Being Super is a kind of Earth One-type origin story for Supergirl that’s basically garbage. I’m not that familiar with the character but I’m not sure her origin, as laid out by Mariko Tamaki, is supposed to be quite so derivative of Superman’s: her Kryptonian pod lands at a farm outside a small American town where the kindly childless couple raise her as their own, doing their best to hide her burgeoning superpowers. Sound familiar? There’s even a page where she lifts up a tractor!
Tamaki is simply an incompetent writer. “Don’t you have to take drugs to be on drugs?” and “The air is, like, vibrating. Extra crisp or something.” are two examples that made me mentally faceplant. Or something. It takes her 130 pages – in a 200 page book! – to come up with a story. Up until then it’s generic teenage drama (Zits! Homework! Junk food! Texting!) with only one scene to break up the tedium where a freak earthquake kills one of Kara’s besties. And the story we’re given is equally generic: evil supervillain wants to kill stuff and superhero gotta stop them!
There’s an awful, unsatisfying non-ending where nothing is resolved – Tamaki spends over a hundred pages on dreary nothing and then fails to do anything with what little story she comes up with about the villain or Lexcorp. No part of this rubbish was the least bit entertaining.
The book would be a total bust if not for Joelle Jones’ art, which is sublime. She’s one of my favourite artists working today with definitely the most evocative facial expressions in the medium, bar none. I was as completely unengaged by the writing as I was transfixed by Jones’ art – the characters’ body language is so perfectly captured, it’s uncanny; I almost expect to see them moving!
I’d nearly say it was worth reading for Joelle Jones’ art alone – and I still think it is if you’re a fan of hers – but, for most readers, the crappy writing and story of Supergirl: Being Super Dull will only bore you to tears!
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