I *adored* this graphic novel. I haven't read a ton of Supergirl in the past. This was a nice origin story that was among my favorites of all origin stories I've read. I found this to be a perfect YA book, but quite enjoyable for me as well. I recommended it to several people within a day of finishing it. I will be interested to read more in this series.

First thing I have to say is that this cover almost made me avoid reading it. It gave me the impression that this book wasn't going to take this character seriously and that it would just be fluff piece. I am so pleased to tell you that I was wrong...very wrong. This book is refreshing for it's realism, dialogue and situations the characters find themselve are presented realisitically and it draws you into the story. You care about what happens to them. Very good story and an enjoyable read.

Super Girl was never my favorite, actually none of the DC characters really are... but there's something so powerful about having a girl with super powers!
I loved reading about Miss Marvel (as Kamala of course!) and now reading Super Girl with Kara.. it was unexpectedly good!

Highly recommend anyone that wants a new fresh heroine to pick up this series!

A good starter series about Supergirl/Kara Danvers in high school, but maybe a little too reliant on high school tropes and Kryptonian superpowers.

This was a great comic. I really enjoyed the story line as well as the illustrations. The comic tells the story of super girl and how she came to earth and be the superhero that she is.

I really, really enjoyed this title and highly recommend it, especially for teen and youth librarians.

Being a fan of the TV series, I was looking forward to finding my new fix in between the next season, because the cliffhanger was just heartbreaking. So I was super excited to receive this ARC and it DID NOT let me down one bit, The color and panels were gorgeous to read and breathtaking to take in.

My students will eat up anything about Supergirl and this adaptation does not disappoint. Tamarind hits just the right points to entertain and thrill.

Kara Danvers is Supergirl. She has great parents and friends but, they still don’t totally understand her. For her 16th birthday she gets a giant zit that everyone is noticing. To make matters worse it’s school picture day! Kara excels at track and she is one of the few on the track team to get a tracker to help with training. The only problem is that she now must make sure that she only runs like a human (instead of Supergirl). During a track meet, there is a major earthquake that rips Midvale in two and the events of the earthquake will alter Kara’s life forever. In addition, her powers are acting up. Why?

This covers the backstory of Supergirl and introduces her world. The graphics and story will appeal to teens. It is well written and enjoyable. The story covers topics that have great appeal such as friendship, death, and finding yourself. This is a collection of Supergirl: Being Super volumes 1 – 4.

An absolutely lovely, feminist retelling of Supergirl's origin as a hero. I love her interactions with her adoptive family, as well as her best friends (especially how she has two, yes two, best friends and it just works). While the book is open-ended enough for a sequel in this same world, I wasn't left needing more (though wanting is a different story).

Supergirl Being Super plays like a teenage drama, just like the CW TV show. It was Interesting that an almost 16 old Kara didn't know her origins. It was like what in the word is Krypton?! All she knew was that she was blessed with these powers. She probably thought she was a metahuman. Metahumans are pretty common in the DC universe. It took a tragedy for Kara to step up. Along with that loss, a betrayal led to one of a chance encounter, another Krypotian. He may taught her about their planet, but strangers always have hidden agendas. I don't blame the guy. If was tortured and experimented on for who knows how long. I'd want revenge on humanity too. The only difference is I'd go after Lex Luthor and his people. This guy freaking vaporizes a hiker for no apparent reason. Even Krypotians can be psychos. I forgot about how insane general Zod was!
So Kara ends up running away with this guy. She's afraid she"ll put her family and friends in danger. Lex Luthor's people know what she is and will hunt her down. Kara soon learns how unhinged her new companion is when he tries to off her best friend, Dolly. An awesome battle goes down. And Kata develop an ice breath power that stops him in his tracks. Of course it was just putting a bandaid over a problem. But for now he's out of her hair.
Dolly tells Kara about Superman in Metropolis. This gives Kara the idea to meet him. The book ends with Kara meeting Superman In the air saying we should talk. I hope there is a sequel to this series. I really like the dynamic between these super cousins.i've seen it in a few animated series. Overall this was a good book.

