The Daring New Blog of Supergirl

Author: Kara Lovett

  • Supergirl Surprise #10: Adventure Comics #398

    Supergirl Surprise #10: Adventure Comics #398

    This month’s endeavor into my boxes of comics lead me to an issue in Supergirl’s 40ish issue run in Adventure Comics, specifically issue 398. I can’t remember entirely how long it was, but for a portion of Supergirl’s Adventure run each issue would reprint a previous Supergirl story as well as a brand new story and issue 398 is one of those. The reprint issue for this issue is a 14 page story from Action Comics #306, and the new story is comprised of 6 pages. There is a nice parity between these 2 stories as they both feature an unknow alien antagonist that Supergirl has to overcome, but are otherwise quite unrelated. This issue was released with a cover date of October 1970 and the Action Comic story is from 1963.

    Coming in first is “The Maid of Doom” from writer Leo Dorfman, artist Jim Mooney, and letterer Milt Snapinn. This story is both the reprint story and also the cover story. Initially it feels odd, to me at least, for the reprint story to be the feature on the cover, but further reflection it makes a lot of sense. Supergirl in Action Comics was always the backup feature and hardly ever got the cover spotlight, so when reprinting the stories it makes a lot of sense for this story to show up on the cover. This cover is particularly striking, from Dick Giordano, showing the Super Pets lying dead around Supergirl as Superman is banishing her to the phantom zone.

    The story opens with Linda on a movie date with everyone’s favorite non-super boyfriend, Dick Malverne, before Supergirl remembers she has a peace keeping mission to do out in space. Supergirl goes to 3 distant planets; Mutor with it’s shape changing inhabitants, The Mole World with it’s metal eating moles, and finally Erg who’s lifeforms all emit a bluish radioactive glow about them. Remember these planets and their life forms for later.

    After landing back on earth near her secret entrance to the Danvers’ home, she is met by her trusty Super-Cat Streaky. Unfortunately for Streaky, it seems Supergirl has brought back a deadly virus back to earth which has tragically ended the life of the unsuspecting cat. Krypto, also nearby, comes over to see what’s going on and meets the same fate. Both of the super-pets had a bluish glow about them as they passed leading Supergirl to believe the root of the deadly virus came from the planet Erg. Thankfully the virus only seems to affect super-beings which is revealed when Supergirl tells her adoptive mother, Edna, what happened. This is not the end of tragedy though as Mr. Mxyzptlk and Comet both fall to the Maid of Doom before Superman shows up and tells her the only safe place for her is the Phantom Zone.

    After our hero is subjected to the same fate as Mon-El, we get a surprising image of Superman turning into a fish before diving under a lake. From here we find out that wasn’t Superman at all but one of the Plasmos from the planet Mutor! We find out from Sklor, the Plasmo, that he had just successfully executed a plan to rid Earth of it’s heroes Supergirl and Superman so that the rest of their race can take over the planet. Sklor retells the story from his point of view and we find out that Supergirl is not the deadly menace we were led to believe and all the deceased super-beings were actually Sklor shape changing and acting. He was also able to convince Superman and the Super-Pets to go to the future as to not disturb his plans.

    All looks pretty dire for the girl of steel when suddenly she shows up again in the Plasmo’s lair! Supergirl, through some rather convoluted reasoning, was able to thwart Sklor. After realizing the best plan they ever could’ve thought of ended in failure, the planet Mutor decides to sign a treaty with Earth and also to not conquer any other planet. The UN celebrates by raising a Supergirl flag and everyone is happy aside from probably Sklor who probably doesn’t have many friends left on Mutor.

    Before we get to the 1970 story, we get a full page of Supergirl letting you know the story you just read was old and she doesn’t dress like that anymore. This is a nice transition between the A and B stories and also serves to highlight the fan costume designs for the maid of might which were featured in the issues around this time.

