Superman Family: Super Extras

Superman Family was an anthology title published by DC from 1974-1982 and it would feature, as you might have guessed, members of the Superman Family. The title would eventually, in issue 182, feature entirely new stories but before then each issue would have a single new story and would be supplemented with a handful of reprints from Superman’s rich history. While you did always get at least one new story per issue, DC would also entice new readers with what they called “Special Features”. These would vary from brief history recaps, puzzles, or sometimes wacky text edits to comic covers. After the title switched to being filled with all new stories these special features wouldn’t really be present so for today we’ll just be taking a look at issues 164-181 of the title and skipping over anything that doesn’t involve the girl of steel.

The first issue of Superman Family was #164 which may seem odd but comics would often change titles or take over numbering from other titles and Superman Family is no different. Superman Family took over the numbering from Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen and as such, Jimmy would be one of the rotating stars of the title. Although the special feature in this book is “How the Artists Draw the Superman Family” Supergirl herself isn’t featured along with the other sketches. Fear not though as next issue features Supergirl in the lead story, a special feature all about the girl of steel, and a table of contents page styled after the iconic cover to Adventure Comics #397. Starting with the table of contents, pictured at the top of this post, we see Supergirl in her current shorts and v-neck costume and the titles of each of the stories are pictured around her and in her hands is a list of the issue’s “Super Features”. Getting into the Special Features now, “Supergirl’s Career” refers to a 1 page comic retelling of some of the major events of Supergirl’s life and also lists the issue numbers of when each thing happened which is great for people looking to learn more about the girl of steel.

The next issue, 166, had “Super-Extras” which were Fact Files on the Superman Family and would continue into 167 as well. Supergirl is featured with a headshot, her birth name, her alias, and a 2 paragraph recap of Supergirl’s history. As opposed to the Super Feature from last issue, this synopsis mostly focuses on Argo and briefly talks about her reveal to the world, before quickly jumping to her new status quo that was introduced in the previous issue of Superman Family. Again this feels like a great way to introduce new readers to Supergirl and once again references specific issue numbers.

Issue 167, as mentioned before, continues on with the Fact Files but also has a “Super-Special Feature” called “Super-Pets and Super-Threats”. This 2-page spread features an absurd amount of gorillas and not one but two of Supergirl’s Super-Pets, Streaky and Comet. Krypto is also featured on the page and is often associated with Supergirl but here is listed as “Superboy’s Superdog”. Comet’s origin is very quickly told and it says he “belongs” to Supergirl which feels a bit odd when considering the fact that Comet has the mind of a human and romantic feelings for Supergirl. Streaky’s history mentions the fact that he can no longer get super powers because X-Kryptonite was also destroyed along with all the other Kryptonite which I wasn’t aware of so that was fun to learn. We don’t get issue numbers with this Super-Special Feature like we did in the previous few issues so it’s would be a bit trickier for new readers to find these stories but the bios of the pets seem accurate and introduced me to at least 3 characters I was previously unaware of.

The “Super-Extras” for issue 168 are numerous to say the least. First is a 2 page comic retelling all of Lena Thorul’s history (read more about the girl with the see-through mind here). Then we get a “Super Puzzle” which is a crossword with quite a few words to find. Lastly we get a page of “Comedy Cover Capers” where they’ve gone and changed the dialogue on 4 covers, 2 of which are Supergirl comics.

Unfortunately the Super-Extras in issue 169 are all Lois Lane themed since she is the starring feature. The Table of Contents page seems to vanish come issue 170 but we continue to have Super-Extras but once again the feature is on the lead feature, Jimmy, and not on the girl of steel. With Supergirl back as lead in 171 we get a Super-Extra called “The Supergirl-Batgirl Team” which uses 2 pages to clue the reader in to Supergirl and Batgirl’s previous 3 team ups complete with issue numbers referenced. This is a great companion to Supergirl’s story since it also featured a brand new Supergirl-Batgirl team-up. We also get a new set of Comedy Cover Capers and all 4 are Supergirl Covers. And we finish out with a Super-Puzzle where all the answers are numerical and are used for a paint by number sorta deal. Questions k-m are all about Supergirl and are fairly simple questions.

Flipping over to 172, the Super-Extra is 4 pages that are titled “The Superman Family Album” and Supergirl gets both pages 3 and 4. Once again we’re given a bit of a recap of Supergirl’s life as told through diary entries by Kara. This time out the recap seems to mostly focus on her Kryptonian heritage and seeing as it’s supposed to be Kara’s diary we don’t get any issue number references. Issue 173 only got one page allotted to Super-Extras and it was exclusively about Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen.

174 has some really great Super-Extras between the “Supergirl Villains Quiz” and “New Fashions for Supergirl”. The fan drawn costumes are great to see and I’m particularly fond of the Scott Cassman design in the lower left even if it “isn’t really practical” like the artist mentions. The Villains Quiz is cool to see and I was happy that only #4 stumped me. Thankfully the issue also has answers and I found out that she was a Kandorian named Zora that I might dedicate a post to in the near future. (1. Nightflame, 2. Lesla-Lar, 3. Starfire, 4. Zora (Black Flame), 5. Satan Girl).

While 175 has a couple “Super-Costume” paper dolls that are reminiscent of Supergirl in the Lois Lane Costume Parade, they’re not really Supergirl so I won’t count them. Jimmy Olsen takes the lead feature and Super-Extra spots in issue 176, but Supergirl takes both back over in 177. This time we get “Supergirl’s Boyfriends” and we get a panel and a paragraph for 5 of Linda (Supergirl) Danver’s boyfriends. The 5 lovers are Brainiac 5, Jerro, Bronco (Comet) Bill Starr, Dick Malverne, and Mr. Mxyzptlk. Personally, from the list, I’d go for Brainiac 5 but Dick Malverne has a special place in my heart.

Lois gets the monopoly of the Super-Extras in 178, but 179 does give Supergirl a couple panels even though it’s a Jimmy issue. This extra is called “Strangest Strangers of Space” and is introduced by Jimmy as “aliens confronted by Superman Family members”. Supergirl’s 2 entries are for the giant red monster she faced off against after her reveal to the world, and a robot made by Jor-El. And unfortunately this is the end of the Super-Extras since 180 and 181 don’t have any additional content and even the Jimmy and Supergirl backup features are combined with a reprint of a story from Jimmy Olsen #57 wherein the pair get married in an imaginary story.

This was a really fun way to look at the Superman Family title to celebrate finally getting a complete run in my comic collection (issue 169 was the last book that I had to find). Please excuse the photographs of the comic pages, these stories aren’t available digitally (at least not easily) and I feel like even if they were on the DC Infinite app, the extras would be excluded. The letters pages were also included in each issue and would rotate between Letters to Lois, Jimmy Olsen’s Pen-Pals, and Super Fe-Mail. These are generally listed along with the extras but weren’t really part of the bonus content that I wanted to cover for this blog post. A couple of personal favorite Super-Extras for me were “New Fashions for Supergirl” and the various Super-Puzzles. The various retellings of Supergirl’s life we saw were also interesting and the Comedy Cover Capers were fun. On a whole though I had a great time going through them and it really makes it feel like getting the whole series was worth it. If you enjoyed reading and want to let me know your favorite Super-Extra feel free to email me at daringnewblog@gmail.com and I’ll see you next time!