I think comic books are more than just pictures of people with ridiculous body images fighting each other. I think they allow us both a form of entertainment and education in a format that nothing else can duplicate. Television is visual and aural, books are simply reading, music and lectures are mostly aural with a few visual additions. Only comics really allow words to be combined with the context of an image in a way that presents situations or ideas and allows the imagination to fill in what's missing or provide a deeper meaning. For instance, take the following comics panel:
In that one page, the narration and image help set an atmosphere that could, at the very least, be described as "haunting." It sets the mood perfectly in one picture what might take a movie or television show several minutes of footage to do, but it doesn't rush you. You can read it at your own pace, or start with the picture first, or move back and forth to take it all in.
But I'm not here to talk about Batman (this time), I'm here to talk about one of my favorite comic series of all time, one that most people fall on the "love it or hate it" sides of the spectrum: Peter David's run on Supergirl.
Okay, there's a little back story to this. See, a while before this series started, there was a "Supergirl" that existed in DC Comics. It wasn't the original one, who was Superman's cousin, but instead an artificial "protoplasm" being that simply had the form of a tall, statuesque blond girl. Oh, and it came from an alternate world and was named "Matrix." This was before Keanu Reeves ever put on black leather.
Just before this series began, Matrix finds a young woman named Linda Danvers who was supposed to be a sacrifice to bring a demon into the world. She realizes she can't save the young woman's life unless she takes desperate measures, so she "merges" with Linda and the two become a single being. Linda (the brunette) can now "shift" into Supergirl where she gains the usual flight, speed, and strength abilities, but more later emerge, but that comes later.
At the time the book came out, I'll admit I was pretty bored with Superman. The man had died, come back to life, and had gone through a rather rough spot in the 90s, but the fact that Peter David, one of the best writers to ever tackle the Hulk, was taking over the book lured me in.
It followed the standard superhero fare, except it brought it more "down to Earth" in many ways, as Linda had to figure out if she could reveal what happened to her to her parents, her friends, and tried to piece together what was left of Linda's life. Her "father" was a cop, her "mother" was extremely religious, and her ex-boyfriend "Buzz" was the guy who tried to sacrifice her.
The book explored a lot of what it meant to be "alive." While Linda tried to determine if she was still "human," many of the villains she faced seemed to have their own existential crisis going on. She fought the ghost of a former Justice League villain who tried to possess her, a giant chemical-being who pondered if it had a soul, and other threats.
Oh, and then God showed up.
No, I'm not kidding. That's Wally, the boy who claims to be God and seems to know things before they happen, always be present when "miracles" happen, and seems to know much more than he ever lets on.
The book takes a heavy spiritual twist, since you can't really discuss what the purpose of life is without getting into some heavier topics. To "help" with this dive into theological discussion (including possibly the best explanation I ever read of why God put the apple tree in the garden to begin with), the series took a twist by having Supergirl/Linda Danvers become an actual angel.
Correction, an angel with fire wings and fire vision.
So yeah, this is where the series started to lose some people.
The series went on to have Linda "shed" the Matrix parts of her, thus losing her connection to the divine, but it then continued under the identity of a "new" style of Supergirl, one significantly weaker than her former self, but one that drew influence from her animated series self.
Eventually the series ended, but not before a truly bizarre story where Linda tries to take the place of the original Supergirl, Superman's cousin, from before the first major "reboot.". You know the one I mean, the one who died saving everything.
She gets to fall in love with Superman (he figures out quickly she isn't who she claimed to be), get married to him, and even have a happy life before she realizes she needs to let the original die or history is irreparably damaged.
Reading through the whole series, it's quite engaging to see someone who was lost and spiraling out of control into a world of drugs, alcohol, and darkness (and eventually her own murder) rediscovering what it means to be alive and what kind of connection she can have to things bigger than her, even when she already has the might to wear a specific "S" on her chest. Watching her learn to rebuild relationships that burned down long before she had a second lease on life and learning to find just where the areas of "gray" are to being a superhero (and how living up to the "S" shield means pushing past any "gray" area and doing the right thing always), and even her second journey of discovery after she lost her "holy" aspect felt like a genuine arc for an interesting character.
Now, there are some who complain about the ending. "Oh, such a powerful girl was only happy when she got to marry someone and put out a baby." I don't quite understand that argument. I think it's always been assumed that for many superheroes the ultimate "happy ending" is being able to hang up the cape and live a normal, happy life. In The Dark Knight Rises (spoiler alert) we see Bruce is with Selena. Spider-Man's "happy ending" for a long time was the ability to go home to Mary Jane...you know, before "that event." Why is it sexist for a female character to want the same thing? I mean, sure, if she handled it like "all the good I ever did means nothing next to the fact that I'm now a mother" or "well, I guess I was just better suited to this kind of life" would be one thing, but I never really got the idea that's what Peter David was saying.
And why Superman? Maybe it's because Superman is the ultimate ideal of the ultimate "good guy." I don't think anybody's "dream relationship" is "You know, I think that my ultimate happily ever after would be to marry Bruce Banner...when he still has anger control issues and tends to smash everything and everyone around him."
Or "When I was young, I dreamed that one day I'd get to marry someone like Barb Wire because there's a chance she'll murder me with a shoe for using a poorly worded term of affection."
The series also has one of my favorite single issues of all time, where Supergirl attempts to help a school for the Deaf. The story is told primarily from a Deaf child's point of view, so when people aren't signing or facing her when she can lip read, there's no text at all to tell people what's going on, putting an additional burden on the artist to make up for those words I talked about at the start of the article.
The series has only been collected at the beginning and at the end of the series, but back issues are probably pretty cheap. I highly recommend it if you want a book willing to look beyond just "how many bad guys can I punch this week" and take a careful look at what it means to be human, superhuman, and just what kind of messages the universe is trying to send us sometimes.
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