Review: Superwoman Vol. 3- The Midnight Hour

Quick Summary

Pros: Superwoman gets a passable sendoff. The final chapter has a few good moments.

Cons: The opening story is unappealing and rushed in a way that makes it feel pointless. The main storyline is only decent and fails to do anything interesting. Themes feel unnatural and are left undeveloped.

Overall: The final volume in this series tells several poor stories that make up an altogether poor volume. Portions of the collection feel pointless, other portions feel too rushed, and the book, as a whole, is uninteresting. Superwoman gets an alright conclusion in the final chapter but this is one of the collection’s few positives. Read this if you really need closure regarding Superwoman’s story but don’t go into it expecting much else.

Story

Though the Superwoman series had a strong start and an interesting premise, it has slowly become less interesting and more tiresome as it progressed. Superwoman Vol. 3: The Midnight Hour, by Kate Perkins, continues this trend and finishes the series with some of the worst material the series has seen. The opening chapters are pointless, the main storyline is only moderately entertaining, and none of the collection’s themes are developed enough to work. The only redeeming qualities here are Lana’s character development and portions of the final chapter. In the end, this is a passable sendoff to the character of Superwoman but a poor volume overall.

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The first story in The Midnight Hour is the least appealing portion of the collection. It features the ultimately meaningless return of someone from Lana’s past, a forced and unnatural connection to the Supergirl series, and a completely unappealing main villain. It also hurts that this storyline seems to be cut down in the middle of establishing itself. None of the characters or plot points here matter by the third chapter and the entire story feels completely pointless.

This jarring switch likely occurs because the creative team needed to introduce Superwoman’s final story arc to prepare the series for its upcoming cancellation. This final arc is a bit more appealing but still fails to be anything special. It sees Lana struggle to contend with a villain who is mysteriously abducting the citizens of Metropolis. The problems here are similar to those in the first volume: the story is only moderately interesting and still feels rushed.

It also doesn’t help that the collection is continuously in the process of juggling themes while never sufficiently developing any of them. Perkins makes a valiant effort to address issues like homophobia, sexism, and general inclusion, yet does nothing beyond introducing the issues. The result is a storyline where the introduction of random social issues feels forced and intrusive, rather than a clever story that says something meaningful about society.

Though this storyline isn’t all that great, it does manage to end on somewhat of a high note. The final chapter has Lana explain the joys of humanity to a robot, which assists in allowing her to overcome many of her personal struggles. It is touching at points and provides a decent end to many of the doubts and anxieties Lana has expressed throughout the series. It still isn’t great but is certainly the best moment in this collection.

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Art

Despite being put together by a number of different artists, including Stephen Segovia, Art Thibert, Sami Basri, and Federico Dallocchio, the majority of The Midnight Hour actually ends up looking fairly nice. The artwork is structured well, locations are detailed, and characters are drawn with a crisp and purposeful nature that allows them to pop against the backgrounds. Hi-Fi Design’s colors assist in making characters stand out and give the book a bright and optimistic feeling throughout. There are a few moments where facial expressions look weird but these moments are pretty rare. This isn’t the best looking book of all time but it still looks nice and does well in helping to tell the story.

Continuity

Superwoman Vol. 3: The Midnight Hour continues the story from Superwoman Vol. 2: Rediscovery (Review).

The Superwoman series ends here. As of right now, Lana Lang’s story does not continue in any specific comic.

This volume also references other comic books, all of which are detailed below:

• Information about Maxima and the Crucible can be found in Supergirl Vol. 6: The Crucible.
• The origin behind Superwoman’s powers change due to Superman: Reborn.