Got an advance reader copy of this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this version of the Kara Danvers story. It's not the same as the current Supergirl TV show (no Alex Danvers, for example) but it has really great art and nice side characters as she learns about growing up and her powers and taking responsibility. Very much enjoyed it!

I am not usually a DC comic reader (No idea why), but I wanted to branch out and why not branch out with Supergirl? Supergirl: Being Super tells the origin of super girl before she dons her cape. We find out how she came to earth though flashbacks in her memories and we also gain some insight to her life on the farm that she grew up on. This very much seems a coming of age comic that involves friendship, death, trust and betrayal.

The Graphics/ Artwork
The artwork by Jones was great. Every character had such a individualized look to them that made them standout, even the characters in the background. I loved the use of colors for each scene that made things pop. I just really liked it, will look for more of Jones work.

The Story
Like I said before this seems like a coming of age story, which surprisingly did not take away from the overall arc. I did see the betrayal coming, but I honestly was not sure that it was meant to be a surprise. If it was then it was a bit easy to see through. Overall I did enjoy the story and I really want to see how it develops in the next arc, especially after the ending
Our Heroine
Kara is very much a teenage girl, she just happens to have super powers. This is how she is portrayed, and it does not let you forget. This is a good thing. It shows her struggle to deal with these two clashing traits and how it affects the relationships she has around her. I like the way that Tamaki handled it and made Kara seem very real.

Overall
Overall it was a pretty great Origin arc and it did end in a way that made me want to continue reading about KAra's journey in to becoming Supergirl.

Generally speaking, I don't read the major superheroes. I find they rely too heavily on decades of history, on loads of foreknowledge. Given the author (love Tamaki) and what appeared to be a new approach to an origin story I thought it worth a shot. I was really into the early chapters, the universal desire to find your place in the world and in your peer group. Add in grief and guilt and it becomes a compelling human story. The last issue started to lose me a bit. Worth a second read though.

I'm not entirely sure why DC felt like they had to do yet another origin for Supergirl (yikes have there been quite a few), or for that matter if this story is in the main story or not (I'd guess not, but, who knows, I'm just rolling with it).

We meet Kara's two best friends, Jen and Dolly. All three are on the track team which is coached by a Coach Stone (I definitely thought that character would go a different way, ah well).

Kara seems to have powers, but, also sometimes doesn't? And her Mom and Dad are definitely unique characters, not to mention those texts from Kara's Mom to her. Oh man, classic.

Then there was Dolly. She's as far as I can tell a lesbian, and by the end of the book, while I enjoyed Kara's story, I really wanted to know more about Dolly too! (That's happened once before with Alysia Yeoh in the Batgirl series, I wanted all the stories to be about her, heh...)

It was interesting and different, and the ending was nice for both Kara and Dolly.

I received this book via Netgalley thanks to DC Entertainment.

I enjoyed Supergirl: Being Super a lot. That's due in large part to the ambitious, daring amount of time Mariko Tamaki spends in this book not on superheroics and or any standard romantic or conflict-based tropes, but on positive female friendships and the foibles of adolescence. Each of this volume's four "books" are 48 pages; the sum isn't much more or less than the standard trade or graphic novel, but Tamaki uses the space to dig in, especially in the second chapter, to the mundane or at least the more emotion-based than conflict-based. That's so unheard of among DC's superhero storytelling set that I was completely engrossed.

Being Super has two or three acts to it, the first being Kara dealing with the rather normal highs and lows of turning sixteen (with mild sprinklings of super powers) and then Kara mourning the death of one of her best friends; and the second being Kara breaking into and out of a government prison, and rescuing and then having to defeat a rogue Kryptonian. The first half is very strong. The cast is mainly Kara and her two friends Dolly and Jen, with no real conflict, jealousy, or angst (and also no boys or relationship troubles); instead it's just Kara negotiating her parents and trying to process not knowing her own origins while seeking guidance among her friends.

