A Month of Wednesdays: April 2026

BOUGHT:

Supergirl Vol. 1: Misadventures in Midvale (DC Comics) I was genuinely worried about this one. 

As long-time readers likely know, Sophie Campbell is one of my favorite artists—and, increasingly, comics storytellers—and she has been since I first came upon her work about 20 years ago now. Since then, I've read and enjoyed (almost) everything she's done, from her personal stuff like Wet Moon and Shadoweyes to her work on various franchises and extant characters, some of which were already favorites of mine (Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Toho's Mothra), others of which I was completely ambivalent about (Rob Liefeld's Glory). So obviously I'm going to read anything she works on...especially if she's writing and drawing it. 

But there are few DC characters I am less interested in than Supergirl (Probably just the Legion of Super-Heroes. Or the WildStorm characters, if any of those guys count as DC characters now; they seem to come and go from DCU continuity). 

I attribute this to what the publisher was doing with the character around the time I started reading comics. At that point, John Byrne had (understandably, I suppose) wanted to streamline the Superman family for his post-Crisis reboot, so that Superman was the only surviving Kryptonian and, as a workaround, the post-Crisis Supergirl was actually...shape-shifting sentient protoplasm in the form of Supergirl...? And then in the late '90s that "Matrix" Supergirl merged with a human girl? And became some kind of angel, with flame vision and fire wings...? Not sure how any of this actually simplified anything, as "Superman's cousin from Krypton" is pretty damn simple in comparison.

Subsequent reboots, like Jeph Loeb simply reintroducing Supergirl in 2004  as if the "Matrix" version/versions had never existed*, only repelled me further, as reboots usually do, and I basically just steered clear of Supergirl as much as possible, although I've obviously read plenty of comics in which she appeared (Probably less than I could count on one hand that actually had the name "Supergirl" in the title, though). Similarly, The New 52 reboot didn't interest me at all. This avoidance of the character extended backwards in time, too, so I've never even read her original Silver Age adventures, despite my fondness for that era of Superman comics in general. 

(I did watch the first season and a half or so of the live-action TV show starring Melissa Benoist, so I know there's potential in the character; I also liked the later version from the DC Super Hero Girls franchise, the one with big arms and short hair).

Why am I saying all of this? I mean, aside from the fact that that I tend to go on and on when fewer words would do, and I have no editor or word limits here? Well, the basic point is this: I love Sophie Campbell's comics, and have no interest at all in Supergirl comics, so Sophie Campbell doing a Supergirl comic is sort of...fraught for me. 

I mean, I want to support Campbell in all she does, obviously. But what if I hated it? I've never written a bad review of a Campbell comic before!

Well, as it tuns out, I need not have worried. Campbell's Supergirl, which is colored by Tamra Bonvillain, is a triumph. 

Not only is this the first time I ever cared the least bit about the character, it's one of the best superhero comics I've read in recent memory and, importantly I think, it is both new-reader friendly and all-ages. I think you could give this trade to pretty much any reader, regardless of age or background with the character or the DC universe in general, and they would be able to understand it easily, and, more importantly, enjoy it. (Reading it reminded me quite a bit of Marvel's The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and the earliest Ms. Marvel comics, although I think the latter required a bit more foreknowledge of that universe's characters and history, what with the Inhuman origin and Carol Danvers being Kamala's hero.)

I think it helps that Supergirl's post-Crisis continuity is so convoluted and crazy, and that DC has rebooted their own damn continuity so many times since Infinite Crisis, that, at this point, there is essentially no continuity, and so Campbell seems rather free to proceed almost as if she's working on a brand-new character, only nodding to the characters status quo previous to this book (She apparently lived in Metropolis?) and picking and choosing what she wants to reference or include from the character's past. 

Perhaps surprisingly, a lot of this seems to be from the Silver Age and Bronze Age (at least as far as I can tell). Several characters that I thought were new here, I later found by googling them, are actually older, more obscure pre-Crisis ones, reinvented rather than taken out of mothballs, so that they feel new and thus, I imagine, read like Easter eggs to long-time Supergirl fans.

