Earth-46 is the last of the “New 52” universes introduced alongside the New 52 DC Reboot to get “mapped”. The idea of “mapping” a universe is an in universe term for exploration of a universe and exploration of differences from the prime universe. Batman Gargoyle of Gotham, a story that started in 2023, is created, written, and illustrated by Rafael Grampa. This story shows Batman as the orphaned child of Thomas and Martha Wayne, who takes up the mantle of Batman to protect others from the same fate. This all seems pretty similar to the main DC Universe and the only real difference seems to be that this Batman seems to have a much different array of baddies to go up against like Doctor Geist who seems to be the primary antagonist of the miniseries.
While doing this series I have encountered a handful of universes that are rather under-developed or “unmapped”. Universes like 18, 31, 43, and 44 all have very few appearances, but the have a very clear premise like Wild West, Pirate, Vampire, and Metal Men. Earth-46 on the other hand has a single (currently unfinished) story associated with it, and this story seems to not stray very far from the Earth-0 histories. This leaves me with significantly less to work with when creating a Supergirl representative. While there were a couple characters in the universe I considered pursuing as representatives of the Supergirl role, none of them really fit in my opinion. I also get the feeling that this universe would not have a Superman and as such wouldn’t have a Supergirl, although stories like Batman Red Rain, and Batman Gotham by Gaslight also have that sort of vibe when only looking at the first entry. I set out this year with a specific goal in mind and I plan to follow through, so for this universe I have taken some of Grampa’s design elements in his Batman and applied them to a Supergirl, although as the story advances and expands, I may revisit the universe someday.
As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Supergirl-46 is flying above a fog ridden city. In her left hand she is stopping an unidentified object crashing in from the top right. She is illuminated from below and a helicopter can be seen behind her. The top right has a motif of Supergirl’s symbol with a 46 on top of it.
Spurred on mostly by a friend texting me “Kara name everyone at the Thanksgiving dinner table please” after reading the most recent issue of Supergirl, I decided to take a look at the whole guest list and share with anyone else who may be confused by some of the invites. While most of the table is filled up with characters that had appeared in the past few issues, there are a couple interesting choices Sophie Campbell made that I’d love to go a bit more in depth on.
For anyone just wanting names for each of these guests I’ll go through them first here, but if you want to know more about each of them keep reading! Starting with all the animals down below, Kandy is the bunny, Krypto is the dog, Streaky is the cat, and Titano (Tinytano now) is the small gorilla. Starting in the bottom left and going clockwise; Siohban Smythe (SIlver Banshee), Conner Kent (Superboy), Lena Luthor, Kara Danvers (Supergirl), Lee Serrano, Leegra (Princess Shark), Eliza Danvers, Jeremiah Danvers, Luna Lustrum, Lesla-Lar (Luminary), Kal-El (Superman), Lois Lane, and finally Cassie Sandsmark (Wonder Girl).
Kandy the Super-Bunny is one of the more recent additions to Supergirl lore. She first appeared in Supergirl (Vol. 8) #1 just a few months back. Kandy is the animal companion to Luminary, sort of Lesla’s version of Streaky the Super-Cat. She is also from Kandor so when she grew to full size and came to earth with Lesla she too gained powers normal to any Kryptonian living under a yellow sun.
Krypto has a much more storied history going all the way back to 1955 in the pages of Adventure Comics #210. Krypto was introduced as the dog companion to Superboy and would serve as Kal-El’s super-pet companion, and showed up alongside the man of steel last summer in the Superman movie from DC Studios. While Krypto has shown up along side Supergirl in numerous stories since her time in Action Comics, he was generally more associated with Superman than with Supergirl. The Woman of Tomorrow mini series showed Supergirl and Krypto as close companions and it seems like the general public links the Super-Dog more with Supergirl than with Superman these days. A few years before Woman of Tomorrow, during the vol. 7 run of Supergirl, Superman has Krypto join Kara in her space faring quest starting with issue 21 and this seems to be the start of the Supergirl/Super-Dog team that we’ve come to know.
