WOMAN OF TOMORROW #8 Reveals How Supergirl Killed Krem

THIS WEEK: Tom King’s Supergirl saga comes to its long-awaited conclusion in Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow #8.

Note: the review below contain spoilers.  If you want a quick, spoiler-free buy/pass recommendation on the comics in question, check out the bottom of the article for our final verdicts.

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow #8

Writers: Tom King
Artist: Bilquis Evely
Colors: Matheus Lopes
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Cover: Evely & Lopes

When Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow #1 came out, it left readers with a lot of questions, as Tom King comics tend to do. Why is this focusing so hard on Ruthye, the alien girl? Why was Supergirl suddenly 21 and irresponsibly drunk? How and why did Supergirl kill Krem of the Yellow Hills? Would Krypto be okay? King answers some, but not all of these in the final issue of the series.

In my review of the first issue, I surmised that King was probably withholding information from the reader as he tends to do, and lo, I was right. Who could have seen this coming? Several things that King used to set the stakes for this story were revealed to be falsehoods, and that felt both cheap and demeaning as a reader. Notably, Kara’s whole involvement in this story is hinged on a lie. While readers were shown Krypto with arrows in his neck and were told the following issue that he was left on death’s door dealing with poison from the arrows. The whole conceit of the series was predicated on rushing off to try to save her dog, which made the following six issues so infuriating, because months of time slogged on, with no mention of Krypto. I was sure by the time we returned to him he’d be dead, and that would drive Kara over the edge.

But no, turns out that entire premise was a lie. Krypto was never actually in peril. He’s been fine this whole time. So the anger over that in the first issue, the rage at using violence against animals as a plot point? It’s still there, but it’s made all the more pointless because it didn’t even matter.

But lest we be left without pet death in this series, King had something hidden up his sleeve. No, Krypto was fine, but Comet was brought into this story just to get slaughtered by Krem’s allies. The centaur that was doomed to live life as a horse except when a comet was passing by got to die as a man. For whatever reason, his mortal injuries reverted him to humanity (rather than you know, his original form as a centaur, why? Who knows). The only thing I will say further about this death is that the full-page splash of Supergirl holding her dead friend’s body is stunningly gorgeous from Bilquis Evely and Mat Lopes. They have both done incredible work on every issue of this series.

Then we have the other premise the story was built around. That at the end of the series, Supergirl, not Ruthye, would enact vengeance upon Krem of the Yellow Hills, taking his life. In the end, that too was a lie. A falsehood predicated by Ruthye to sell a book about her story, a lie told to keep herself safe from retribution from Krem’s allies. This is a plot twist that worked for the story, but once again it felt a bit cheap, if only because it’s become such a reliable trope of Tom King stories. It’s become a cliche for him to reveal some key part of the mystery in the penultimate or final issue of whatever series he’s writing, and then seemingly pat himself on the back for a job well done when it was impossible for the reader to ever get there on their own. It’s a disingenuous and lazy way to write a mystery, but it happens again and again with King.

The thing is, there are moments in this series where it really felt like King got the core of the Supergirl character. There are some great moments sprinkled throughout the series, and even in this issue that shows that if he really wanted to, King could probably write a pretty good Supergirl story. But these eight issues weren’t that. Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow wasn’t a Supergirl story, not really. The whole series was narrated by Ruthye. She was the focal point character throughout. And indeed, in Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow #8, the first five pages are about half Supergirl’s fight and half Ruthye’s stand-off against Krem, but the only dialogue or narration on those first five pages belong to either Ruthye or Krem. Then the six pages that follow that? Supergirl appears on none of them. Those six pages are nothing bout the Ruthye and Krem fight, with nary a Supergirl to be found. No, Supergirl’s first dialogue in the final issue of her own series comes on page 12 of a 24-page issue. It was tiring when this happened during James Robinson’s Wonder Woman run, and it’s tiring here as well. But at least the main character of this book was a female character and not the long-lost brother of the lead character, so progress, I guess.

In this issue, we’re led to believe that Supergirl helped Ruthye grow as a person, helped her learn that vengeance isn’t the answer. In fact, rather than kill Krem of the Yellow Hills, Supergirl and Ruthye decided to put him in the Phantom Zone, where for the three hundred years he would reflect and then atone for his misdeeds. He came out a changed man, asking Ruthye for forgiveness. Instead, Ruthye smashed him in the face with her cane, and both she and Supergirl left the man for dead, as the sun rose on the body of Krem and set on this series.

In the end, this series will likely have no lasting ramifications on the character of Supergirl, and that’s probably for the best, but it remains to be asked why did this story need to be told with this character. Of all characters in the DC Universe (or indeed, just in Tom King’s head) what made Supergirl the right one for this book? That’s the one question that really remains unanswered by the end of this series.

Verdict: SKIP

Round-Up

• Nightwing #89 was full of really good heartfelt moments and some good jokes. It maybe was a little but too self-referential, but really the interactions between Superman and Nightwing made up for that.
• I really enjoyed the Nubia series. It was a great look at the lives of the women of Themyscira and really reflected on the history and lore of the Amazons in a way that made their world feel a lot more real. I’m very excited about Trial of the Amazons.
• Chip Zdarsky is writing a banger Batman origin tale in Batman: The Knight. It’s a more personal version of the origin where we see Bruce struggling with the morality of his choices, and I think this one is going to stand the test of time.

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