It also helps that Campbell couches the book in Superman lore rather than Superman continuity. That is, most of the Super-stuff included is of the sort that is 1) among the most fun and 2) the sort of stuff most people would probably already know from pop culture or can at least easily intuit. Stuff like Kandor, Krypto, Streaky and Titano, or that Luthors are usually bad guys or that kryptonite is the weakness of Kryptonians and so on.

Misadventures in Midvale collects the first six issues of the series, about four and a half of which are drawn by Campbell, while the two guest artists are deployed rather strategically (Supergirl is barely in the fifth issue, which features a pair of adventures by two teams of Super Pets; Paulina Ganucheau and Rosi Kampe each draw one of those adventures. The action of the sixth issue is split between the real world and Supergirl's dreams/mind; Campbell draws the IRL stuff, while Kampe handles the stuff in the character's head). 

The first issue opens with a sort of day-in-the-life of Supergirl—defending Metropolis from an original villain named Princess Shark, shrinking down to patrol Kandor—before her parents ask her to visit them in Midvale, Supergirl's old hometown. 

When she arrives there, though, she finds something's quite wrong: Midvale has a new Supergirl that they've adopted as their hometown hero, and there's already a girl named Linda Danvers, her old secret identity, living in her old house with her parents. What's going on? 

Well, that's the question that the first three-issue story arc addresses. Our Supergirl is branded "Phonygirl" as she tries to get to the bottom of the new, not-her Supergirl/Linda Danvers. She's aided by Krypto, Streaky and Lena Luthor, who has quite conveniently just moved into a "secret lair" on the edge of Midvale (And who, I am guessing, is mainly in this book due to the character's role and popularity in the live-action TV show, where she was played by Katie McGrath; I haven't read most of the character's comics adventures, but I don't think she's been seen in quite a while, nor all that tightly tied to Supergirl). 

During the course of the adventure, we'll meet a new Super Pet—the faux Supergirl's apparently Kryptonian rabbit, Kandy—Titano will attack and get a radical makeover and new name, and a blast from a gun powered by black kryptonite will transform Supergirl into the evil (and not very smart) Satan Girl...and similarly affect Krypto (although he doesn't seem to change his name). 

Oh, and there's also a montage where Supergirl tries on various old and potential costumes, a scene evocative of one from one of the earliest episodes of the TV show. Thanks to Lena, she will eventually gain a new way of suiting up into her current costume, which involves a magical girl-esque transformation sequence.

In the fourth issue, Supergirl, Lena and their new friend, who all seem to be roommates now, go to a goth club (a sequence of which reminded me quite a bit of that from Campbell's TMNT where Jennika takes the guys to a rock club in Mutant Town). There they end up fighting a new version of an obscure Supergirl villain, who I only know previously existed because the very specific name given to him—Howard Pendergast—led me to google it on a hunch. 

The fifth issue, as mentioned, features the Super Pets (I think Ganucheau, whose work I'm familiar with from her story in TMNT: Black, White and Green, her cute original graphic novel Lemon Bird Can Help and illustrating Magdalene Visaggio's Girlmode, is more compatible with Campbell's than Kampe's, which looks off compared to everything that preceded it). 

And finally, the sixth issue has the girls—who have now added another new friend—trying to celebrate Halloween, while Supergirl's dreams are haunted by the villain Nightflame. This is the first issue that really seems to reference past Supergirl continuity in a way that might be construed as alienating. Essentially, Nightflame presents Supergirl with a series of her worst memories, and Kampe draws panels referencing particular points in Supergirl history, only a few of which I recognized (Interestingly, this sequence reinforces the conception that the current Supergirl is the original Silver Age one reborn, as her memories include being abandoned to an orphanage by Superman and being killed in COIE, as well as later stuff involving that weird skimpy costume she wore in Superman/Batman, the Red Lanterns and stuff I wasn't familiar with...like Krypto bleeding profusely from arrow wounds, which Bluesky told me was from a Tom King story?). (In Campbell's defense here, one really only need know that these images refer to specific bad or traumatic events Supergirl's past, and not exactly what is going on or what issue they came from).

As fun and as new reader friendly as the book is, one of the things I particularly appreciated was Campbell's portrayal of a superhero as, like, a genuinely good person. Supergirl is obviously involved in some fights, but she shows a great deal of sympathy for her enemies and is quite gentle with them (this we're shown on the very first page, as she deals with Princess Shark), and empathizes with their plights and, in the case of the first arc's main villain, what it is that drove her to her bad acts.