    “Catcher in the Sky”, by Mike Sekowsky with inks by Dick Giordano and letters by John Costanza is a brief little 6 page story with some really exceptional imagery of Supergirl. Linda is sat bored at home watching reruns on TV when she hears of a mysterious tragedy as the US Carrier Whitney has vanished into thin air. Supergirl suits up and rushes to the scene.

    While the story doesn’t have a lot of real estate in regards to page count, that hasn’t stopped the art from producing some great sweeping images of Supergirl in action. Although she looked good doing so, she too was met with the same fate as the Whitney as she suddenly vanishes. Supergirl has now found the Whitney along with everyone and everything else that vanished and soon gets on the case to find out what happened and how to fix it.

    It seems like the son of a scientist from an alien alternate dimension has been messing around with his dad’s equipment and has snatched stuff from our world into his. This alien race is much larger than any earth being so it takes all of Supergirl’s strength to get their attention to get her and the people of earth back home.

    Thankfully the alien dad is much more accommodating to the earthlings and sends everyone back where they belong. The story then ends with the alien dad spanking the alien son. There is also a 1 page tease for the next issue which features Johnny Dee-Bum which seems to be a big deal but I don’t think he’s nearly as important as he’s made out to be.

    While I didn’t see any letters that really stood out to me, I have to note that “Super Fe-Mail” is a particularly bonkers choice for a letters page. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this and it definitely won’t be the last but I needed everyone else to know about it. I also found this really cute ad for some animal figures and the cow at the top just looks really goofy. Neither of these stories are astounding by any means, but they’re goofy 60s-ish super hero alien stories and I always have a fun time with those. And between the cover and the interior art it’s a rather stunning issue visually.

  • Supergirl in the Multiverse: Earth-0 (Power Girl II)

    This is not the first Supergirl I’ve covered from Earth-0 as part of Supergirl in the Multiverse, that was Kara Zor-El covered as the first entry in the series. Earth-0 is the “main” universe and has produced many such heroes that can fall under the role of Supergirl, or in this case Power Girl. I did consider labeling Power Girl II as Earth-2 due to her ties to Karen Starr, or potentially Earth-52 because of her introduction in a New 52 series, but at the end of the day, being a part of the mainstream universe (Earth-0) was the best fit.

    First appearing in Huntress/Power Girl: World’s Finest #23, Tanya Spears is a fellow scientist working with Karen Starr (Power Girl) at Starr Industries. Tanya is young, but already a well renowned scientist in her own right with 2 PhDs by the age of 17. As such, Starr has taken her under her wing as a protege, and when Power Girl returned to her home of Earth-2 she had Spears take up after her in more than one way. Tanya soon finds out that she has gained some of Power Girl’s powers, namely strength and invulnerability. With her newfound powers, she seeks to make a name for herself as a superhero. Taking up the hero name her mentor left her, Power Girl would go on to join the Teen Titans, then later the Elite (where Manchester Black drugged her giving her the power to grow in size), and when last seen she was part of Deathstroke’s super hero team Defiance. Spears has not really had a great place to shine since her introduction and generally seems to make some poor choices in regards to super hero teams, but with further guidance from her mentor I feel like she could really make a name for herself.

    As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Tanya Spears, Power Girl II, is towering over a city. Surrounded by skyscrapers, Power Girl II stands as a skyscraper herself and she is supporting a toppling skyscraper from falling. A motif in the top right has a gold oval with a 0 on top of it.

  • A Look at My Art: Supergirl Paper Drawings

    A Look at My Art: Supergirl Paper Drawings

    I’ve been watching through the CBS/CW Supergirl television series over the past few months and after starting season 2 I recalled a drawing I made back when the series was airing. I started looking through my stuff and thankfully I have all my old sketchbooks in one place and was able to find the drawing I was after fairly easily. However, in doing so, I also stumbled across quite a few other Supergirl drawings from quite a large span of time. This post will mostly be an archival effort to help preserve my otherwise non-digitized art but I will try to group them as best I can. For those of you who keep up with my blog, you’ll know Supergirl in the Multiverse is my artwork and is made digitally. This is sort of a where did I get started with drawing Supergirl and maybe a way to reassess where I’ve been to see how I can go further. This is by no means every Supergirl drawing I have ever made, and I’ve excluded a lot of sketches that didn’t really go anywhere so you’re not looking at too many just messes of scribbles.