Streaky the Super-Cat is one of the oldest character’s shown in this image as his stories go all the way back to Action Comics #261 just a few month’s after Supergirl’s debut. As opposed to Krypto, Streaky has always been paired with the maid of might. He has shown up more recently alongside Power Girl in her most recent ongoing, but with Supergirl’s new title the orange cat is back in Midvale where his stories began. If you’d like to learn more of Streaky’s history I did a whole post about him a few months ago you can read here.
Titano, while looking like an ape in most appearances, is actually a genetically modified chimpanzee that can shoot kryptonite beams from his eyes. He has most often been an antagonist to Superman and has made several appearances both in main DC continuity and in elseworlds titles. Titano, or Tinytano as he is now called, didn’t start his heroic deeds until very recently durring the events of the current Supergirl title. He was shrunken down and dubbed “Tinytano” in issue #3 of the series.
Moving to the cast at the main table we start to see representatives from a wide array of Supergirl stories including our first guest; Siobhan Smythe. Siobhan is the New 52 version of the Silver Banshee and was a major supporting character in Supergirl’s life as she got acclimated to Earth. Silver Banshee as a character first appeared in Action Comics #595, however this was Siobhan McDougal who seems a bit more villainous, whereas Siobhan Smythe generally tries to help Supergirl while keeping her Banshee side more at bay. She has shown up more recently alongside her current boyfriend, Jimmy Olsen, in the most recent Superman titles. Siobhan here clearly represents the New 52 era of Supergirl and we’ll see plenty of other time periods represented coming up.
Superboy, the Kon-El version at least, first appeared in Adventures of Superman #500. Kon is the clone of Superman and Lex Luthor and has been a member of Young Justice and Teen Titans. Him and Supergirl haven’t had many adventures together but I feel like the above panel from the “House of Kent” storyline sums up their relationship fairly well and is their first meeting after Kon’s reintroduction to the main DC Universe after having been taken out during the New 52 relaunch when he was replaced with a similar Superboy. Superboy did have a few adventures with the Linda Danvers/Matrix Supergirl alongside Young Justice, so he could sort of be a representative of that era of Supergirl’s life but that wasn’t really Kara so it probably doesn’t count.
Lena Luthor, or more specifically Lena Luthor II, is the daughter of Lex Luthor and she first appeared (as a baby) in Superman (Vol. 2) #131 before she was soon sent into the future and grew up in the clutches of Brainiac 13 during the events of Superman Y2K. Lena was fairly absent from comics for the next 2 decades until she showed up in Superman (Vol. 6) #7 where she was shown working at Supercorp. She would have some interactions during this time with Supergirl and is now living in Midvale after seeing her father once again be way more evil than she prefers. While she isn’t the same Lena Luthor that showed up in silver age comics (that was Lena Thorul that I talked about here) it does seem like she could represent that period of Supergirl’s life as well as being her current best friend.
I’ll skip talking about Supergirl herself because I figure you probably have a good idea about who she is. Next up is Lee Serrano who was probably my favorite to see here. Lee is a non-binary character introduced in Supergirl (vol. 7) #19, (I talked about it during pride month in this post) who is representing the Rebirth era of DC comics, although they really haven’t shown up much aside from the one story.
Princess Shark is another very recent addition to Supergirl’s mythos. She showed up in the debut issue of the current series but we only just find out more about her history in this very issue so you should go and read that if you haven’t already!
While the Danvers have been an important part of Supergirl’s life for quite a while, them being named “Jeremiah” and “Eliza” is a much more recent update. Jeremiah and Eliza Danvers are the names of Supergirl’s adoptive parents as shown in the CBS/CW show and in comics they first appeared as such in Superman/Wonder Woman #29 and are shown as scientists working at STAR Labs. They have been fairly regular members of the cast in the most recent Supergirl title.
