Supergirl Vol. 2: Candor

This is a great collection. Supergirl is an underated DC Comics title. It recently hit issue 50 with little fanfare. Great title though and frequent appearances of Superman, Power Girl, and Batman. Recommended.

Title says it all. As the other Supergirl books, it's beautiful art. However, the book takes place halfway between the recent Crisis and then it has a very abrupt shift in story in the middle of the book and it makes it hard to pick back up.

Right here we have a lot of what is wrong about modern American comics. Too many cross-over events, too many inter-company continuity adjusting...it seems almost impossible to simply pick up a tradepaper back and enjoy a good story.I have always loved the character Supergirl, and though I was out of the loop for American comics for the past few years, I have been slowly picking up some of the older series. I really enjoyed the re-introduction of Kara Zor-El in Superman/Batman, Vol. 2: Supergirl, and her storyline in Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes. I wanted to give her solo series a shot, and so I picked up Supergirl Vol. 1: Power which was pretty good, although the clichéd "bad girl" version made an appearance...right there is a sure sign of an author who doesn't know what to do with a character...ooooo...make them evil!I was looking forward to seeing the series develop, though, so I picked up this next volume, "Supergirl: Candor" and I got...a mess.To start off with, this is an incredibly disjoined volume collecting stories "featuring" Supergirl but not a continuation of the "Supergirl" monthly comic. Collected here are "Superman/Batman #27," "Superman #223," "JLA #122-123," "JSA:Classified #2" and finally "Supergirl #6-9." Just as many of the stories focus on Power Girl as opposed to Supergirl and the Maid of Might is often just the sidekick.If you aren't familiar with ongoing DCU continuity, you are going to get lost and fast. Supergirl goes from being attacked by OMACs (pre-Infinite Crisis) and agreeing to go into space with a resurrected Donna Troy to joining Superman in his Fortress of Solitude (in the Amazon jungle? Huh?) where she fights someone called Blackstar who is the part of some future battle we don't see the continuation of. Then there is one random story set on Earth-2 where Superman and Batman change bodies with Power Girl and the Huntress; Supergirl doesn't pop up in that story even in a cameo.As to the three issues that are actually from the ongoing monthly...they make no sense either. By now we are at the "One Year Later" storyline, and for inexplicable reasons Power Girl and Supergirl are inside the Bottle City of Kandor fighting against Earth-3's Ultraman who is alive and kicking for some reason...Some of the individual stories in "Supergirl: Candor" were OK (mainly the Power Girl stories, to be honest), but without context too many of them are just confusing and frustrating. I don't know why they packed so many different comics together here instead of just continuing the ongoing "Supergirl" series which is the expected route for trade paperback collections.It looks like with the next collection, Supergirl Vol. 3: Identity the series gets back on track, but this collection could easily be missed.

Compared to the first Supergirl story arc, this book isn't as bad as most make it seem. First off, we get to return to Kandor which hasn't been seen since Godfall (A pretty good Superman read). The adventure in Kandor is interesting and has Power Girl and Supergirl take on the identities of Flamebird and Nightwing, heroes from Krypton's past. I admit when I first heard of this I wasn't sure it would be good but it really surprised the heck out of me.The true gem is the way KAra Zor-el was displayed in this arc. We were shown how powerful Supergirl was in her first trade but this collection goes into her character more then her abilities. Supergirl is unsure of her role in a world that looks up to her cousin, Superman. The writers here do a good job of not only displaying a teenaged superhero who might not want to put on the cape because she has the power to make a difference. Instead we see a girl who hasn't grown up yet, She runs from responsiblity and avoids the one person who cares about her the most.As far as the extra story thrown in involving the JLA, I guess that was DC trying to show what Supergirl was doing before the crisis and how she was recruited by Donna Troy. The thought of making sure the reader knows what happens before OYL is appreciated but they could of just easily put a paragraph explaining what happened (and saved money)People can say what they want about this title but I feel the writers have done an excellent job of making the Girl of Steel as human as possible. The upcoming thrid volume of Supergirl is even better.