This is best illustrated in a three-page sequence in Supergirl #3, where Campbell draws Supergirl triumphantly grabbing the villain by the collar with one hand, while her other is hauled back into a fist, as if she's about to deliver a knock-out blow. The villain certainly expects one and looks concerned and scared as she reflexively flinches. But then you turn the page and see that Supergirl has pulled her foe into a hug.

The other refreshing aspect is just seeing Campbell's art applied to DC super-comics. If you've read many of Campbell's comics—um, at least those featuring human casts rather than mutant animals—she has always demonstrated a great and compelling range of character designs in her comics that are all too rare in the superhero genre.

I mean, most superhero comic artists—even many of the greats—tend to draw character "types" rather than specific characters. Like "big, buff man" and "attractive young woman" and so on. All too often, the women in superhero comics tend to look identical to one another and are really only distinguishable by their hair color or style and the clothes (often costumes) that they are wearing.

Not so in a Campbell comic. Here, all of the young women characters look distinct from one another. Even Kara/Supergirl, who is probably the most default superheroic/conventionally attractive character has a particular face and a particular body, and it's nothing like that of the other characters.

Kandorian Lesla-Lar, for example, has a thin, upturned nose and a slightly pointed chin. In Kandor, she's tall and slim, but under the sun's yellow rays, not only does she gain muscle, but she also gains Power Girl-esque curves, becoming statuesque and busty, with notably curvy thighs that distinguish her from the shorter, slimmer Kara.

This is the case with the other principal women as well, like Lena and new character Luna Lustrum, who Campbell gives a slim build, a prominent nose, big eyes and a notably sloping forehead. (Luna is a strikingly beautiful and original character too, probably the one that stands out the most in the series so far).

I can only wish that more mainstream supercomics took this much care to draw female characters that seem so distinct and so real—even though I don't think "realistic" is likely a word that many would apply to Campbell's style, in terms of her rendering. 

It's for this reason that I hope Campbell is able to stick with both writing and drawing the title for as long as possible (and hopefully longer than she managed to do both on her TMNT run). In fact, if being able to do both makes making deadlines impossible (and or means she has to start keeping an unhealthy, punishing work schedule), well, I would rather the book become a bimonthly or quarterly than see Campbell retreat to just writing and drawing the covers while another pencil artist takes over, but hey, that's just me.

At any rate, Campbell's Supergirl? It's a really great comic. Check this trade out if you haven't already. 

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By the way, do you remember the apparently now-defunct site Project: Rooftop website, where artists would share their redesigns of superhero costumes? After reading Campbell's Supergirl book, where she seems to have settled on the costume you see on the cover above for the character, one that evokes elements of several different incarnations of the character, I was curious to revisit Campbell's rather more radical redesign from 2009 or so.

While I couldn't find Project: Rooftop proper anymore, Campbell's design survived in posts about the post in which artists redesigned Supergirl:

I love the short cape, and there are obviously elements of this costume that are unique to this design, like the color scheme, the off-the-shoulder top, and, I think, the little yellow five-sided diamond-shapes all over, which I imagine are meant to be Super-symbols.

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BORROWED:

Batman/Superman: World's Finest Vol. 8: 20,000 Leagues (DC Comics) I'm afraid I wasn't terribly enamored with the latest collection of Mark Waid's Batman/Superman team-up title, which I attribute in part to the somewhat muddy art of Adrian Gutierrez, who draws most of these seven issues**, although I don't think Waid is entirely blameless here. Although he writes all of the characters involved well (and includes lots of bit of DC Comics mythology that I like), and though he has some interesting, insightful thoughts within the stories here collected, overall, none of them are particularly compelling as stories. 

There are three separate stories total here, two three-issue arcs broken up by a done-in-one. Let's take them each in turn.

The first is the title story arc "20,000 Leagues," which finds Superman, Batman and Robin joining Aquaman (who was quite conveniently hanging out on the surface world with them at the start of the story) in Atlantis, where the heroes must deal with a strange plague turning the people of Tritonis (these are the Atlanteans who resemble traditional merpeople, being human from the waist up and fish from the waist down) into rampaging, red-eyed zombies. That, and the plague's fallout: The King of Tritonis blames the people of Poseidonis (Aquaman's hometown) for spreading the plague and he is about to initiate a civil war over the matter.

