#i don't necessarily think mariko tamaki is a bad writer btw. i just hate what she's written w kara.

[bisupergirl]

ok i've let the supergirl special simmer so here are my thoughts (this will be unnecessarily long and a bit all over the place):

like i mentioned in my initial tags, this one-shot felt very pointless? i guess? kara is in the same place as she was before this special came out: she's still supergirl and she's still operating in metropolis along with every other superfam member. this would've been a great opportunity to move her "out of the city or out of this world" like the summary for this issue teased.

every relationship presented in this comic felt so off to me. why are lois and jon the two people reaching out to kara and not clark? literally every continuity has clark be the person kara confides in when she's having an identity crisis (except maybe the new 52, but i could be misremembering).

clark is the person kara went to when she needed assurance regarding her decision to become an actress (the superman family #208). clark is the person she went to when she decided to quit acting and go back to college (superman #376). when kara was hurt and confused by the fact that she couldn't connect with humans in the same way as superman, clark was the one who talked her through it and gave her advice (supergirl vol 5 #34). when kara was fired by cat grant and felt like she was an inferior hero compared to superman, again it was clark who dispelled those insecurities (world's finest: batwoman and supergirl #2). It's not even that i think kara can't have a deep relationship with jon and lois where she has these types of intimate conversations with them, it's just wild to me that kara and clark didn't speak at all to each other in this special.

kara and karen's relationship is meaningless to me. it is so inconsistently written and writers (specifically leah williams and tamaki) can't decide what their dynamic should be like. is karen the more standoffish and abrasive one, or is kara? is kara the one who wants to reach out and form a deep connection, or is that karen? read both the power girl and supergirl specials and you'll get two different answers. leah williams had kara write in her diary that she views karen "as an extension of [her] soul" and that they "share a bond that no one else in this world can possibly conceive of", and yet kara brushed karen off and pushed her away in this issue when, again, williams had kara say that she wished karen would stop pushing her away in the pg special. how am i supposed to give a fuck about their dumbass feud when no one can even decide what their issue is and how they feel about one another.

moving on, i think kara was written as very immature and even incompetent in this issue, which is especially lame after something like supergirl: woman of tomorrow showed her as a very experienced hero. specifically i'm talking about this scene:

this is just... so childish to me. this isn't kara's first, second, or third year acting as a hero. she's been supergirl since she was 15 years old and she should be in her mid/late twenties right now (since she's supposed to be around dick's age). her being overly competitive in a situation where lives are in danger is so beyond immature, and just not something that she's struggled with in the past. she's stubborn and impulsive but she's not going to risk anyone's life because she wants to be the one to save the day first.

and lastly, i just didn't get what tamaki was going for with kara's memory issues and i wasn't moved by her new struggle with being too competitive and "wanting to win" (like i said above). it would be one thing if this was an ongoing title where a writer could explore any trauma-based memory issues kara may have, but this isn't. tamaki just added something that kara had not previously struggled with in this continuity and did not utilize the time that she had w this one shot to explore that issue.

in conclusion i just think that mariko tamaki has a very surface-level understanding of kara. which is unfortunate since everyone seems to eat up every supergirl-related thing that she writes.

sg special was incredibly underwhelming as expected. . .