A young Kryptonian is on the trail of a bloodthirsty band of intergalactic brigands. She has in her company a young girl who suffered the loss of her father to one who had moved among them. The journey to locate them is a cautious journey through oceans of death in Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow #4. Writer Tom King explores rarely-tread territory in cosmic-level superheroing in a deeply emotional issue that is rendered for the page by artist Bilquis Evely and colorist Matheus Lopes. As intense and emotional hammer as the third issue was, King and company have managed to craft a story with even heavier impact as the series reaches its halfway point. 

The journey to track down the brigands who killed the girl’s father finds Supergirl and her companion through a journey of unbelievable pain and suffering. Supergirl is doing her best to help the victims on her way to a showdown with those who had victimized them. There’s an orphaned baby. There’s a mass grave. There’s a towering giant of unbelievable strength. People are suffering, and she can only do so much to help them as she makes her way towards those who would leave whole planets in ruins. Supergirl faces a great deal in the wake of such wanton mass murder. 

King takes a series of brief stories from the journey of Kara and the girl. Each one is its own flash fiction story of tragedy softened by the heart and muscle of the girl of steel. Superheroes aren’t often given an opportunity to just help people out...certainly not for a full issue like this. King really knows how to rip a reader’s heart out of its chest. The scene at the gravesite is kind of overwhelming. Then a few pages later, a visitation to another site of mass murder is given hauntingly minimalist impact. Elsewhere she’s feeding a victim in a hospital who has barely survived. Through it all, King gives the reader a lot of motivation to want Supergirl to punish the villains. It’s powerful stuff.

Evely manages a tight balance between the fantasy of strange creatures from other worlds. Make them feel too strange or foreign, and they won’t connect with the reader emotionally. Make them appear too human, and it will compromise the galactic scope of a beautifully dark space fantasy. An issue that’s mostly free of action allows Evely and Lopes to amp up the drama with fierce intensity. The power of Supergirl in stern stillness is positively overwhelming in Evely’s hands. 

The journey of Supergirl and her companion has already been so many different places. It’s difficult to imagine what’s going to happen in the second half of the mini-series as the journey thus far. King’s pacing has been impressively well-thought-out to this point. A slow and steady journey to find the killers turns a major corner next issue. It’ll be interesting to see how Supergirl handles the brigands who are as close as the next major planet at issue’s end.

Grade: A+