Supergirl #6 review

Supergirl isn’t in Midvale anymore.

And she’s not alone.

The cloaked figure and demons fade, and Kara finds herself in a more familiar setting.

A familiar setting, but still unsettling, as figures from her brief time as a blood-vomiting Red Lantern appears.

And then she finds herself awake and on patrol in Midvale, thanks to enemy turned friend Lesla-Lar and her newly discovered liking for coffee. Very quickly, though, she zonks out and finds herself back with the cloaked figure who calls herself Nightflame. And with her, she brings torment. More memories of Supergirl’s most traumatic times. She claims she’s the dark side of Kara’s psyche, unleashed by the recent Satan Girl incident.

But outside of Supergirl’s mind, Lesla, along with Supergirl’s best pal Lena Luthor and their new friend Luna Lustrum, aim to help the sleeping beauty.

And, little by little, Luna gets through.

Eventually, we get our happy ending, with a fun Halloween in prospect.

There’s probably not much here you’ve not seen previously in comics. The hero is sent into a dream realm and must fight their way out. Superman tale ‘For the Man Who Has Everything’ is likely the best-known example, but it certainly wasn’t the first. What is interesting here is that it confirms writer Sophie Campbell is smooshing together the continuities of pre-Crisis, post-Infinite Crisis and New 52/Rebirth Supergirls.

Which begs the question: why doesn’t Supergirl recognise Nightflame, who had a single run-in with the original Linda in the Bronze Age. Supergirl’s route out of the Innerverse there is pretty controversial – if you have the DC Universe Infinite app you can check it out for yourself, it’s Adventure Comics #421, easily spot-able because Campbell homages its cover for this issue.

The most surprising ‘flashback’ shows Linda at the bedside of her former beau Dick Malverne.

Just before the Eighties Supergirl book was cancelled Dick reappeared in her life after many years, and the non-canonical Solo #1 – also on the DC app – followed up the plotline nearly two decades later by revealing he was dying of cancer. Supergirl said goodbye to Dick, who admitted he’d actually known her secret all along. It shook me to see a version go that moment here, with Dick looking realistically ill, and Supergirl in Linda mode (and wearing specs, for some reason), whereas in Solo he remained Hollywood handsome.

My favourite panel deals with something that has bugged many a Supergirl fan over the years – Superman’s abandonment of his cousin Kara to an orphanage. It’s always felt so odd that as comics left the Silver Age and characters became more psychologically complicated, Supergirl never confronted her cousin over his cold treatment of her.

This is the first time I’ve seen it suggested there may be lingering resentment. Perhaps Nightflame really is part of Supergirl’s psyche?

This points up the problem of mixing continuities, though; it contradicts subsequent storylines about a later Supergirl being raised on Paradise Island and another in which Superman drops her off directly with the Danvers.

Supergirl’s friends are pretty useful, and while I’d generally rather the Maid of Steel solved her own problems, the original Nightflame story also had Supergirl receive help from the outside world.

Campbell shares the art duties with Rosi Kampe, who did such a great job last month; there she was drawing cute animals, here it’s more demon spawn, and she conjures up the appropriately creepy atmosphere in partnership with talented colourist Tamra Bonvillain. As for Campbell, her art is as sprightly as ever, though a dead-on homage to the first issue cover of The Supergirl Comic That Shall Not Be named is just rubbing salt into the wound.

I mustn’t forget Becca Carey, those letters are crisp and uncluttered.

As an autumn release containing plenty of Halloween vibes, this issue is all win. Try and work out what it’s telling us about the history of Supergirl, though, and it’s a bit of a headscratcher.