Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett talks about comics with heart.

Last week I wrote about the three things that I learned from reading John Lasseter’s preface to the book The Art of Big Hero 6, the last of which being that he always wants to know “where the heart will come from” in his movies.  Taglines from the movie reviews ("A Bot with heart," "A superhero movie with heart," "heart warming," "Has a big heart," When the heart beats the action," etc.) certainly illustrate Lasseter's point.  Even the negative reviews front-loaded the part about heart ("small on heart," etc.).
 
Now “heart” is a notoriously difficult thing to (briefly) define; it’s kind of a “know it when you see it” sort of thing.  It’s also easy to confuse it with sentiment and sentimentality (which are often confused with each other) but for our purposes let’s just say it means “the center of human emotion.”  Or what kids today apparently call “feels.”  You can also recognize heart by its absence; I ended my discourse with a snarky comment to the effect we don’t see a whole lot of heart in comics these days.  A perfect recent example of this being Marvel’s Original Sins.
 
Now I’ve written about the comic here before (see “Confessions of a Comic Book Book Guy --The Eye Offends”), specifically about the death of The Watcher (see “Confessions of a Comic Book Guy --Watch This”).  And I’ve just reviewed the collection (see “Review: ‘Original Sin’ HC”) so I won’t rehash it here, other than to say there was one thing I omitted from it, the part of Original Sin that I actually liked:  Original Sin #0, written by Mark Waid and drawn by Jim Cheung and Paco Medina.  In it, new Nova Sam Alexander makes a personal pilgrimage to the moon to visit The Watcher in hopes of learning the fate of his missing father.  He even thinks to bring Uatu a gift, something I missed the first time I read the story.  The package is awkwardly taped together, exactly the way a kid would do it.  It's wonderfully written and drawn and also has (you guessed it) plenty of heart.   Something the rest of Original Sin is solely lacking.
 
A couple of weeks ago (see “Confessions of a Comic Book--Taking Another Pass On The Subject”) I wrote about DC’s stealth relaunch of Supergirl, which includes a new writing team, a new direction and maybe a new costume.  She’s definitely wearing a new outfit on the cover of Supergirl #38, though from reading Supergirl #36 this appears to just be the optional “Kryptonian battle armor” variant of her current costume, a.k.a. “pants mode.”  I honestly never had a problem with the New 52 version of her outfit, though I could have done without what one website referred to as her “red crotch shield."  And maybe I just don’t understand fashion but I can’t really say what the knee vents in her boots were ever in aid of.
 
Well I actually read Supergirl #36 and I was surprised to discover just how much I liked it.  The script by K. Perkins and Mike Johnson was effective and the art by Emanuela Lupacchino (a woman, for those keeping track of gender equality among comic book creators) is really, really pretty.  It’s been a couple of years since I’ve checked in on this version of the character and was gratified to discover she had finally learned to speak English (something that really should have been a snap for her, seeing as how she’s so damn superior to us humans).  I was also happy to see her working as a barista and that she had lost some of her entitled brat attitude*.  After previously having nothing but contempt for Earth she now wanted, in her own words, “to live among its people, real people, living real lives.”  Now there, I thought, is a status quo that has the potential to tell stories about the human condition, stories with (there’s that word again) heart.
 
So naturally a couple of pages later that’s all left behind as she gets transported to her fancy super school the Crucible, where she’ll be exclusively spending time with other superhumans.  It’s hard not to see this as a missed opportunity but for the moment I think I’ll keep reading Supergirl to see how this develops; I’m as surprised anyone but it’s just that good.
 
*One problem with the character is they decided to make her immigrant experience the polar opposite of her cousin’s, that being the reluctant refugee.  It’s entirely understandable that they did that, it’s a handy way of differentiating her from Superman. The same way it’s understandable that the character be more than a little bitter and angry about her situation.  But when there are so many desperate refugees grateful to come to our country her constant arrogance and resentment is more than a little appalling; stupid humans with their stupid complicated technology they’re all so stupid.  She’s an entitled brat forever pinning for an idealized version of home she can never have (one thing for certain; she won’t have that attitude on her impending CBS TV show). If she had stayed a barista she might have actually gotten to meet some of those other American emigres; now that would have been interesting.
 
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.