    EPSON MFP image

    This is the aforementioned Supergirl Season 2 drawing made hastily when I was thoroughly invested in the Supergirl show and probably reading an absurd amount of Supercorp fanfiction as we all were back in 2017. For those of you who can’t immediately tell what’s going on I’ll describe it from left to right and top to bottom. Starting with James saying “I don’t do a lot this season”, then Mon-El flexing in a mirror “I’m only a good guy to get in Kara’s pants”, Supergirl onlooking the scene in front of her says “Don’t fight please”, while her good friend Lena pats her shoulder and says “It’s ok sweetie”. The scene in the front has Alex with her boot on Winn’s face with the pair saying “Winn, that’s a bad idea” “It’s not THAT bad of an idea”. Maggie Sawyer is standing on a box with a bubble saying “A small proud girlfirend” while J’onn is standing in the background sighing.

    EPSON MFP image
    EPSON MFP image

    After finding what I was initially looking for, and realizing what a rich treasure trove it was of Supergirl content, the next thing I sought out to find was my oldest Supergirl drawings. While I have been drawing for probably most my life and I have sketchbooks from as far back as middle school, these two drawings seem to be the earliest I could find. They are both definitely from high school and they seem to be from junior or senior year (around 2013-2015). I was pretty thoroughly invested in comics at this time but a lot more focused on the Bat side of things as opposed to Superman and family so the S didn’t show up quite as often so these 2 drawings could very easily be the first Supergirls I ever drew.

    EPSON MFP image

    The rest of my drawings I can’t really pinpoint a timeframe for so it won’t so much be in chronological order and more so grouped based on theme. I will preface this drawing by saying I found a lot of Power Girl drawings in my old sketchbooks (not as much as Supergirl of course) but I do generally like to keep Supergirl and Power Girl separate because they deserve to stand on their own as characters. All that being said, I did really like this Power Girl drawing and the way it commanded the space of the page.

    EPSON MFP image
    EPSON MFP image
    EPSON MFP image

    This set of 3 drawings is all part of my attempt at differentiating and defining what I had considered to be the 6 clearly defined versions of Supergirl. In all actuality, after an absurd amount of Supergirl research, I feel like 4 is a better number but it’s also kind of like the 4-6 canon Robins depending on how you count. The 6 Supergirl’s I decided on for this almost-project were Power Girl, Cir-El, Modern Kara Zor-El, Pre-Crisis Kara Zor-El, Linda Danvers/Matrix, and Pre-Flashpoint Kara Zor-El. Like I said, having Kara Zor-El on there 3 times is probably overkill and at most all versions of Kara Zor-El can basically be broken down to be older than Kal or born after Kal on the floating chunk of Argo. Woman of Tomorrow tried to do both and the history doesn’t really make sense with that but that’s another conversation. You can also see here the start of me looking at the S Symbol and how it can have slight variations to define separate Supergirls, which would later become a staple of my Supergirl in the Multiverse series.

    EPSON MFP image
    EPSON MFP image
    EPSON MFP image
    EPSON MFP image
    EPSON MFP image

    These next 5 pieces are all alternate costume designs I put together for Supergirl either leaning more into her Kryptonian heritage (like the first 3), going for a more street clothes look (like the 4th) or just borrowing her sort-of-cousin’s costume (like the 5th). I really like the idea of Supergirl having a more alien costume than Superman and it leans into her history of growing up on Krypton as opposed to growing up on earth. The street clothes variant doesn’t really have any reasoning I just thought it looked cool. Seeing the 90’s Superboy costume on a female figure might make you think back to the unused pitch by Magdalene Visaggio where she wanted to tell a story of Kon -El being a trans woman and going by the name Skyrocket. I’m not positive, but I do think this drawing was made before this pitch saw the light of day or at the very least it was an unrelated drawing. I would love to see the Skyrocket storyline explored somehow.