As it turns out, Superman has something of a personal stake in these events, as his ex, Lori Lemaris, hails from Tritonis, and is currently married to its king Ronal (Complicating things is the fact that their marriage isn't going great, so Lori finds herself drawn towards the more attentive Superman during the proceedings).

The plague and civil war both turn out to be part of the machinations of a supervillain, of course. 

In a pretty clumsy cliffhanger for Waid, that villain is revealed on the last page of the first issue of the arc. In the last panel, Batman narrows his eyes at him, while Robin says, "Batman.. ...Who the hell is that?"

The comic doesn't tell us, and I didn't recognize him due to what I am assuming is a rather radical redesign here. Did readers have to wait a whole month to find out who this weird-looking plant creature is? (I see his name is on the cover of the next issue and is the first line of dialogue in that issue). 

It's The Floronic Man. 

He created the fungal plague and sowed suspicions between the two cities to incite a war as part of his plan to take over the world's oceans, which host an abundance of plant life, some of which seems to be imbued with magic, thanks to its proximity to Atlantis, I guess.

Swamp Thing is also involved but doesn't get a whole lot to do.

The most interesting bit of the story is Ronal talking about his feelings of inadequacy, being Lori's husband and knowing that her first love was pretty literally the most perfect man on Earth. 

Well, there's that, and the idea that Aquaman is a baseball fan, something that comes up briefly at the beginning of the end of the story; between, Waid has the Atlanteans and Aquaman himself addressing the issue of the King of Atlantis spending so much time away from home with the surface heroes, which Waid seems to resolve by having Aquaman argue that by saving the world with the Justice League, he is also saving his subjects in Atlantis. 

There are a couple of points where I had a hard time seeing in Gutierrez's art what the script seemed to be saying, but the bigger problem is the plethora of what look like digital effects (I'm not sure if these are drawn into the art by Gutierrez or by color artists Tamra Bonvillain and Matt Herms). Because most of the action is underwater, it's somewhat dimly lit, and the panels are all filled with bubble effects. There are also some bright, lightning-like effects to suggest magic, and these additional layers of visual information, on top of the art, sound effects and dialogue bubbles and narration boxes, seems to overload and overwhelm the pages to me.

Also, Gutierrez gives Ronal and Aquaman similar haircuts, which are only a shade different in color (Ronal's hair is slightly redder), and I wish they didn't look so much like one another throughout.

The done-in-one is one of the occasional mixing-and-matching of the Batman and Superman supporting casts that Waid offers in this series, this time with the old guy co-workers of the two heroes, as Perry White and Jim Gordon are both guests on a Metropolis podcast with a new character who Lois Lane says "ranks number one among the dude-bro demo."

They're not arguing long before a giant monster attacks, and Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne, both of whom are there to support their respective friends, go into action in their heroic identities. Batman is in a giant robot battle suit, which he introduces to Superman as a little something he's been working on ("You have the coolest hobbies," Superman says when he sees it).

You know, at this point I think I've lost track of how many giant robots Batman has piloted over the years (But the one Kelley Jones drew for him in Gotham After Midnight, which was essentially a giant punching machine he rolls out in order to fight a giant-sized Clayface, is still my favorite).

This issue is fine. While I don't love the art here, especially the use of what look like manipulated photos to stand in for Metropolis in the backgrounds, it's short and stuffed with action. 

There's a fun three-panel sequence where Bruce Wayne flirts with Lois just to needle his friend Clark/Superman, and it is of course satisfying to see a hero of dude-bros in handcuffs being led into a police van at the end (Gutierrez gives this character muscular arms, a clean-shaven bald head and a dark beard, so that he has a passing resemblance to Andrew Tate). 

The final story here is the three-issue "Bizarro World Tour." Superman, Batman and Robin are teleported to Bizarro World, which is in the throes of a mysterious plague (Yes, that's two plagues in one collection!). The disease turns the usually backwards Bizarro's normal, and crowds of the unaffected chase and attack those that are infected (Because the "backwards" response to an infectious disease is, of course, to get as close to those who have it as possible, rather than to keep a safe distance, right?).

