Supergirl #12 // Review
Kara wakes-up.One is is bloodhost. There’s a tear in it. The other eye is glowing yellow. There are scratches all over the right side of her face. The left side is very smooth, grey metal. (There are rivets and everything. Presumably it’s holding the plate into the front of her Kryptonian skull right above the supraorbital ridge.) Kara’s had better days. This one’s going to get worse in Supergirl #12. Writer/artist Sophie Campbell continues to take Kara in a particularly dark direction. Color adds considerable depth and immersive atmosphere thanks to some particularly brilliant work on the part of Tamra Bonvillain.
The physician responsible for Kara’s transformation identifies himself as Dr. Kim-Da. The good news is that he saved her life. The bad news is that substantial cybernetic prostheses needed to be employed. The prostheses HAVE been equipped with tech that allows them to keep up with the rest of her superhuman body, but it’s going to take a great deal of time for her to adjust to her new body. All of this is quite tragic, but it is as nothing to the threat coming to the secure facility Kara’s woken-up in. The woman responsible for nearly killing her is coming with a small army...
Once again: it's really striking to see just how totally jarring this particular pair of issues have been. There might've been darkness in and around the edges of the first 10 issues of the series. The sudden shock of things becoming so completely horrifying feels like an overwhelming turn for the negative. Campbell does flashback a little bit to references of earlier issues with the extended ensemble. So it's not like a more stabilized side of the series isn't visible from the darkness. Campbell's decision to make a turn for a more horrifying direction seems to be very conscious and very deliberately laid out.
There is a charming cuteness about Campbell's rendering of the art. That cuteness is part of what makes Campbell style so appealing. It's pretty remarkable to see it fused with a decidedly darker visual direction. The pureness and sweetness of the essence of Campbell's run on the series is still clearly they are deep in the heart of what's going on. But there's so much darkness on the surface that it feels remarkably shocking. It's impressive work. Bonvillain’s very straightforward classical superhero color palette Clyde's across the page with a deaf sense of atmosphere and texture.
The clearly temporary nature of Kara's transformation doesn't make the horror of what's happened to her any less intense. The visceral feel of the visual reality of her being a somewhat crudely-constructed cyborg is very powerful. If there was any doubt that Campbell had any kind of arranged with her style and both script and art, it's clearly been eliminated with this pair of issues. Campbell's run with Supergirl ends its first year with kind of an exhilarating ride that should launch it quite satisfying into a promising second year.