    EPSON MFP image
    EPSON MFP image
    EPSON MFP image
    EPSON MFP image
    EPSON MFP image
    EPSON MFP image
    EPSON MFP image
    EPSON MFP image

    These next 8 drawings all kind of just fall into standard Supergirl drawings and I don’t have much to say about them. I do like the little splash of color in the the shirt rip drawing and I feel like it adds a nice dynamic flare. Otherwise this is just a standard collection of Supergirl drawings.

    EPSON MFP image
    EPSON MFP image

    My last little set is a bit of a look at Marvel/DC crossovers. On the left is me drawing Supergirl on the cover of Marvel Ultimate Endgame #1 mostly as a joke, but the right is the never to be explored crossover of Mayday “Spider-Girl” Parker and Cir-El Supergirl. There isn’t too much explanation for the Endgame sketch, I got the Ultimate Endgame blind bag because I thought it would be fun. As you can tell, I got the blank variant in the blind bag and the 10 minute drive home from my comic shop I had the idea of drawing Supergirl on it as a joke. In an attempt to farm content, I took to Bluesky (@spupergirl.bsky.com) to ask my followers if they would like to see that and there was a great response. I had a lot of fun drawing this and I have yet to read the comic (and I probably won’t). Mayday and Cir-El are a great team up and I feel like they would get along and It would be a great story to see in an upcoming Marvel/DC crossover. I imagine there aren’t any DC execs here reading but if you are, I would do it for free.

    I hope you enjoyed taking a trip down memory lane with me. I do have a handful of digitally drawn Supergirls that aren’t part of Supergirl in the Multiverse, so if you would like to see those here, let me know and stick around. I do like the idea of keeping an archive of my Supergirl artwork as both a portfolio and a historical record. Also when I was going through my sketchbooks I found this cool alternate Spider-Man drawing I did that I have no other reason to ever show anywhere so enjoy!

  • Supergirl in the Multiverse: Earth-D

    Earth-D is the first of the Multiverse that I’ve covered thus far with a letter designation as opposed to a number, although universes 5 (S), 10 (X), and 26 (C) all had Letter designations before the Crisis obliterated them. Earth-D was a universe envisioned by Marv Wolfman as an intended reboot of the DC Universe with a more racially diverse cast of heroes than what was currently in comics. My understanding is that this universe was Wolfman’s pitch as to what would come after Crisis on Infinite Earths and has been compared to the jump from the Golden Age (JSA and the like) to the Silver Age (JLA and others). However, this radical change to the mainstream continuity was not implemented and it would be another decade and a half before this universe came to be seen in a published comic. Legends of the DC Universe: Crisis on Infinite Earths from 1999. This one-shot special was an additional chapter in the Crisis on Infinite Earths event and told of Barry Allen Flash winding up on this earth and helping it face the coming Crisis sweeping the Multiverse. There are minor differences from the Earth-0 we know but its fairly recognizable and well explored in the 48 pages of the special, one change is the prominent super-team is neither the JSA nor the JLA, but the JAA or the Justice Alliance of America. Aside from this one-shot, the universe has yet to show up again, but a similar universe (also called Earth-D) in the Justice League Infinity miniseries. This appearance does have some fairly major differences from the Earth-D proper and with its adjacent nature to the Timmverse, I am choosing to dub this variation Earth-12-D that I may revisit in the future.

    As mentioned above, this universe’s main defining trait is its racially diverse cast. This can be seen in Supergirl and Superman’s darker complexion giving them the appearance of African Americans, although they’re not from Africa or America but rather Krypton. Another major difference is in the relationships of major heroes, Hawkman and Hawkgirl aren’t reincarnated soul-mates but rather siblings and likewise Superman and Supergirl aren’t cousins but a married couple. Superman and Supergirl are from Krypton, but they lived very full lives before the planet’s destruction and were even heroes on the planet, leading them to be the chosen representatives to be saved from the planet’s destruction. Aside from their altered origin and relationship status, they seem very similar to their Earth-0 counterparts in personality, powers, and morality.

