“The Hero of Kandor” reaches its epic conclusion in Supergirl #15. Whilst this does end with the defeat of the Black Flame, the story is less a triumph over evil and more about heroes coming to their own. This is as much true for Kara Zor-El as it is for Lesla-Lar, the latter of whom struggled to find her place on two worlds throughout Sophie Campbell’s run.
Although Campbell does deliver a fast-paced finale that’s packed with dynamic action sequences and bright colors from Tamra Bonvillain, the heart of the story leans on Kara’s and Lesla’s growth as heroes and the legacies they want to create for themselves. Part of this is done as setup for the upcoming Superman event, “Kingdom of Zod“, but most of it is about pushing the characters forward in exciting new ways. This is best reflected by the final pages of Supergirl #15.
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By far, the character who has grown the most throughout Campbell’s run is Lesla, with much of her heroic journey paying off in a huge way in issue #15. After three story arcs where Lesla struggled with a lack of confidence and an unstable self-image, she finally figures both of those things out by “The Hero of Kandor’s” finale. This is handled in a way that feels earned and wholly satisfying.
Lesla’s growth mainly comes through in the pages where she stands up to her father, who consistently belittled and condescended her in the earlier arcs. In issue #15, she makes her first major decision as the titular hero of Kandor to actively reform her society into a truly progressive one that rewards achievement and eliminates arbitrary punishment systems. These pages also show the extent of Kara’s influence on Lesla, which perfectly sets up Kara’s upcoming arc in the “Kingdom of Zod” event.
In the case of Kara, much of her character arc has focused on building her into a hero who could exist on equal footing with Superman. Earlier in Campbell’s run, Kara struggled with having an identity outside of being Superman’s cousin, and much of her arc has focused on the Girl of Steel discovering her own values and having her own group of friends. This growth pays off triumphantly in the pages where Kara realizes she is already a hero on equal footing to Superman, and more importantly, she has what it takes to lead a team. This is perfectly reflected in her costume change at the end of this issue.
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Although Supergirl #15 is both concluding an arc and setting up a future Superman event, it still manages to tell a self-contained story. The only character in this arc that still doesn’t quite work is the inclusion of Conner Kent, mainly because he feels shoehorned into a storyline that doesn’t require his presence. This is the only part of the story that feels editorially mandated since Conner serves very little purpose in the story other than to be an extra muscle in the fight against Black Flame.
At best, Conner has a slightly more substantial presence in issue #15 than he does in the arc as whole, but this still doesn’t amount to much. His presence in the finale is still largely inconsequential. It’s enough to say that if Conner was taken out of the story entirely, no one would notice. The overall story would still play out as it originally did and would still have the same impact. Even Lena’s entrance into the story could have still happened with the character relying on her genius alone.
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The only other weakspot of issue #15 is that Black Flame’s villain arc is awkwardly concluded, namely due to feeling like Campbell wrote herself into a corner. After all the buildup towards Black Flame becoming a superpowerful villain, having her succumb to solar poisoning almost feels like a copout. At best, Kara drawing her out of Kandor and exposing her to the Earth’s yellow sun could have allowed her to enjoy the power for a few seconds before shrinking back down to bottle size due to the genetic mutation that’s been central to the story.
The difference in size alone would have made Black Flame easier for Kara to restrain and would have driven home the point about the vulnerabilities of the mutation outside of Kandor. Whilst this would have proven Black Flame’s point about why this mutation was bad and why she felt violent revolt was justified, Kara could have also validated her point. She then could have planted the idea that a more productive way of dealing with the problem was to find a way to reverse the mutation. She could not accomplish that by destroying her home since Earth lacks the technology to reverse it, leaving her even more vulnerable.
Though not a perfect ending, validating Black Flame’s initial grievance about the mutation that was central to her arc could have made “The Kandor of Storyline” come full circle. It also would have added more weight to Lesla’s comments about Black Flame needing to help rebuild Kandor.
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