After Robin, who seems to have little to no experience with Bizarros here, navigates the chaos in scenes evocative of horror movies, the three heroes of our world eventually meet Bizarro World's Bizarro #1 and Batzarro, both of whom have been infected, and are now totally normal, rational-thinking players (Although they still look like grotesque fun house mirrors of the genuine articles).

Again, Waid has some interesting riffs on the premise of his story. The way in which the heroes come up with a cure for the plague is genuinely inspired, the revelation of where it came from and how the person responsible finds himself slowly succumbing to his own Bizarro-ification and keeping a diary of it is fun, and there's an oddly touching bit where Batzarro explains to Robin that the plague isn't the "cure" he thinks it is, that, to them, it is a sort of mental illness, and that "whatever this disease is, it's twisting the perspective of thousands of innocent beings against their will." 

That said, the impetus for the plague's creation, and the ultimate problem both worlds' World's Finest teams must address comes from Waid thinking about Bizarro World in realistic terms and applying physics to the idea of a cube-shaped planet. It's smart, but makes me uncomfortable, as this is superhero comics—and superhero comics based on silly ideas from the crazy Silver Age—and there's only so much logic that one can comfortably apply. I mean, why wrestle with how a cube-shaped planet might exist in the real world instead of just shrug and think "Who cares? It's comics." I mean, it's not like the title has yet to address how Superman flies, for example. 

This arc isn't underwater, of course, so there aren't a bunch of bubbles in every panel, but I still found the art a bit too murky-looking—Is it so dark-looking on Bizarro World because darkness is the opposite of light, perhaps?

All in all, despite its many bright spots, I didn't find this particular volume as fun or as engaging as some of the previous seven. 

Komi Can't Communicate Vol. 37 (Viz Media) I've been expecting, even dreading this moment for quite a while now—ever since protagonists Komi and Tadano confessed their feelings for one another and started dating actually, which seems like forever ago—and it's finally here, the very last volume of Tomohito Oda's Komi Can't Communicate. 

Obviously, I'm a fan. I've read 37 volumes after all, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of—oh jeez—10,00 pages. So, I'll definitely be sorry to see it go, and will miss my occasional visits to a Japanese high school (I've been filling the Komi-shaped hole in my reading list with the oddly-named Skip and Loafer, which is cute, dramatic and funny, but with a much more...normal student body than that of Komi's school). On the other hand, though, the narrative definitely seems like it was ready to end. 

As I suspected off and on, the series ends with Komi, Tadano and company graduating from high school...and Komi making her 100th friend, one of the big drivers of the series' action. In that respect, Oda probably couldn't have kept it going too much longer anyway. There's a final, eight-page 500th chapter, in which we check in on Komi and Tadano in college, and I suppose it's possible we could have gotten at least a few more volumes detailing the pair and other characters as college kids (not unlike the last few volumes of Haikyu!!, where Haruichi Furudate gave readers a "flash forward" to Hinata and company's post-high school years, a weird but fun way of showing us how the characters all end up), but, as I said, the series seemed like it was starting to wind down many volumes ago, when the central will they/won't they question was resolved (the did, obviously).

Indeed, even in this last volume, Oda seems to be marking time, with several side stories that aren't directly involved with the Komi/Tadano relationship, Komi's quest for 100 friends, or the end of high school...or even wrapping up the stories of various supporting characters. 

And so, in this volume, Komi and Manbagi attempt to get their driver's licenses, with mixed results (their instructor is the leather and spike-clad older sister of one of the weirder-looking kids in their class). 

There's a whole chapter devoted to ranking the various penis sizes of the boys who visit a public bath (The word "penis" is never mentioned, but Son Totoi, the perverted student who looks like the Buddha for some reason, suggests, "Every situation involves a hierarchy. Even amongst friends. How about we... ...rank ourselves by size." If you're curious, Tadano is in the middle of the pack, number five of the nine in attendance.)

And he masked group, identified to one another only by letter, although readers know who each of them are, gather once again to share their various romantic, but remarkably chaste, fantasies one last time.

