The 90s were a particularly hot time for DC publishing Elseworlds titles and while they’re not all fantastic, they all explore the DC Universe and its characters in an exciting way. Supergirl was starring feature in 2 of these comics, Supergirl: Wings and the topic of today’s post, Elseworld’s Finest: Supergirl and Batgirl. This book has story by Barbara Kesel, Matt Haley, and Tom Simmons who each also provided writing, pencilling, and inking duties respectively. Moose Baumann provided coloring and Bill Oakley lettering. This is not the first comic to have the name “Elseworld’s Finest”, that would go to the story from the year prior. Both of these stories use the same logo font for their title, but otherwise the 2 are totally unrelated.
With Supergirl and Batgirl sharing lead status, this book is just as much about both of them, but the opening page shows 2 shadowy figures meeting in the custodial tunnels of Gotham Arena where one of the figures is giving the other a substance called “venom” and warning the taker of the dangerous effects. After taking the venom, he bulks up and says “Look at me! She’s got to notice me now!”
From here we get to meet this world’s Batgirl who is supervising visitors coming into Gotham but notices a stowaway on the back of their van. Tarantula is trying to sneak into Gotham without permission and Batgirl is having none of this. She makes quick work of the stowaway and delivers him to the rest of the van’s occupants where we learn a bit more about how this world differs from the one we’re more familiar with. The visitors coming into Gotham are the Justice Society, a group of heroes that work together to help save the world featuring heroes like Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, and many others. We’re also find out that Batgirl has closed off Gotham from the rest of the world and she doesn’t allow any metas inside her city so this visit of the Society is a fairly big deal. A deal that is almost called off when they tried to bring an extra member in that was not on Batgirl’s approved list.
While Batgirl doesn’t seem particularly friendly with the Justice Society and she doesn’t officially mark herself as a member of the team, there is a professional agreement between them. The Society is venturing into Gotham at this time for a reason as Lex Luthor, their team’s benefactor, is opening up a new factory in Gotham to produce Lexcell batteries which are cleaner renewable source of energy.
Lex of course enters in style, with the help of Supergirl. Supergirl flies Lex’s whole limo into the stadium to rapturous applause. The rest of the presentation seems to go without error although Ambush Bug notices something that he goes to check out. This is of course outside of what Batgirl has allowed the Society to do, and she quickly puts him down so he can get back to the main presentation. Ambush Bug realized that Lex’s Limo driver had been attacked and his limo had been taken over by the same 2 fiends that we met on page one.
We find out that these 2 characters are Emil Hamilton (former employee of Lexcorp) and the Joker (juiced up on venom and hopelessly infatuated with Batgirl). No one else at this point has realized the predicament that has befallen Lex and everyone goes their separate ways. The Society leaves via Barda’s Boom Tube, and Barbara Gordon and Bruce Wayne escape into a bat cave. It is in the cave that Barbara realizes that the Joker somehow tampered with Lex’s limo, and soon after the Society also catches wind of it and Tim Drake brings this news to Wonder Woman so that she can get back into Gotham to track him down. Wonder Woman tries to maintain a diplomatic approach to the situation and even when the President is urging her to go into Gotham, she maintains that Batgirl has it under control and will request help if she needs it.
Supergirl, it seems, is the last to hear about Luthor’s kidnapping and immediately wants to go save him. Wonder Woman again tells her that Batgirl’s restrictions are long standing and cannot be worked around. Supergirl doesn’t care and flies off immediately leaving Wonder Woman to say “maybe her naïveté is just what we need to break down the walls between Metropolis and Gotham”
Supergirl makes her way into the walled city to find Lex but instead finds the wrong end of a “nuclear sun-screen” blaster fired by Batgirl. Supergirl is furious with the Gotham guardian trying to figure out why she’s spending time keeping “paranormals” out of Gotham instead of tracking down Lex Luthor. Begrudgingly Batgirl agrees and the pair begin working together, paralleled by a much less savory partnership between Lex Luthor and the Joker.
Supergirl begins to tell Batgirl, and the readers, about Lex’s past and how he helped fund the Justice Society and all the good work he’s done to help Metropolis grow as a city. This history lesson is interrupted by a video broadcast showing Lex’s life in the hands of Joker and the World’s Finest pair bolt off to save him. They don’t find Luthor and instead only find a bomb and deduce that the broadcast was a recording. Supergirl starts feeling ill after “defusing” the bomb and after describing the symptoms Batgirl is able to definitively say she knows where they are.
