overly contrived. We’ve been on this value-of-human-versus-Kryptonian-life moral for what feels like a while now, and by all means this arc should be tired, but issue #4 ends with yet another escalation that should pique readers’ interest of what’s to come. It’s likely predictable, sure,…