Action Comics: Supergirls

Near the end of 2003 there was a 3-part story told across issues 806-808 called Supergirls. 2003 was an odd year for the girl of steel, Kara Zor-El had been absent from comics since the Crisis and the Matrix Supergirl had long ago merged with Linda Danvers but even her story wrapped up in the early months of the year. As such the role of Supergirl was left open and would soon be filled by Cir-El. Cir-El was introduced as the future daughter of Lois Lane and Superman. I do plan on doing a full exploration of Cir-El at some point but for today I want to talk about what might be her best story from her brief time in comics.

As mentioned earlier, Supergirls was told from issue 806-808 of Action Comics and all 3 issues have the same creative team. Joe Kelley writing, Pasqal Ferry, Cam Smith, and Guy Major on art, and Comicraft providing letters. The issues came out from August to October of 2003 and while the covers all call the story “Supergirls” the story is listed on the inside as “Hungry Ghost” referring to the antagonist Byakko. As the title suggests, this isn’t a story of just one “Supergirl” but 3 and surprisingly none of them are named Kara. The stars of this story are, in order of appearance, Traci Thirteen, Natasha Irons, and Cir-El. Cir-El is the only of the trio that actually uses the moniker of Supergirl but Superman does refer to the group as “Super…Girls” so if they had gone on to further adventures I’m sure that would be their team name. Both Traci 13 and Cir-El are fairly new characters to the lineup having both appeared for the first time at the beginning of the year. Traci sometimes shortens her last name from “Thirteen” to “13” and sometimes goes for “Girl 13” but generally doesn’t bother too much with a superhero identity. She is the daughter of Doctor Terry Thirteen who spends a lot of his time debunking supernatural and magical occurences. Naturally, as his daughter, Traci has what is referred to as “City Magic” drawing most her power from her urban surroundings and can do all the general magic things that you would expect. Cir-El, as I mentioned earlier, is the sort of future daughter of Superman and also has a alter ego of May and there seems to be some sort of split personality thing going on between the two. Cir-El, being half-Kryptonian, has all the normal Kryptonian powers but to a lesser degree because of her diluted DNA. Natasha Irons is the most developed of the trio fist appearing all the way back in 1994. She has, up until now, only been a support for her more well know uncle, Steel. Although throughout the story she comes into her role as a proper superhero herself when she takes up her uncle’s hammer and a new suit of armor to become the new Steel.

The story itself features a half-dead Superman, injured at the hands of Byakko, another recent addition to Superman’s cast. Byakko is able to phase in and out of things which is how she is able to so easily lodge a pipe in the man of steel and also gets the better of all the Supergirls throughout the story. Byakko blames the death of her husband on Superman, a reference to her introductory story, thus resulting in a lack of Superman action for 3 months in Action Comics.

Even though the Supergirls are really no match for Byakko, their admirable determination – and a bit of a pep talk from Nat – helps Byakko realize the world is much better with Superman than without and withdrawals herself from the battle as she tells Lana “[Superman] has wonderful children. My husband would have admired them very much.” This brings up another notable point of the story, Lana Lang. Lana is of course a well known childhood friend and confidant of Clark Kent. More recently to this story, however, she is the wife of Pete Ross who has just jumped from Vice President to President after the arrest of former President Lex Luthor. Throughout the story we see Lana getting an apartment in Metropolis and we learn of her plans to leave her husband. There is also reference to a Kiss between her and Superman that I assume was well documented and happened in a previous story. This supposed romantic relationship is what leads Traci to Lana’s apartment after finding an incapacitated Superman in the streets and kicking off this storyline.

Much like my feelings for Cir-El as a whole, I feel my enjoyment of this story is much more about its potential rather than its execution. The story itself isn’t anything stunning, and the dialogue doesn’t do much for me. But the idea of 3 young teen girls in Metropolis working together to figure out their powers and save the day is really interesting to me. I would love to see this group have continuing stories as we learn more about these “daughters” of Superman. Unfortunately, Cirl-El would vanish from existence just a few months later never to be seen again aside from a brief cameo in Superman/Batman a couple years later. Traci and Natasha have continued to appear in comics and even bounced in and out of a romantic relationship since this story so there is a bit of continuation of this team, but I think without Cir-El they aren’t really Supergirls.

Sorry to end this on a bit of a downer, I do really enjoy this story and I’m quite fond of the art throughout, and how can I think it’s bad when my biggest complaint is that there isn’t more. With the more loosey goosey nature of DC’s current Everything-is-Canon continuity, I could see Cir-El showing back up, but I really don’t think she would be able to exist aside from a mention or a cameo when we have characters like Jon Kent and Otho-Ra and Osul-Ra filling similar roles. Cir-El could be good to use in an elseworlds story (Powergirl of the Tangent universe in the Superman’s Reign story has a bit of a Cir-El vibe) or we could even see continuations of this Supergirls team told as past stories like Peter Tomasi did with the later Super Sons stories. Be on the lookout for an upcoming post about Cir-El’s full history and feel free to send comments and questions to daringnewblog@gmail.com !