Supergirl in the Multiverse: Earth-148

Earth-148 has an interesting place in the grand cosmos of the DC Universe because when just exploring its core premise (heroes are villains and villains are heroes) you may be wondering how this isn’t just a precursor to Earth-3 and the Crime Syndicate. What may surprise you however, is that Earth-3 actually predates this universe by about half a year. So what sets this universe apart from the more famous hero/villain universe? In 1965, in the pages of World’s Finest #148, Superman and Batman are transported to a world where they meet a villainous mirror of themselves as well as Luthor and Clayface working with the police. Similar stories would appear in the next couple years in Wonder Woman #175 and Flash #174. These stories would similarly feature the character’s swapping places and in each instance we see that even when acting fiendishly, the character’s would still maintain their capes and tights name. Instead of Ultraman or Owlman the character’s are still Superman and Batman which allows for the Earth-0 counterparts to be mistaken for their villainous versions. The other main notable feature I noticed in these stories is that the villains as heroes (specifically Mirror Master, Clayface, and Joker) seem to be just as important to the stories as the villainous heroes.

Supergirl does not appear in any of the 3 stories mentioned above, but with the focus from this universe on well known criminals on earth-0 working with the police on earth-148, I thought this would be a perfect time to include Reactron. Reactron, to me, is the closest foe of hers that would line up as arch enemy. Reactron has not appeared a lot in Supergirl comics, but he has appeared in pre-crisis, post-crisis, and the CBS show which is something I don’t think many other Supergirl enemies can say. Reactron also stands apart as being specifically a Supergirl enemy and not a Superman enemy which is an important distinction when picking out her arch-enemy. In the World’s Finest issue we do get a bit of an altered history for the well known characters. Superman, instead of being adopted by friendly farmers, are instead adopted by criminals dressed as farmers. So I could see the criminal Kents having a similar criminal family friend (Fred and Edna Danvers) that Superman takes Supergirl to after landing on Earth.

As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Reactron is in the foreground shooting a radiocative beam out of his arm at Supergirl who is bursting through the roof of a bank where she has just stolen a large sack of money. There is dialogue between the pair revealing Reactron to be a hero and Supergirl a criminal. There is also a text box in the bottom right with a similar design to common Silver Age splash pages. There is a S Symbol in the top right with a 148 on top of it.