Supergirl Surprise #6: Supergirl Vol. 5 #55

Supergirl (Vol. 5) #55 “Fakeouts” was written by Sterling Gates, pencils by Jamal Igle, inks by John Dell, Richard Friend, and Marc Deering, Colors from Jamie Grant and Jim Devlin, and Jared K. Fletcher on lettering. The middle part of the Bizarrogirl storyline (which I covered a couple months ago here)

As we hop into the 6th installment of my random look at a single issue of my Supergirl collection we land on “Fakeouts”. This was the middle part of the Bizarrogirl storyline (I covered it a few weeks ago here). This was the 55th issue of Supergirl’s 5th series and came out in 2010. It was written by Sterling Gates, with pencils by Jamal Igle, inks by John Dell, Richard Friend, and Marc Deering, Colors from Jamie Grant and Jim Devlin, and Jared K. Fletcher on lettering. With the initial face off between Bizarrogirl and Supergirl happening last issue, this issue works as a stepping stone to set up Supergirl recognizing Bizarro-World is in trouble and having her head off at the end.

The issue opens with a flashback to the Anti-Arctic of Bizarro-World having a drastic seismic event and Bizarro-Jimmy and Bizarro-Lois walk in on Bizarro #1 loading Bizarrogirl into a rocket that he also planned to be on in an attempt to escape from the turmoil all around them. Due to Bizarro-Jimmy and Bizarro-Lois however the rocket gets sent off with just Bizarrogirl inside. Shifting back to the present, Supergirl is still in the metallic state she was left in last issue after getting hit with Bizarrogirl’s solid-vision. Really impressive full page art here that really sells the fact that Supergirl has been turned into metal.

Thankfully, as we soon find out, Supergirl had learned from the Flash how to vibrate her molecules through solid objects. Back in the game now, Supergirl continues the fight with her imperfect twin and is eventually able to get her away from citizens that could be in harms way. Before she rushes off after her, Supergirl does check in on Gangbuster and lets him know he’s got a couple busted metacarpals but is otherwise in alright condition. The panel layout in this particular issue is quite good, Kara’s flashbacks are shown with rounded corners and it’s done like this a few times throughout the story. In contrast, the Bizarrogirl flashback at the start of the issue had really ragged edges. I’m not sure who in the line of artists would be responsible for choices like this but it’s a really great visual shorthand to differentiate from the square edges of the main story.

We get a quick couple pages here of Cat Grant building up to the Toyman arc coming up, and we build on Cat’s continued plot of trying to badmouth Supergirl in the Daily Planet when we see “Does Supergirl Have a Daily Planet Informant?” typed up on her computer. Supergirl literally crashes back into the story and puts her best effort into a quip, “Me have a fight to get back to”, and then flies to the outskirts of the city and freezes Bizarrogirl to get her back for the solid state she was in at the start of the story.

This is all just a distraction however and the real plan is soon revealed. We get a nice look at Kara being well versed in science with her plan to de-power Bizarrogirl with similar radiation to that of a K-Class star as provided by Dr. Light. Along with the K-Class radiation, the plan also included Bizarrogirl being taken to S.T.A.R. Labs to be studied. Supergirl, after learning Bizarrogirl is a refugee like her, decides to take matters into her own hands and snatches Bizarrogirl away from Dr. Light and back to the rocket that brought her to Earth. The issue ends with Supergirl and Bizarrogirl in a rocket headed back to Bizarro-World.

I mentioned the art earlier with the page of solid-state-Supergirl and the use of panel borders to differentiate flashbacks, but I also want to applaud Jamal Igle for some really exceptional compositions throughout the whole book. There are quite a few 2 page splashes in the book that are all used quite effectively in a lot of cool and exciting action sequences. There’s also a moment this issue where Bizarrogirl gets punched out of one of her boots. There’s really good continuity of the boot being missing through the rest of the story. All around really great art from the whole creative team.

While I’ve been looking at the ads in the books for all the Supergirl Surprise books I’ve covered so far, this was the first entry where I found just a bunch of ads that I wanted to talk about. First up was this Journey’s ad for some DC Comics branded converse that I would absolutely go for. Then I wanted to mention the weird dichotomy of the anti-weed ad and the 5 Gum ad that reads “Everyone experiences it differently” both showing up in the same book. While we’re on it, the Above the Influence ad features a bunch of odd sayings but my favorite is “5 ft 10 and a whole lotta attitude”. The Hero Factory ad is only getting included this time out because I think I’m still a little bitter about Hero Factory replacing Bionicle even 15 years later. To close out I wanted to show off a 2 page ad for Metroid Other M, a game which I’ve not played but I love Samus’s vibe and the ad definitely makes me want to check it out. I think the main reason I got so much out of these ads was because in 2010, while I wasn’t buying these comics, I was getting targeted ads for a lot of these products in a lot of other ways.

Thanks for sticking around! I hope you had a fun time taking a look at this book from my collection, and I hope you come back for more! If you have any thoughts or suggestions for Supergirl content for me to cover feel free to email me at daringnewblog@gmail.com!