Supergirl Vol. 1: Misadventures in Midvale TP

Supergirl Vol. 8 has been continuing on for the past year now and just this week saw the release of the first collected edition of the series thusfar. Supergirl Vol. 1: Misadventures in Midvale collects the first 6 issues of Supergirl vol. 8. Issues 1-3 had a consistent team of Sophie Campbell providing writing and art, Tamara Bonvillain on colors, and Becca Carey lettering. Issue 4 would have Dave Sharpe filling in for lettering, before Carey took back over. Issues 5 and 6 would see Rosi Kampe, and Paulina Ganucheau helping Campbell with art and issue 5 had colorists Kendall Goode and Marissa Louise fill in for Bonvillain.

As the title suggests, Supergirl: Misadventures in Midvale does in fact cover some misadventures that happed to Supergirl while she was in Midvale. The first 4 issues that are collected here share the title with the collected edition and tell the story of Lesla-Lar causing mischief in Midvale posing as Supergirl until the real Supergirl is able to convince her that there is another way and begins helping her become her own hero.

Lesla first encounters Supergirl on one of Supergirl’s weekly visits to Kandor. Lesla is caught in the crossfire of a crisis and is heroically saved by the girl of steel. This leads Lesla on a path to leave the bottle city, go to Midvale, hypnotize the Danvers, and pose as Supergirl. As Supergirl, Lesla-Lar has been helping the people of Midvale, but she is also creating crises to create events that would let her preform heroic deeds.

As mentioned above, Supergirl is able to get her identity back from Lesla and while there are tussles between the two, Supergirl doesn’t overpower Lesla with a punch but with a hug. Kara realises that Lesla more than anything else just needs a friend, and even after the Kandorian council sentences her to 10 years in a cognitive correctional facility, Kara instead offers to take Lesla under her wing and keep an eye on her for her sentencing.

Lesla does begin her superheroic journey as the hero Luminary in part 4 of Misadventures in Midvale and of course a crises happens but Supergirl and friends are able to take care of it. Issue 5 lets Supergirl take a back seat in the story and instead focuses on the 4 super-pets that are common characters in the series; Krypto, Streaky, Kandy, and Tinytano. This is a relatively isolated story but it does mention the fallout of issue 4 and leaves you with a cliffhanger for issue 6. Issue 6 too is relatively isolated and tells a story of Supergirl encountering Nightflame of the Innerverse. This theme of single issue stories building on a larger narrative is true of all the stories in this collection. Even the 4 issues making up the Misadventures in Midvale story each tell their own story with their own plot and antagonist. You get the Titano issue, the Satan Girl issue, and the issue where Supergirl and the L.L. girls go to a goth bar.

The cast of the series for the most part is Supergirl and girls with the initials L.L. which has been a common theme with Superman and his supporting characters like Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, and Lana Lang (even Supergirl was named Linda Lee for a while). Supergirl’s crew also has Luthor, although Lena is much less villainous than her dad, Lesla-Lar, and a new character introduced Luna Lustrum. Aside from Kara’s ever growing fleet of L.L. girls, Jeremiah and Eliza Danvers are also present living in Kara’s childhood home in Midvale. The aforementioned Super-Pets are also all over the series, Krypto the Superdog (needs no introduction), Streaky the Supercat (not Kryptonian but very super in his own way), Kandy the Superbunny (Lesla’s pet bunny who grew and got powers along with Lesla when coming to Midvale), and Tinytano (Titano the giant monkey with Kryptonite eye beams but now he’s tiny.

This series is great and it continues to be wonderful past the issues collected here but this is a wonderful start. This series is also a great entry point for new Supergirl readers and Sophie Campbell does a great job of sprinkling in bits and pieces of Supergirl’s long running (nearly 70 years!) history all while building up a new history and status quo for the maid of might. Campbell definitely shows a firm grasp on Supergirl’s history and if you’re familiar with that it reads as fun Easter eggs, (issue 6 is particularly full of references) but this story doesn’t rely on knowing all of Supergirl’s history and can be enjoyed just the same by readers new to the character.

As a collected edition, this is fairly bare bones. For the most part the six issues are just reprinted without changes. I did notice that the “to be continued” blurbs from each issue did get removed but some of the editor notes that mentioned “see last issue” were still intact which feels counterintuitive to me. Before each issue you get both the Sophie Campbell cover as well as the Artgerm cover each presented without any cover dress so you can appreciate the art all by itself. In the back we get a handful of pages of cover galley and a few sketch pages from Sophie Campbell. The advertisement for other Supergirl trades is the same as the set from the Universe End trade and I think it’s a great set to show readers a wide array of Supergirl stories. The story is fun when it needs to be and heavy when it needs to be, there’s action, there’s dialogue, and there’s a fully formed supporting cast, this truly is a Supergirl story for everyone.

If you haven’t read any of this series yet you absolutely should. I’ve read a lot of Supergirl stories and Campbell writes some of the best Supergirl stories that I’ve ever read and I continue to enjoy the title every month. Here’s to many more stories yet to come.