Supergirl and the Legion of Super Heroes v5 #36 - Supergirl returns home and the Legion gets a new leader by Default!

Released November 28, 2007
DC Comics, Color
23 Pages

The Quest for Cosmic Boy - Epilogue

Tony Bedard - Writer
Dennis Calero - Artist
Nathan Eyring - Colorist
Mike Marts - Editor

Synopsis

Saturn Girl tries to focus on the primordial mind of Evolvo Lad after he has taken out Supergirl and Lightning Lad, but there's not much to control. So she works to revive Supergirl. The sequence is narrated where Imra is addressing Brainiac 5 in the future as some kind of a debrief.  She notes how much Supergirl loves the Legion. 

Supergirl tries to get Brainy to help, eventually forcing her authority for him to help, but he effectively hangs up on her. Garth zaps the ground beneath Evolvo Lad and he falls into the structure below, right into a ring that also has another circular portal view that shows 21st century Earth and a fight between Black Adam and the Marvel family.  She recognizes that her friends are in trouble. Supergirl threatens to destroy the machine, prompting Evolvo Lad to re-evolve. 

Saturn Girl figures out the scheme and sends Garth out on a perimeter sweep under false pretenses. She detected "Chronexus" in Evolvo's thoughts in the brief moment he was "normal"; a device that Brainy apparently made (in Action Comics) that allows visibility into other times, if not actual time travel. This has been upgraded to a one way portal to the past.  Kara is there by mistake and needs to go back to her proper time. The hunt for Cosmic Boy has all been a ruse by Brainy. Garth arrives back and gets the details - Kara is returning home and Garth will be leader as the runner up. 

The story catches up to Brainy and Imra talking directly. Or actually via dreams.  Brainy is asleep and Imra is in his mind, along with Dream Girl, leading to Imra's discovery of Nura's new nature. Imra and Nura both chastize Brainy, and he spills the details.  Cosmic Boy's name needed clearing. Mekt would have likely taken over the Legion, but Brainy planted false evidence. Wildfire is an ally. And Supergirl had to go back home.  Oh by the way, her memories were wiped. 

Garth is in Rokk's office making sure that Kara made it home ok, not knowing that Brainy & Evolvo wiped her memory on her way out the door. The Legion celebrates Garth as the new leader. 

Commentary

The main hook of this whole thing revolves around the device introduced in Action Comics 850, which I had not read, but checked out for context. Its a special issue that looks at Superman's history by way of the Legion as the framework story of Kara using the device to examine Clark's past and her part in it. Interestingly it shows Clark with a Legion ring. 

Calero's art - fine.  I'm used to his style at this point.  But why is Cosmic Boy ALWAYS angry? He's not even here!?  I'm guessing he's just pissed because Waid left. Honestly, that's probably a good reason. Let's be honest, we're all mad at Dan DiDio for something.

But back to this story. It's titled as an epilogue, but that's a misnomer. An Epilogue is typically a tag or wrap up to a few loose ends, but this is a full on chapter. I'd consider the epilogue here to be the scenes with Garth, but the rest is a very intentional final chapter where we say goodbye to Supergirl in the series. 

It's all done well enough, but the whole thing leaves me scratching my head. I'm guessing Imra sent Garth away as she didn't want him forcibly confronting Brainy. Also, didn't all of the Legion learn about Dream Girl when they took care of the Dominators? Similarly, Brainy's scheme, while interesting, seems to be built on an odd premise - that of the possibility of Mekt taking over. My understanding was that Ayla had successfully convinced everyone that he was a psycho, so the reveal of Brainy falsifying evidence felt wrong, just as the so-called likelihood that Mekt would have taken over. Of course, every bit of the last six issues was to tie up all of the loose ends from the Waid run, but in the end the storyline feels like it was built on a false premise (we never find Rokk AND we lose Kara) and as a result the story doesn't really stick the landing as well as it should have.  Maybe another issue would have made that work a little better, but this felt like driving down the road at speed and needing to hit the brakes a bit too hard to avoid a crash. 

As the official end of the Waid run, I'm very curious to see where this goes, as I really did not read any of the Shooter issues. But I will say that 36 issues into the series, I've still not yet gelled with any of the remaining characters on the team. All the ones I kind of like, Supergirl and the original Nura, get shunted aside.

Grade = B-. Decent, but rushed, end to the Supergirl run.