And there's a surprisingly touching chapter devoted to Komi's friendship with Ren Yamai, the rabidly perverted girl with an over-the-top sexual attraction to Komi. Here, they meet in Komi's room, and Komi haltingly asks Yamai why she likes her as much as she does, to which Yamai replies completely honestly, after first telling her something she thought Komi might want to hear: 

No, that's all lies. 

It's because you're beautiful. 

That's the only reason.

I don't care about your personality. I just want to lick your face and body all over...and nestle between your beautiful hair and neck... ...and squeeze your divine calves and get scratched by your pretty fingernails.

The exchanges that follow, in which Komi thanks her for her compliments and honesty and tells her what she admires about her, and Yamai thinks about the positive impact Komi and her friendship has had on her, is actually quite touching, and actually rather redeems one of the weirder, more off-putting characters in the series, who has thus far been a mostly one-note character whose often perverse sexual interest in Komi has always been played for laughs. 

Speaking of sexual, the very last page suggests strongly that Komi and Tadano are, as first-year college students, going to take that big step. The sequence, which follows the pair on a date, ends with a deeply blushing Komi suggesting, "Maybe I don't... ...need to go hom tonight. We don't... ...need to wait any longer, right?"

A long way from being so shy and socially anxious she couldn't speak to Tadano but had to write what she wanted to say to him on a school chalk board. 

If you haven't been reading, I'd definitely recommend trying the series out. In my experience, the best way to read a good manga series is once it's over, so that if you get really into it, you get the instant gratification of being able to read the next volume as soon as you finish one, and don't have to wait months between installments. 

REVIEWED:

Feo The Chupacabra (Abrams Fanfare) As someone who has read and written extensively about cryptozoology and cryptids (more on that at some point in the future, I hope), I was planning on using this paragraph to explain that the Chupacabra, contrary to this book's story, a relatively recent invention, appearing in 1995 (and almost certainly inspired by the movie Species). But when I actually sat down to write the review, I ended up mentioning it there; the graphic novel, by contrast, is set in the 1950s, and a blurb from Sergio Aragones mentions him having grown up in Mexico hearing about the monster. As I also write in the review, though, the protagonist, in telling a story about the Chupacabra, mentions artistic license, which I guess is a way the creators asking for it themselves.

Anyway, if you like quality cartooning, old-school monster movies (and/or Abbott and Costello) and cryptids, then this is pretty much your ideal graphic novel. More here. 

The Greenies (Henry Holt and Company) Despite the title, the catchier name that one of the characters' comes up with for their school's Enviro-Club, this book's environmental content is more or less incidental to the plot. That plot? New girl Violet knows next-to-no one at her new school, save for her very different Kris, and due to a series of unlikely circumstances including first day detention and a club no one wants to join, ends up finding a circle of friends. It's pretty fun, and rather well made, but probably more for young readers than it is for an all-ages audience. More here. 

My Journey to Japan: Escape to Yokai Mountain (Tuttle Publishing) I had a great deal of fun with this one, which is full of useful information about various aspects of Japan, while also an easy enough read that you could handle it in a single sitting. Cartoonist Matthew Loux embeds a sort of guidebook to Japan inside a comic book narrative about a pair of Western kids and an exiled Kappa with teleportation powers journey to the top of the titular mountain. There, they regularly meet different yokai, and end up taking little side quest field trips, during which the yokai in question will teach them about some aspect of Japan: Its castles, its temples, its food, its trains and so on. I actually recommended this book to a couple of "civilian" coworkers, one of whom has been to Japan in the last few years and one of whom is going there next month. More here. 

*According to Mark Waid and company's New History of the DC Universe, the Supergirl introduced in Superman/Batman is actually the reincarnation of the original Supergirl who died in Crisis on Infinite Earths, which I found...odd, as, if you go back and read any comic featuring her from the last 22 years, I don't think anyone's ever so much as suggested that before, did they? Certainly not in her earliest appearances in the mid-00's.

**The fine print on the title page mistakenly says that the book collects eight issues, #35-38 and #40-43. In fact, #38 is not collected here. It and #39 are both part of the "We Are Yesterday" story arc and were thus collected in the previously released Justice League Unlimited/World's Finest: We Are Yesterday.