    As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Supergirl of Earth-D is standing in the lower left corner with her hands on her hips and looking up. Behind her is the meeting table of the JAA and in the top right corner is a motif of Supergirl’s S symbol with a D on top of it.

  • Supergirl Next Door (and Other Tales Featuring the Girl of Tomorrow)

    Supergirl Next Door (and Other Tales Featuring the Girl of Tomorrow)

    Supergirl is making a pretty impressive push this year in comics with her new ongoing series as well as some one shots and specials and original graphic novels all releasing in buildup to her new movie set to come out in June later this year. DC’s Supergirl Next Door that came out just a couple days ago is one of these specials and it falls in with the rest of DC’s quarterly (I think) holiday anthologies. Supergirl also appeared in the last anthology I Saw Ma Hunkel Kissing Santa Claus as well as the one from last Summer, Kal-El-Fornia Love. I’m going to go over all three of these Supergirl stories today starting with the most recent and working backwards.

    A Dream of Different Stars is the lead story in 2026’s Supergirl Next Door and can somewhat be seen as the cover story but the cover, by Amy Reeder, and the story don’t really match so I wouldn’t necessarily say they’re related. This story was written by CRC Payne, art by Paulina Ganucheau, color by Kendall Goode, and letters by Lucas Gattoni. This is a cute 10 page story from the point of view of Linda Danver’s next door neighbor named Allen. Allen is shown to be a fairly unpopular kid, even referring to himself as “invisible”, but this doesn’t stop his new neighbor Linda from dropping in on him to look at the stars together.

    At this point we find out Linda has been sneaking up onto Allen’s roof for some time now since it has a better view of the stars. This seems to be a tradition for the pair and we see a few other nights of the pair looking at the stars and chatting late into the night. Linda begins telling Allen of dreams she has of a different night sky and different stars and it’s a memory of Linda’s birth parents and her dad telling her the names of the stars and constellations. Linda tells Allen of some of the constellations like Flamebird and Nightwing before we go into a brief montage of Allen working on a project in his room.

    Allen shows Linda what he’s been working on and we see that it is a homemade planetarium that lights up his room with the stars Linda dreams about. As I mentioned above, this is a very cute story and does a great job at showing Supergirl’s history with Krypton without getting too heavy with it. It shows her with a sadness about her but still shows her having a good life and making friends. This is part of the Valentine’s Day special and this is told as a Valentine’s Day story (Allen presents the planetarium on Valentine’s Day), but Linda and Allen’s relationship reads as purely platonic to me and it felt rather refreshing. The anthology as a whole did a good job at showing many different types of love not necessarily romantic and it led to some surprising team ups that wouldn’t seem like immediate choices for a Valentine’s Day special so I would absolutely recommend picking it up.

    Moving on to I Saw Ma Hunkel Kissing Santa Claus, and the story Holiday Woes. Featured above is the variant cover to the book by Ryan Sook, and the Supergirl story is written by Ash Padilla, pencils by Anthony Marques, inks by J.Bone, Colors by Nick Filardi, and letters by Steve Wands. This story has Kara being invited to the Kent farm in Smallville for Christmas where Clark has set up his cousin on a blind date with Pete Ross’s son. A lot of this 10 page story is Kara worrying about her super-heroic responsibilities in National City, but we’re soon introduced to Kara’s blind date (or are we?)

    This “Ambush date”, as Lois puts it, doesn’t do much talking and mostly let’s Kara lead the conversation, but we do find out he’s something of a computer scientist. Their conversation gets interupted by Supergirl having to rush off to save the day no less than 3 times, but her not-quite-date sticks around and continues to listen to her vent. Kara talks about feeling like the whole world is on her shoulders and she doesn’t have time to devote to herself and figuring out who she is when she’s not “working” when her companion gives her some great advice about having friends and family that are helping her out and that even if other people don’t look like they’re unbothered might have the same struggles she’s having.

