Supergirl Surprise #9: Supergirl (Vol. 4) #9

As I have been doing this Supergirl Surprise series I’ve generally found the single issues hold up pretty well on their own. This issue however I was totally lost reading through it. Tempus Fugit, cover dated as May ‘97, has credits that read “David, Frank, Smith, Prentice, D’Angelo & Digital Chameleon with Pittarese” It looks like the order is writer, penciler, inker, colorist, letterer, and finally editor with both D’Angelo and Digital Chameleon on colors. Looking into it, it seems the reason I was so lost reading through this is because this is part 2 of 2 of the Tempus Fugit story.

The story opens with a brief interlude showing the young Wally (who I’m pretty sure ends up being God) asking his grandparents to go out and see a friend – remember this for later – before cutting to what I assume is where the previous issue left off. A double scythe wielding foe named Tempus is obliterating the Danvers’ home while Buzz is sitting looking like an absolute d-bag. We get a reminder here that this is the Matrix Supergirl when she blasts Tempus with a “psi-blast”. Realizing her parents are banged up but otherwise okay, she tells Fred that she’s going to go after Tempus and try to alert Supergirl to the crisis at hand.

From here we get another interlude with Cutter at the Leesburg Tribune, before we see Buzz and Tempus having an argument. In the midst of their argument, they see Wally and an attempted fireball soon gets knocked away by Wally’s baseball bat like it was nothing. Supergirl catches up to Tempus at the hospital and this is the main action sequence of the comic. Around this point some dialogue between Buzz and Tempus reveal that their plan is to push Supergirl over the edge into murdering Tempus. Before this can happen however, Buzz stops her and asks if she wants to continue on the Linda Danvers life or change to be more like Supergirl. This moment of clarity snaps our hero out of it and Buzz gets whisked away. The story then ends with Linda waking up the morning before and it seems Wally has turned back time so that the Danvers’ house wasn’t destroyed, Dick Malverne wasn’t brainwashed to being Tempus (yeah I forgot that too!), and everything is just back to normal.

Peter David is an exceptional writer and this Supergirl series is often regarded as the best for our maid of might and this issue continues this trend. Me being lost as I read through this second part of a 2 part story doesn’t diminish the quality but it was an interesting thing to experience with this series, although I didn’t much care for the Groundhog’s Day starting over ending we got but maybe that’s just me. I’m interested to see how other comics approach the single issue vs larger storyline approach especially miniseries like Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade or Superman/Supergirl Maelstrom. The final panel at the end of the issue features a newspaper that while cut off can still read “Gary F Thanks R For Suppor” and it seems like this is meant as a send off since it’s Frank’s last issue doing art on the book. I don’t always like Gary Frank’s art and sometimes it falls a bit into the uncanny valley for me, but I do think there are some pretty exceptional panels in this book and the full page spreads are particularly successful. Linda does spend the first 10 pages of this issue half naked which is a weird outfit to wear to dinner with her parents but you do you.

A couple cool ads this week for the second wave of Amalgam. The first page near the front is in black and white and advertises Lobo the Duck, Thorion of the New Asgods, and The Dark Claw Adventures and the ad page in the back (full color now) showcases Bat-Thing, Spider-Boy Team-Up, and JLX Unleashed. I’m not sure exactly why the front ad is in black and white, perhaps it was part of the marketing or maybe it was a printing error. The colorless ad is on the inside front cover and the ad on the inside back cover is also in black and white so I’m leaning towards either printing error or it was intentional as possibly a cost cutting measure. Looking at some other books in my collection from around this time, it seems like DC books from cover date April and May 1997 have colorless inside covers but it seems isolated to those two months based on the Supergirl and Nightwing books I have (I don’t have any other books from those cover dates). Otherwise I didn’t notice anything notable while reading through this but I really enjoyed this different experience with Supergirl Surprise and I hope to have more surprising adventures through my collection.