After Supergirl’s miniseries in 1994 but before her ongoing began in 1996 Supergirl had a few appearances in the anthology book Showcase. The Showcase series ran from ’93-’96 and each issue would be split into 3 stories and would often help to launch characters into new series or new storylines, sort of like pilot episodes in comic form. Supergirl had 4 appearances in the Showcase series and today we’ll be talking about the first story called “Perfect Form” by creators Charles Moore (Writer), Stuart Imonen (Penciler), Wade Von Grawbadger (Inker), Tom McCraw (Colorist), and Ken Brunzenak (Letterer).
I gotta start with talking about Stuart Immonen’s art. Immonen does fantastic work and he’s easily one of my favorite Supergirl artists because of his work here and it’s a real shame he never went on to be a more regular artist on the character. Immonen didn’t do any other starring Supergirl titles but he would do quite a lot of work on the Superman titles in the 90s as well as the post Zero Hour Legion titles so I can’t say this is his only work on Supergirl and he did do the critically acclaimed Superman: Secret Identity mini series that was my favorite Superman book for a long time and the basis for Earth-33 in my Supergirl in the Multiverse series. All that to say, I would really love to see Immonen on more Supergirl work.
Perfect form isn’t a particularly world shattering story, but it does work great as a Supergirl story and specifically a Matrix Sueprgirl story. I do think this could easily work as a launch to a Supergirl comic and it does end with a lead in to Supergirl’s role in the New Titans book which I had sort of forgotten about before reading these issues for this week’s entry. The story revolves around an alien life-form that has recently re-awakened or possibly has just gained sentience on his journey to earth to find a new body that would hold his sentience. As I was reading this it almost seemed like the antagonist was Cyborg Superman for a bit but he’s not quite as competent, perhaps a Supergirl version of the Cyborg which seems like something season 1 of the Supergirl show might’ve done.
The robot is named Dichon but he doesn’t have much in the way of staying power and I don’t imagine he ever showed up again after getting sent away by Supergirl in part 2. He is brought to earth by sensing gnolar crystal deposits that he believes will be the best substance to create his “perfect form”. These crystals also serve as one of the other plots of the story with the Bone Dagger Labs crew that are mining these same crystals.
This mining crew wears jumpsuits with skull shaped logos and their mining havoc brings Supergirl to the scene to stop them from what seems to be nefarious deeds. Supergirl is surprised when, after stopping the crew, their leader Bailey presents papers showing that they’re legally allowed to be where they are and do what they do. Supergirl let’s them continue but she doesn’t trust them enough to not keep a close eye on them. It’s around this time where Dichon joins the party and takes the fight to Supergirl. After handily taking out the alien’s robot goons, a tractor beam stops Supergirl in her tracks and part one ends with Supergirl in the clutches of the enemy who realizes her protoplasmic form would be perfect new body for him.
It takes just a few panels for Supergirl to break out of the cage she was trapped in and get back outside of the ship. Her escape is well timed as she catches the Bone Dagger fools who had the plan to drive the ship away to become seen as heroes, they failed rather spectacularly. Supergirl formulates a plan and works together with the Bone Dagggers to send Dichon away once and for all.
In short, Hitch and Skyver stick behind to try jamming Dichon’s signal and Supergirl and Bailey go up to the ship to stop him. Bailey takes a rather serious blow from Dichon which prompts Supergirl to change into her rage form (one of my favorite looks for her) and she handily scares the robot long enough for Bailey to finish his part of the plan. Dichon says “I would most assuredly defeat you eventually but if I am to live I must find the crystals elsewhere” which to me feels like he was chickening out. The Bone Daggers are reunited, Supergirl sends them off now treating them as friends, and Raven pulls Supergirl out of the end of this story and right into New Titans #120.
This is a thoroughly Matrix story and I really enjoy that. There’s a lot of Supergirl using her Matrix specific powers like telekinesis and other psi-based powers, and we even got to see her in her base protomatter form briefly. We also get to see the rage form costume, also showing up on the cover to issue 2. But the entire story centering around Matrix’s specific body composition and that being the end goal of the antagonist really sets this story apart. The gnolar crystals, that Dichon was initially after, reacting oddly to Supergirl’s shapechanging form not allowing her to morph around them as she would normally be able to and how she can merge the crystals into her body is what leads Dichon seek out Supergirl’s body for his own. Also one of my favorite Supergirl supporting characters – Elizabeth Perske – makes a brief cameo in this story.
Liz Perske and the Bone Daggers feel like they were being set up as supporting cast members for potential upcoming Supergirl stories and I wonder how things might’ve played out if this crew continued making Supergirl stories instead of the Peter David stories we would get soon after this. The David stories are truly fantastic and that Supergirl series is a great read, it does however start feeling less and less like a Supergirl story as it goes on. I will be covering the remaining Showcase stories at a later date, but Perske’s brief appearance here makes me want to take a deep dive into the 4th ex-wife of Lex Luthor, so stay tuned to see that coming next week.
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