    After this her date seems to disappear, and Kara catches back up to Lois and Clark who found Jonathan Ross, her blind date, and Kara realizes the person she had been talking to was not the ambush date at all. Kara tells Jonathan she’s not in the mood for a date and would rather spend time with her family. At this point we find out that the person Kara had been talking to was none other than Brainiac 5 from the Legion of Super-Heroes! This long time love interest of Supergirl is probably my number 1 pick for a boyfriend for Supergirl so I got really excited with this final panel reveal. On a whole, I didn’t really care for this story and this Supergirl didn’t particularly feel in line with the current era of Supergirl so it felt a bit disjointed and the only real enjoyment I got out of it was the inclusion of the future green boy.

    “Something in the Water” was the Supergirl story from Kal-El-Fornia Love and it was written by George Mann, drawn by Travis Mercer, with colors by Andrew Dalhouse, and letters by Michael McCalister. Supergirl teaming up with Constantine was an absolutely bonkers concept that I was excited for from the time it got announced and I have to say that the team delivered on the story.

    On the beach, Supergirl witnesses a sea monster attack which leads to a particularly stunning costume change sequence and then our hero promptly gets taken out by the sea monster. Supergirl, now beaten and tossed back onto the beach, is approached by everyone’s favorite smoking magician, John Constantine.

    John introduces himself as a “sorcerer, nonsmoker, legendary lover of women. And only one of those things isn’t true” he of course says this while smoking so everyone can figure out the lie. Constantine at least has the decency to replace Supergirl’s ice cream that she dropped before letting her know she’s up against an extra dimensional demon monster that they have to take out together.

    Even with a handful of British colloquialisms preventing Supergirl from having any idea of what her partner is saying, the pair are able to work together and save the beach and get the monster back to where it belongs. The pair go off to celebrate their win with hot dogs and finish off what is my favorite of these 3 stories. This story feels really well written that tells a fun and exciting tale while portraying both heroes quite successfully in my opinion. This is the most action packed of the 3 stories, but I don’t think that’s why I preferred it. I think most my enjoyment came from the absurd team-up and how the pair were handled throughout. There’s also a panel at the end of Supergirl eating a hot dog that really resonates with me.

    Before giving my final thoughts, I did want to discuss these stories in continuity. The most recent of these stories, “A Dream of Different Stars”, takes place immediately after Linda “Supergirl” Danvers gets adopted and I can absolutely see this story existing as part of the current Supergirl ongoing title, the only thing that feels a bit off is the fact that Linda doesn’t mask her blonde hair at all. It does also fit in with the silver age stories where she didn’t openly use her powers at first since we only see Supergirl in costume as part of a flashback/dream sequence from Linda. The team up with John Constantine doesn’t mention any specific cities or co-stars that would interfere with current continuity and it seems to be Supergirl taking a day off to go to the beach which could easily work within continuity. “Holiday Woes” is truly the outlier here with the mention of National City. National City is of course the home base for the girl of steel in the CBS/CW television series, but in comics she only operated in the city for about a year and a half, so when stories or external media (like the card I mentioned in Supergirl Trading Cards Part 2) mention it as her base of operations I feel a bit disconnected. The characterization of Kara in that story also didn’t quite seem to fit more recent depictions of Supergirl and once again kind of felt more like the tv show as opposed to the comic. With all that, I can whole heartedly recommend both “Something in the Water” and “A Dream of Different Stars”, while “Holiday Woes” didn’t do much for me aside from the Brainiac 5 reveal and a much more successful story (in my opinion) about Supergirl not being particularly in the holiday spirit can be read in Sophie Campbell’s Supergirl #8 also from last month. Let me know your thoughts on these stories and if you want me to cover more of these anthology comics, there are a handful more where Supergirl shows up and I’d love to read them.