Skip to main content

Katana at Super Hero High Review

I'm obviously addicted to DC Super Hero Girls. As I've said previously, I've pretty much consumed everything that is DC Super Hero Girls up until this point. So here's a review on the newest book, Katana at Super Hero High by the always amazing and talented Lisa Yee.

This is the 4th book in the series after Wonder Woman, Supergirl, and Batgirl all got their own books and this one is finally a breath of fresh air of newness. The first 3 books all focus on the concept of a new girl coming to school, struggling to fit in and accepting her place at this elite new school. There were slight variations on the theme, but that's basically it. Wonder Woman and Supergirl felt very similar as they both dealt with similar issues and Batgirl had slightly different perspective, but it still felt like we've tread over this material before.

With Katana, we've finally got a new perspective. Katana is not the new girl at school, she's established with friends from the previous books and while she makes a new friend in this book, it was organic and part of the story. So it all worked really, really well. The basic plot is that Katana disappears after trying to get the cake for Batgirl's celebration of being Hero of the Month. With Katana missing or late, something that she never is, her friends go looking for her with a little help from the often invisible and incredibly shy Miss Martian. Katana is found in the tunnels under the school in water with 100 swords surrounding her. The group gathers up the swords and helps Katana. Katana gets a strange message via a shell and a mystery begins, one that will carry over for the entire book.

While trying to solve her mystery, Liberty Belle, the history instructor, has given out assignments to all the students to look into their past to inform their future, so Katana has to contact her family to begin unraveling some of the secrets of her own past and her grandmother's legacy as a great Samurai warrior. One of the best parts in this is Big Barda regularly chiming in that she's not so thrilled about looking into her past since she comes from Apokolips. Her lineage is all villains and evil, but Supergirl and the others encourage her to use her past to explain why she'll be a great hero in the future. It's so good.

Ultimately the story unfolds with a big battle and Katana shining bright during it. There is reference to Japanese mythology as well as Lisa Yee sneaking in a reference to Japanese-American hero, Tsunami. That made me super happy especially after Tsunami, a WWII era hero, is being excluded from DC Bombshells comic which is going to delve into the history and treatment of Japanese-American people during WWII and the interment camps, which is Tsunami's entire story and heroic arc, but it's going to be given to characters that have historically been white that will be Japanese for the Bombshells world. Either way, it's glad to see Tsunami won't be completely forgotten and that in a book for young girls, she gets a mention and nod.

Over all, I think unlike Summer Olympus, this book is perfect for anyone especially young girls that want to be warriors, artists, fashionistas, and save the world! 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Pride Month Recommendations 2 Lesbian/Bisexual female list

Ok.. on to the next recommendation list. Again, focusing on bisexual female and lesbian leads/major characters, but mostly leads. The first was gay/bi men (aka male/male relationships), this one will be lesbian/bi female (aka female/female relationships), trans*, queer, intersex, and asexual will be next and a final installment with books that just have a lot of everything. Again I'm putting lesbian and bisexual female characters together for the simple fact of female/female relationships would appeal to similar readers. That's all. So onto the list shall we? First up is Harley Quinn. Most of her books will work as there has been a strong subtext that she and Poison Ivy were more than just friends since she first appeared, but it's recently been confirmed in the Amanda Conner/Jimmy Palmiotti run that she is in fact bisexual and in a finally happy and healthy relationship with Pamela Isley aka Poison Ivy. It's a wacky fun series and Harley has recently gained a g...

Why does trade vs. Graphic Novel matter and how to tell the difference

So someone challenged me recently that none of this remotely matters if it is a trade paperback or if it is a graphic novel.. and someone else expressed frustration in not being able to tell what is reprinted.. This blog post is going to cover both.. so hang on to your seats. Why does it matter? Well simple.. they're different terms and mean different things, just like Anime and Manga mean different things even though they are related and in the same industry. But besides that, there is a difference between say the Sandman graphic novel and the Sandman trades. How? OK.. So Sandman has 11 trades now (From Preludes and Nocturnes to the Wake and then the prequel/ending The Overture ) and there are 2 graphic novels ( Dream Hunters and Endless Nights) The trades tell the serialized story from beginning to end and recent beginning that brings the whole thing full circle again. That story is reprinted from the original series 1-75 and Overture 1-6. This is important to note because a...

Pride Month Recommendations 4: A Cast With 2 or More LGBTQ characters

Back again with the 4th round of recommendations.. So this list is books that have an ensemble of different LGBTQ characters. So with no further ado, here they are: Secret Six (first run)  by Gail Simone and various artists - This includes Villains United, Murder for Money, Cat's Cradle  and Caution to the Wild  for all 36 issues plus the mini that started it all and yes.. you want them all. Contains: bisexual man , bisexual woman,  lesbians,  and  genderqueer  characters So to start off this rag tag band of misfits were a group of villains that refused to join all of the other villains in the world as they teamed up and the Secret Society of Villains didn't take to highly to them doing that, so they tried to have them killed. The Secret Six of course resisted, fought back, and won despite their power sets. It's a really fun romp all around and it has some nice emotional moments and backstabbing fun. In case you're wondering, Catman (Thomas Bl...