DC Super Hero Girls: Search for Atlantis

DC Super Hero Girls: Search for Atlantis is the last of the graphic novel line by the original pair of creators, writer Shea Fontana and artist Yancey Labat. It’s also the first tie-in release, as the first few pages, introducing Mera to the school for superhero students, reference the animated movie DC Super Hero Girls: Legends of Atlantis. (In short, Mera was a bad guy, manipulated by her sister Siren so she can obtain the magical Book of Legends.)

In this story, Bumblebee is jealous, as she and Wonder Woman were best friends until Wondy started spending a lot of time with new girl Mera. And the students find out on a field trip that Atlantis has disappeared, so they venture into outer space to get it back. Two teams of heroes — the Teen Titans plus Miss Martian as the first, and Mera, Supergirl, Wondy, and Bumblebee as the second — head out on interconnected missions to recover the shrunken underwater city.

There are some good lines here, cute wisecracks and useful lessons — I particularly like how Bumblebee’s intelligence is emphasized, as she makes more shrinking technology for her friends to go with her own super-suit — but overall, the various bits and pieces didn’t gel for me. Relatively little time is spent in the underwater world, plus there’s space jail and Lobo and too much with the Titans … I wish it had all come together more concisely. The school premise is a good one, but it’s nearly forgotten here.