Book review: Supergirl: Being Super by Mariko Tamaki

Supergirl: Being Super by Mariko Tamaki

7/3/2020

Illustrated by Joëlle Jones

This story sets down a new origin story for Kara Danvers, also known as Kara Zor-El, and her life looks an awful lot like another famous Kryptonian. Kara's pod crash lands in a corn field outside Midvale, a farming community somewhere in the United States. Kara is taken in by a couple and raised as their own. Now, Kara's a teenager, battling normal Earth-teenager things like zits and homework, but it's all compounded with her secret powers and trying to figure out who she is. She keeps having this strange dream of people saying goodbye to her. Luckily, she has two amazing best friends, Jen and Dolly, who keep her grounded, even if they don't know about her abilities. Then, at a track meet, a powerful earthquake brings tragedy to Kara's life. Kara must overcome her grief, and figure out her powers, in order to stop a much more sinister plot from destroying her town, and everyone she loves.

This story of loss and self-discovery is complex. The novel is narrated throughout with the inner monologue of Kara, and her concerns echo what many teens go through daily (aside from the super-powers part). Most of this story is about Kara figuring out her life and battling her grief, and the super-powers and Krypton portion comes in the last third. The ending is unresolved, hinting at a continuation of the story. My main detractor from this story is that Kara's origin is almost exactly the same as Superman's. Kara's origin in other stories does differ from Kal-El, so I'm not quite certain why in this, she had to be so similar. Jone's illustrations are extremely detailed and beautiful. The color palettes alternate between two main ones: yellows for inside, blues for outside. Special pops of color are used sparingly in the first half (note: the review copy I had was black-and-white through the second half, so the color schemes could be completely different in the second half of the final version).

DC rate this for Teen. The main element elevating this from lower grade levels is death and grief. There is some violence, but no bloodshed.

Sara's Rating: 9/10
Suitability Level: Grades 7-12

This review was made possible with an advanced reader copy from the publisher through Net Galley.

Publisher: DC Comics
Publication Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 9781779503190 (Paperback)

Tags: Rating: 9/10, Suitability: Middle School, Suitability: High School, Comicbooks, Superheroes, School Life, Grief, DC Comics

1 Comment

Thisguy

4/23/2024 12:29:19 pm

Supergirl; Being Super

The mold of Disappointment.

I already knew what I was getting into when I found out this was written by Mariko Tamaki, Canadian YA novel Fanfic-ster, but everyone can exert a little hope that even the most generic story is fun, exciting, satisfying, or even just fine. But this series crushes your expectations with each chapter, usually in the worst way possible.

Basically, if you've never read a comic book before, or a regular book before, or if you don't understand subtext and themes, then this series is a phenomenal slam dunk in good art and emotional relatability… and nothing else. However, if you have ever been a teenager before, or if you've talked to other people with different opinions than you own, then a lot of things about Supergirl: being super don't sit right with you. Like, at all.

Let's start with the story. Stop me if you heard this before. A "young adult" experiences life as a normal person in school with her friends, but secretly, there's something unique and special about her, which she thinks is (great/confusing) so she becomes (confident/angsty) about herself. Something happens that causes someone to die, making the "young adult" more angsty than she was two issues ago. Suddenly, she stumbles upon a conspiracy surrounding her, and she discovers why she's so special. Also, men are the bad guys, so a random guy threatens the special girl, she beats him, and he leaves, so they may one day clash again. Special girl realizes she's part of a race of special white people, she looks into that. Bad guys plot. Every side character is left behind like wet garbage. The end.

See, the fun part about using a cliched generic plot is NOT making an effort to make it unique and fun, with action to break up the dozens of pages of monotony.

Next, the characters… Don't matter. Aside from Supergirl, did we actually understand what anyone was going through? The perspectives and opinions of other people? At most, we got a minor glimpse of it, a mad scientist going on about renewable energy, Supergirl's grandparents being afraid of her. I think Supergirl's parents should've given us the biggest picture on how her life works being a Kryptonian on Earth. But man, that would get in the way of the Highschool fantasy fulfillment! Plus, Tamiko would have to depict her father as an actual emotionally invested human being and that just isn't a realistic thing to do for her. Better add some amnesia, then make her parents quiet and barely relevant outside of filler pieces. Now Supergirl is, like, a totally normal teenage, obviously. Did I mention the dialogue is bad?
No, Tan On isn't worth talking about. There is no conceivable reason why he's on Earth, nor does the story suggest he's here from the beginning. He literally is just here to be the bad guy, probably meant to fulfil some desire to act like unstoppable superior race without real drawbacks. He escapes, by the way.
As for the lesson in all this, there isn't one? I mean, it's a coming-of-age story. Supergirl embraces her powers and will one day be as powerful and kickass as Superman. But in this story, what is the point of all this? Why is Supergirl so slow to action? Why does Tan On assume the worst of humanity? Why does Dr. Stone obsess over renewable energy and power? What does all of this mean? Simple, it's a coming-of-age story, so it doesn't mean anything. All those ideas and thoughts are meant to be poorly constructed steppingstones to the ultimate goal escaping the 'paradise of being a teenager' that Mariko Tamaki describes. Unfortunately for her, that's not how narratives work, especially when you put too much of yourself in one.
What I see from the story's lesson is little like this; Some people like Supergirl were just born special, cut from a different cloth of the normals. And those normals can get jealous, they want to take advantage of that specialness. People like Supergirl, and you the reader, must always be on guard, put ourselves above the normals, be with our own people if we can, even if some are extremist. They can't understand how special we are, but we must bear the burden of showing them our greatness, so they can one day see that we aren't queer, we're perfection.
Supergirl: Being Super is a extremely generous three stars out of five. for a YA novel. which is still considered a low bar. It a cannibalized origin story that goes nowhere and stinks of the arrogance of a soap box author. It is literally longer than it needs to be and isn't improved by the constant self-pity, hollow comforting and crying, and the far too little, feverishly too late action following the inexcusable amount of filler anyone had to sift through. Everyone literally has not a single good or meaningful thing to say about this series outside of the artwork and I dare even one person anywhere to describe it positively, without insisting I'm attacking women or feminism. This book doesn't even represent either of those things.
Su

Supergirl: Being Super by Mariko Tamaki

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