Batgirl and Supergirl take an underground tunnel to Metropolis and Supergirl tells the tale of her origin to Batgirl which garners the response “Everybody knows this story”. The story mirrors her silver age origin fairly closely with Argo and the rocket landing on earth, however she is met by Wonder Woman and the Justice Society instead of Superman (more on him later). Supergirl quickly joins the team and even has Green Lantern and Hawkwoman who knew and visited Krypton before its destruction that she was able to talk to. She also talks of how Lex was a companion and friend that also lost his family at a young age and they find some similarity there. Batgirl is having none of this lovey dovey nonsense and Supergirl, in turn, calls her a worm.
The pair are now breaking into the lowest levels of Lexcorp and the extensive barriers they have to break through has Supergirl remark “who did Lex think would try to break into this building—me?” They find the inner most section of the vaults and find that Lex mostly uses Kryptonese for labeling and taking notes on the contents inside. Supergirl opens up a container labeled “Source A” assuming it must be something from Krypton but she was terrified to see what was actually inside; that being the unborn fetus of a Kryptonian labeled “Kal-El”.
Lex takes this moment to chime in via video screen, tell Supergirl that he intentionally manipulated her, and informs her that he’ll be sic’ing Joker on her to kill her momentarily. Supergirl quickly works her way up to the penthouse with Batgirl following behind. Supergirl is out for blood but Batgirl still wants to take him in alive. Joker on the other hand has only one thought in his mind, that of woo-ing Batgirl. Batgirl kicks him down an elevator shaft.
Batgirl tries to convince Supergirl not to kill Lex, trying to appeal to the hero in her. The girl of steel throws her out the window. Batgirl was thinking ahead however and started a camera to record Lex, Joker, and all their sins. Joker and Supergirl fight where she finds out the Venom he’s been taking is laced with Kryptonite which allows Joker to get the upper hand. Thankfully Batgirl makes her return which distracts the roided-out clown prince of crime just long enough for Supergirl to knock his lights out and head towards Lex who thinks he’s safe because of his Kryptonite ring.
Batgirl stands between Lex and Supergirl – having taken Lex’s ring – and she reminisces about her own origin. Her origin mirrors that of the classical Batman origin. Her parents were gunned down in an alley after a movie and she was left orphaned. She was adopted into the Wayne family where her and Bruce Wayne worked together to start the Oracle program and turn Barbara into the dark avenger of the night known as Batgirl. We also find out a bit more about how Batgirl fought against the Justice Society about Gotham being a no-paranormal zone. We find out that Joe Chill, who killed the Gordons, was hired to kill the Waynes and he was hired by Lex Luthor.
Supergirl does stand down now but she knows Lex will just get away with it due to his reputation. Batgirl then reveals that she had been broadcasting the whole affair live and Lex is finally going to go behind bars for his crimes.
A few pages of epilogue follow up the events of this story, The Society is talking with the press about the proceedings, Joker and Emil Hamilton each approach being imprisoned differently, and Lex himself feels particularly irritated. Kara has taken a leave of absence from the Society to go to Kansas, a spot where Kal’s rocket would’ve landed and she has left a monument to her baby cousin that never got a chance to exist. There are also a couple pages of Batgirl stowing away the Kryptonite ring in her batcave as “assurance”.
The final page of the story is rather cute, shown in full above. Kara has shown up to one of Barbara’s book signings and the dialogue very clearly reads as both of them knowing who each other are but they dance around it to not let the rest of the attendees know. Speaking of the attendees here, I’m not certain but they seem to all be drawn inspired by the creators on the book. I quite enjoyed this reading and it’s absolutely worth tracking down. The Supergirl/Lex relationship seems based pretty thoroughly on the Matrix/Lex II relationship that was present immediately following the Death of Superman. I also like the idea of a universe that has neither Superman nor Batman and how that would change the DC Universe at large. This is not the end of my coverage of this story, this Supergirl is also the subject of next week’s Supergirl in the Multiverse so be sure to come back in a few days for that.
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