One of the best comics of DC’s All-In initiative is Supergirl by Sophie Campbell. Aside from the fact that the comic is a fun read every month and embraces Kara Zor-El’s Silver Age and Bronze Age histories in the best of ways, it’s also expanding the Girl of Steel’s supporting cast and world. It’s also a comic that still depicts its characters with depth, even in the more humorous moments.
For Supergirl #5, Campbell takes a break from focusing on Kara and her friends Lena Luthor and Lesla-Lar to focus on the Super-pets in her life. Accompanied by guest artists Paulina Ganucheau and Rosi Kämpe, Campbell sends Kara and Lesla off to Metropolis for training and puts Lena in charge of watching over the Super-pets. But as every human who has ever lived with an animal knows, once the humans are out of the home, the mayhem of the fur babies ensues. Campbell goes all in with this idea in both humorous and heartfelt ways.
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The first Super-pet team-up Campbell focuses on is the impromptu alliance of Krypto the Super-dog and Kandy, Lesla’s Super-rabbit. Though Campbell brings back Princess Shark from Supergirl #1 to battle the two Super-pets, the beating heart of this story is Kandy feeling conflicted about her team-up with Krypto. On the one hand, she knows that Lesla previously instructed her to treat Supergirl and her pets as enemies. Kandy continues on that trajectory, thinking that if she finally beats Krypto, she’ll make Lesla proud. But as the story progresses, Kandy starts to enjoy Krypto’s company and the latter starts feeling happy he made a new friend.
The best thing about the Krypto and Kandy team-up, however, is Campbell writing them as behaving the way real dogs and rabbits do. As humans with fur babies know, there are three things dogs and rabbits love more than anything else: food, sleep, and being spoiled. Campbell brings these qualities to the forefront, with Krypto and Kandy finally getting the chance to enjoy being animals and not just Super-pets who help the human Kryptonians save the world.
In addition to stopping Princess Shark from wreaking havoc in Midvale, Krypto is immediately friendly with Kandy, just like any other dog that has ever been fascinated by the presence of another animal. Likewise, Kandy gets her moment of being spoiled by Krypto, with both eventually getting the one reward every fur baby enjoys: food. If the team-up between Krypto and Kandy was super-cute and a pure joy to read, Campbell still manages to take it a step further with Streaky and Titano (now referred to as “Tinytano”).
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By far, the most hilarious Super-pets team-up is the Tinytano and Streaky adventure, namely due to the different ways they perceive superheroics. Streaky is more like Batman in that he responds to trouble purely out of responsibility, and is very methodical in his approach to solving problems. He also has a very “I work alone” mentality like many real cats, which means he’s very easily annoyed by Tinytano tagging along with him on their adventure. But this is what makes their team-up an exciting read: Tinytano very much likes responding to trouble because it gives him something fun to do, even if it’s preventing super-powered kittens from wrecking the town of Midvale.
Of course, the character who suffers the brunt of the Super-pets’ mischief is Lena Luthor, who exhausts herself chasing after them all over Midvale because she can’t keep up with them. But in addition to Campbell’s solid script, a lot of the hilarity of these situations is facilitated by the pencils of Paulina Ganucheau and Rosi Kämpe. Since both artists have anime-inspired art styles, this helps drive home the bombastic nature of the Super-pets adventure and sells the cuteness of their behavior. The artwork also helps convey the excitement both Krypto and Tinytano feel to have a team-up with another Super-pet, while at the same time succinctly conveying the complicated feelings both Kandy and Streaky feel during their missions.
All in all, Supergirl #5 is a perfect standalone issue for both DC fans and animal lovers alike. It’s gloriously unapologetic in its use of Silver Age tropes when it comes to the Kryptonian animals causing mayhem. It also gives space to more heartfelt moments like Krypto and Kandy enjoying food together, and Tinytano and Streaky feeling accomplished after saving orphaned kittens. Though Kara and Lesla are not featured prominently in this issue, their absence works in the Super-pets’ favor because it allows them to fully run wild and unleashed, resulting in one of the best one-and-done stories in the Superman line of comics.
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