Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow #1 - "Men, Women, and Dogs"

[laughing_tree]

Showing them in different lights or alternative universes, or giving them new origins, or adding complexity – it doesn’t work. The best way to do Super-characters, at least in my opinion, is to sort of strip all that stuff down. It seems like there are just these barnacles on these characters, until you’ve got angel wings and ectoplasm. -- Tom King

Comments

[lordultimus]

Yep, this is a Tom King work, alright.

[scorntx]

On the plus side, if he ever gets replaced by a robot / shapeshifter / pod, they'll be easy to spot.

[silverhammerman]

Yeah, I mean there are snide jokes to make, but at this point you're either onboard with his style or you're not.

The only way it could be more of a Tom King book is if it somehow added some strong Wife Guy themes, something like a through-line of "Supergirl is the coolest, is only she were your wife."

[laughing_tree]

My reaction was the opposite. This doesn't delve into any of what I think of King's pet themes and tics (depression, aftermath of trauma, the Iraq War (whether actual or allegorical), family as lifeline, pretentious quotes, nine panel grids, formalism). I'm curious what you mean.

[silverhammerman]

I'm no huge Tom King fan, just read his Vision and Mister Miracle, but the narration (in terms of tone and quantity) seems quite familiar, as does the reinvention of an established hero as being sad (I could be wrong there, but Supergirl entering the story drinking by herself seems like an indication that she's at a low ebb), and general meditation on violence (here through the lens of a setup that looks very True Grit-like), is the kind of thing I'd expect from him.

It is still probably Tom King's most surprising book in a while, and my previous comment was overly glib, but there's a good deal of connective tissue to his previous work.

[laughing_tree]

Vision's his only other book that heavily uses narration, as far as I can recall. He normally avoids it entirely, like most modern superhero writers. So its presence here actually came off as a deviation from his norm to me.

Hard to say how sad Supergirl is here yet, since the issue's from the little girl's POV. She's drinking because its her 21st birthday so she finally -can- drink and she's doing it in a red sun system because that's the only way she can feel its effects. But the lack of non-canine company is noteworthy, as you point out, and maybe it'll mean something.

[silverhammerman]

Yeah, I'm not super well versed in King's bibliography, the general feel struck me as consistent with what little I've read. Then again I'm often hasty to make judgments and I do just enjoy making fun of Tom King, given the serious and often literary aspirations of his work, so maybe I'm being too quick to write it off.

The birthday thing makes sense, but as you note, getting blackout drunk alone for your 21st birthday is quite different from doing it with friends.

[leahandillyana]

That approach is exactly why your stories suck, Tom.

[akodo_rokku]

What the heck part of, "she's Red Sonja now" is *stripped down*?

[lordultimus]

Nah, she's a depressed, semi-alcoholic Red Sonja now.

[laughing_tree]

She's not either of those things. She's just drinking heavily on her birthday, as people who just hit the legal drinking age tend to do.

[lordultimus]

Ignoring the fact that most countries on Earth (which Kara has easy access to) don't have the drinking age of 21 and, y'know, they don't have drinking laws IN SPACE, instead of celebrating with her family, she sits alone on some completely random primitive planet's bar in a ragged dirty trenchcoat to make the Rooster Cogburne analogue as obvious as possible?

Yeah, I don't think so.

[laughing_tree]

King's interpretation is that Kara and Clark are absolutely the kind of goody-two-shoes who would wait until 21 to drink. Agree or disagree that that's in character, that's the idea.

I think she could very well be sad or miserable about something. I don't think she's depressed or semi-alcoholic. The very next day, she's already getting ready to head back to Earth to do her regular Supergirl stuff.

[timefire]

If I were to guess, she might just've gone off to a red sun-orbiting planet precisely *because* she wanted to have a try at getting drunk - either Kryptonian invulnerability under a yellow sun means the alcohol does nothing to her, or it *does* and she becomes a flying brick without full control of her power, and neither outcome is good.

[thanekos]

Good story, but it's Tom King working on a recognizable character I have prior investment in and not hewing to the version I've got in my head, so 7/10.

[deh_tommy]

If you have to warp the character to such a degree to make your story work, maybe you should either rework the story or choose a different character. Said stories of his usually rely heavily on referencing other stories from the past anyway, so of course comparisons are going to come up.