Okay folks, settle in.
Because of the lack of new books coming out and an utter wasteland of news about Supergirl in the current DCU post-cancellation, I have been combing the backs issues for suitable reviews. And I have been focusing a little bit on Kandor given the recent storyling in Batman/Superman.
That has led me to this Candor storyline and I feel it needs to be reviewed even if I honestly say that I detest it.
But it certainly fits the bill for a decent deep dive for a number of reasons.
First off, it definitely involves Kandor, the post-Crisis city which in this storyline is a mishmash of alien beings and Kryptonian survivors. (I think the city was re-established as a Kryptonian city in Superman Birthright ... perhaps another review idea.)
But more importantly, it shows just how wrong DC can get Supergirl. Remember, right now in the DCU Supergirl has been on a downward path of being rage-fueled and then rage-infected. The book is very dark. And that doesn't work for Supergirl.
Unfortunately, DC never seems to learn the lesson. And so we have storylines like this one, early on Supergirl's reboot. You will see as this story unfolds how they make Kara very angry, actually murderous, and not exactly heroic. You will also see how DC hyper-sexualized her despite saying she was a 16 year old girl, something which is totally cringe-worthy. Perhaps worst of all, this is smack dab in the middle of the 'my destiny is to kill Kal-El, my father is mad Zor-El' nonsense.
Yes, just about everything is wrong here. And Sterling Gates/Jamal Igle's salvation was about 2.5 years in the future.
Still, this was very early. I think people were still a bit giddy that we had a Kryptonian cousin around and were still willing to give this a fair shake.
To put in context, Candor happens right after Supergirl #5 in which we see Jeph Loeb (the architect of the Kryptonian Kara reboot). And that isn't a winner either. Nude Kara prancing around her father while saying she'll kill Kal. Dark Kara coming out of her and being generally evil. And a rather inscrutable ending.
Well, we go from inscrutable to impenetrable ...
You also need to remember that this book was happening right as Infinite Crisis was coming out.
The idea was that each title would leap ahead and present stories that happened 'One Year Later' from the prior. So Supergirl #6, the first part of Candor, was going to be farther down the timeline.
I certainly didn't anticipate the new Supergirl would be what she was so far. And maybe this jump ahead would be a course correction. Jeph Loeb was off the character so maybe the 'I'm evil and Darkseid's slave', 'I'm evil and want to kill my cousin','I'm angry and want to be left alone' direction would simply go away.
I mean Greg Rucka was coming on. Everyone knows Rucka writes great female protagonists.
And this image in the 'Next in ..' box was very intriguing. No mistaking those little belt rockets.
And that positioning. It's iconic ...
It is Batman and Robin in this very classic Carmine Infantino pin-up.
So that has to mean Nightwing and Flamebird. But we wouldn't know what they would look like until the next issue hit the stands.
Okay, I do want to include a little bonus and a bit of a sneak peek.
This splash page of the very armored Nightwing and Flamebird appears in the Candor trade (cover above) but I can't find it in any individual issue or special.
I can't imagine it was made specifically for the trade. Perhaps DC had every book come up with a one page teaser for a possible Sampler-style 'One Year Later' book that never saw the light of day?
If anyone has any idea the origin of this, I'd love to hear it!
Anyways, settle in. This is a 3 part story with an epilogue and I don't think I am going to pull punches.
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