Writer: Shea Fontana
Artist: Yancey Labat
Colors: Monica Kubina
Letters: Janice Chiang
$9.99
DC Comics

This is not a repeat review, exactly. On Free Comic Book Day (FCBD), we reviewed the 22-page “pre-print” of DC Super Hero Girls which gave us the first 20-odd pages of the story. We’re now pleased to review for you the remainder of the issue, published this week in digest-sized graphic novel format. Its more compact format makes it an appropriate-sized item to slip into your child’s suitcase for summer vacation, but how’s the content within?

DC Super Hero Girls re-imagines the bulk of the DC Universe as teenagers attending “Hero High” where they’re learning the ins and outs of heroism from older characters. More specifically, they’re also learning the ins and outs of growing up, with superheroic foibles substituting for the anxieties that school-age children encounter. Being an outsider, the isolation of high school, the fear of tests; all of these topics are covered in a super-powered way where basic childhood stressors are covered in an action-packed comic book way.

Seeing the story published in full clears up one of the ambiguities of the pre-print issue. The FCBD version was moderately unfocused, with the story jumping from a spotlight on Wonder Woman to an abrupt view of Supergirl. It turns out that this was intentional, as the comic is actually split into chapters which focus separately on each girl, and the FCBD copy didn’t include the chapter-splitting pages. The breakup does allow the story to separately spotlight each of the main characters: Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Poison Ivy, Bumblebee, Katana, Batgirl, and Harley Quinn. This format does make the story’s progression a little repetitive, as each chapter does read identically: each girl has a unique problem, overcomes it, and then encounters a recurring threat which ties together the disparate tales. It does, however, let each of the girls be highlighted equally.

Shea Fontana at least makes some effort at having the various stories coincide. In addition to the threat that each girl encounters, there’s an intentional simultaneity to each story where certain events coincide with each other. Poison Ivy runs by Batgirl in her story, and the scene is duplicated in the Batgirl section. It’s not exactly Pulp Fiction, but it establishes a fun sense of world-building for junior readers.

Yancy Labat’s art is also an appropriate, clean style for younger readers which presents a friendly take on the characters and doesn’t sex them up needlessly. Keep in mind that DC Super Hero Girls is a larger media property with a toy line and animated shorts. Labat’s art is a good fit that accurately captures the “brand” style of the line while still working well within the bounds of the comic book format.

DC Super Hero Girls: Finals Crisis works well as a gateway comic for the parent who’s asking where to get a child started on comics (For the record, there is another issue coming, but not until November.). Certainly there are more realistic stories that a new reader should be introduced to at some point–Wolfman and Perez’s Teen Titans comes to mind–but DC Super Hero Girls is a friendly, reasonably-priced entry point that will make a nice, easy gift for a kid.

Rating: Four stars out of five.