Writer: Shea Fontana

Artist: Yancey Labat

So how do you feel about DC’s female super heroes (and a few villains) as teenagers in high school? Because that’s a thing now. Like it or hate it, that’s a thing. Ostensibly an effort to reach out to young female readers who want something between the silliness of Tiny Titans and the darkness of modern superhero books, the new DC Super Hero Girls line reimagines Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Batgirl, and others as teens at an academy for up-and-coming teen girls with powers. DC has already been pushing this new version with a toy line and web cartoons, but this weekend’s Free Comic Book Day offering gives us a “pre-print” excerpt of the upcoming Super Hero Girls graphic novel. Like it or hate it, Super Hero Girls is going to be DC’s young-female marketing tool for the forseeable future, so we as well judge this story on the merits instead of the concept.

This Super Hero Girls introductory chapter gives us a quick survey of Super Hero High and the cast of characters. In brief, the school is populated by teen versions of classic DC characters (the men are there too, as we can see teen male versions of Flash and Green Lantern in the background) who are taught by older figures like Wildcat and Amanda Waller. Instead of traditional math and science classes, the students are training for future heroism careers by learning sparring and fashion design. It’s all a bit silly, but then, it’s essentially the same concept as Tiny Toon Adventures with an slightly older set of characters.

The advantage of this kind of reimagining is that it makes DC’s heroines just a little more relatable to the target audience. Tween readers might not understand an Amazonian princess or a crazy clown girl who’s escaped an abusive relationship. They can understand the performance anxiety of final exams and school-age bullying. That’s the spin this excerpt focuses on, with Supergirl dealing with the crushing pressures of her upcoming tests and memories of how badly they went on Krypton.

Shea Fontana and Yancy Labat put on a competent tween-age book for the target audience and it’s worth a peek for the younger readers. This is especially helpful for parents who aren’t ready to let their kids into the older-oriented books of mainstream DC. Do keep in mind that the FCBD Super Hero Girls comic is only an excerpt of the upcoming graphic novel, so kids who want more will have to come back to get the rest of the story.

Rating: Four report cards out of five.