In and of itself, that seems different, braver, and more mature than standard superhero-crossed YA. But then Tamaki doubles down when Jen dies, with a sequence of twenty pages or more in which Kara mopes around, eats cereal, attends Jen's funeral, sneaks out of the house, talks to Dolly, and is essentially a normal kid trying to deal with a loss. That's fantastic superhero comics, with only the barest hint of superheroics and instead a story that seems to go where the character, and not the plot, needs to take it.

As a take on Superman's Smallville-era origins with Supergirl in the lead, I thought one place Tamaki innovated especially well was with the Danvers. They are farmers of sorts, not scientists, more in that respect the Kents than the Danvers of recent TV and comics portrayal. But Tamaki makes them wonderfully, uniquely weird, especially Kara's father, who believes birthdays are a corporate conspiracy, digs for gold in his barn, and teases his daughter good-naturedly about her pimples. Joelle Jones' initial scene of the outsized Danvers set against a stuffed-to-the-gills dining room with Kara in the middle is a great visual representation of how Kara's begun to outgrow her young life.

Jones indeed is very strong in the beginning, rendering well (unsurprisingly) three very different-looking teenagers, and also bringing visual interest to a variety of scenes of people just standing around talking. The amount of detail in Jones' backgrounds is impressive -- see everything tucked in the nooks and crannies of the dining room, or Kara's bathroom, or Kara or Dolly's bedrooms. Being Super stoked my enthusiasm for what Jones' Catwoman series is going to look like.

Supergirl: Being Super struck me as very much akin to DC's Earth One graphic novels; the amount of character-introspection Being Super offers seems in line with Earth One's directives. That this particular book seems marketed to a younger set should not, in my opinion, give you pause; I found this a refreshing change of pace that offered much (if not totally all) of what I wanted from a Supergirl Elseworlds story.

Thank you to Mariko Tamaki, DC Entertainment, and NetGalley for allowing me the extreme pleasure of access to an advanced reader copy of “Supergirl: Being Super” for an honest review.

I am a true dedicant of all things “Super,” especially Supergirl since falling in love with the show (even though my knowledge of the Super-Universe span back over a decade and half now; the show only made me love her more and more specifically). It meant from the moment I saw this graphic novel pop up on NetGalley I had to jump for it.

The very best thing about this book is that it realistically feels like it’s for teens, by a teen, about a teen. This is about Kara Danvers and her life as Kara Danvers (not as Supergirl, or becoming Supergirl, or how to juggle Supergirl, or even picking one over the other). Her concerns, and fears, and joys, and that of the other kids in the book, feel realistically like the kids I teach in my classroom all year long.

I will be getting a copy for my classroom, as well as suggesting this title to our librarian for the fall (as she keep an amazing well-curated set of graphic novels for our students to read)! ac

I received a free electronic ARC of this graphic novel in exchange for an hones review. What I liked best about this book was that it was about the person, Kara Danvers, not the superhero, Supergirl. I have taught middle school for many years. I found the characters of the three young ladies starring in this graphic novel to be very true to life in their concerns and attitudes. This was a real coming of age story that was heartfelt and honest in its telling. There were, of course, the superhero moments, but even then it was in the context of the young lady who would be Supergirl trying to make some really serious and consequential life decisions. After I finished the book, I let my adolescent daughter read it (okay, I kind of pushed it at her) and she also enjoyed it and found the characters to be believable and the story worth the read.

Librarian: This is easily one of the most realistic feeling teen hero stories that I've ever read. Kara feels like a real teen. Sure, she has powers, but the issues she faces feel like things that normal kids can relate to. Plus this is clearly setting up a good story, that is perfectly designed to draw in young readers. I'll definitely be recommending that we add both this, and future volumes to the collection.
Reader:
Confession time: I've never read Supergirl before. She was never a character that called to me. Still, I thought that it was time to give her another try. I'm glad I did. This story is great and I can't wait to see what's going to happen next.

It was a good way to began reading the girl of steel. A way to understand powers and a good origin story.