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A review by moonpie
Sanctuary by Mike Johnson
2.0
Crossovers are such a pain in the ass! I've grown to expect unfinished cliff-hanging storylines in DC collections, and I've also grown to dread them, because most of the time (read: all of the times so far) I haven't read the other parts of the crossover, and didn't even know they existed. I don't read Superman and I hadn't HEARD of Superboy until the day before I read Sanctuary, so needless to say, I was totally baffled by the time The Flash and Wonder Woman showed up. Although I did get a kick out of seeing Wonder Woman in print, since I haven't read any of her comics yet.
So the H'el on Earth storyline was mostly lost on me. From what I could see, Supergirl has the wool pulled over her eyes pretty easily by the bad dude, but I can kind of understand that, given her emotional flux and teenager-ness. The storyline cuts off pretty abruptly (at least from my POV, given that I hadn't read any other parts of the story) and I had to piece together the resolution from the crumbs left in the following issue... which dropped Power Girl into the story.
I think I was supposed to know Power Girl's backstory, but I didn't, so I was lost again. Someone in Power Girl's office (where she's Karen, I guess) says Supergirl looks like her, but I have trouble recognizing Super Girl HERSELF at certain angles in these books, so I assumed it was just a passing resemblance at first. But I STILL don't know who Power Girl is, really, even after reading pages full of Power Girl/Supergirl comparisons and conversations.
I still loved the concept of Sanctuary, and Sanctuary's conversational tone is hilarious, so I enjoyed that storyline, despite my confusion.
However, because I was confused so often, I found this collection irritating as a whole. This might not be the fault of the writers, but in similar situations -- my first reading of Batgirl, for example -- I was confused at first, but as the story moved along I could figure out the gist of who people were or why things were the way they were. No such happiness here.
I'm reading on, since my library happens to have all of the new Supergirl TPBs, but only because I have easy access to them.
So the H'el on Earth storyline was mostly lost on me. From what I could see, Supergirl has the wool pulled over her eyes pretty easily by the bad dude, but I can kind of understand that, given her emotional flux and teenager-ness. The storyline cuts off pretty abruptly (at least from my POV, given that I hadn't read any other parts of the story) and I had to piece together the resolution from the crumbs left in the following issue... which dropped Power Girl into the story.
I think I was supposed to know Power Girl's backstory, but I didn't, so I was lost again. Someone in Power Girl's office (where she's Karen, I guess) says Supergirl looks like her, but I have trouble recognizing Super Girl HERSELF at certain angles in these books, so I assumed it was just a passing resemblance at first. But I STILL don't know who Power Girl is, really, even after reading pages full of Power Girl/Supergirl comparisons and conversations.
I still loved the concept of Sanctuary, and Sanctuary's conversational tone is hilarious, so I enjoyed that storyline, despite my confusion.
However, because I was confused so often, I found this collection irritating as a whole. This might not be the fault of the writers, but in similar situations -- my first reading of Batgirl, for example -- I was confused at first, but as the story moved along I could figure out the gist of who people were or why things were the way they were. No such happiness here.
I'm reading on, since my library happens to have all of the new Supergirl TPBs, but only because I have easy access to them.