Luna Lustrum is the newest character at this table having only just made her debut a few months ago in issue 4 of this series. Not much is known of her at this point however she is able to read auras of people and she seems friendly with the whole cast of main characters so I imagine she’ll stick around for a while.
Much like Supergirl herself, I feel like I don’t need to tell you who Superman and Lois Lane are they’ve been around in comics for nearly 90 years and have been staples of pop culture for nearly as long. I do think it’s weird that Superman showed up as Superman not Clark Kent here, especially seeing that he came with Lois Lane. It’s possible this is because of Lex doing that thing in Action Comics 1050 where he made it so that if anyone found out that Clark Kent was Superman they could suffer severe brain damage. This was done mostly as a plot point to make Superman have a secret identity again and hasn’t really been brought up since but if this is the reason we got Superman and not Clark I would give Sophie major props for her attention to continuity. I also like the fact that Clark, Lois, and Conner are all in Midvale for Thanksgiving, which seems to imply that Jon (their son who grew up in a volcano) is in charge of watching Otho and Osul (their children who grew up on a slave planet) and that fact is just hilarious to me. In all actuality all three of them probably are safely away in Smallville having a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with Ma and Pa Kent.
Cassie Sandsmark, much like Lee Serrano, was a character I was overjoyed to see show up here. Cassie was Supergirl’s best friend in the pre-Flashpoint era of DC, and the pair had quite a few adventures together. Cassie is of course the second (or third if you count Diana) person to hold the title of Wonder Girl and she first showed up in Wonder Woman (Vol. 2) #105. Supergirl’s pre-Flashpoint origin has her living and training on Themyscira for a while soon after landing on earth which is most likely where the pair met. Their relationship seems to have become almost nonexistent since the New 52 reboot, so her being here is a great step to making the pair close friends once again. This friendship between Kara and Cassie (as well as Kara’s relationship with Stephanie Brown) is the main basis for my short lived Blonde Justice comic strip (that you can read in full on this page).
Thanksgiving was a pretty common occurrence on the Supergirl TV show and most seasons had a full episode dedicated to the holiday so I’m glad to see that tradition continue here. This issue was a great low stakes story that showed a lot of Supergirl’s history while letting all the cast get a great chance to sit back, relax, and have a wonderful day together. I hope this post gave you some good information about these characters and I hope you’ve been picking up and enjoying the Supergirl comic because I know I have. See you next time!
Earth-45 is a world without heroes, or at least it was. Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen worked together to build a machine that can turn thoughts into real tangible things. They wanted to use this machine to create a hero for their world. Unfortunately soon after creating the machine their funding ran out and they sought out sponsors. Unfortunately Overcorp gained control over their machine and worked together to give people what they wanted; a brutal powerful antihero named Super-Doomsday. This brutal monster would work with Overcorp to eliminate crime and the result was the world pushed into a corporate dictatorship with Overcorp and their monster in charge.
Once again we are met with a universe without a Supergirl. My idea for this universe’s girl of steel is a successor to Super-Doomsday. Overcorp, after the raging success of their first hero, go about and create a follow-up, Super-Reign. Super-Reign is just as brutal and menacing and helps further push Overcorp into leaders of the world. While Super-Doomsday is of course a combination of Superman and his foe Doomsday, Super-Reign is likewise an amalgamation of Supergirl and one of her more brutal foes; Reign the Worldkiller.
As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Super-Reign stands tall hoisting a large sword over her shoulder. There is a decimated landscape full of rubble and fog all around her. The top right features a motif of the Overcorp symbol with a 45 on top of it.
For this month’s Supergirl Surprise, instead of consulting a random number generator I instead opted to ask my husband to go through by Supergirl boxes and pick out one that he was drawn to. That book was Supergirl Vol. 4 #57, “Sharper than a Serpent’s Tooth”. This book was by Peter David (writer), Leonard Kirk (penciler), Robin Riggs (inker), Gene D’Angelo (colors), and Bill Oakley (letters), and had a cover date of June 2001. As I have continued on in this Supergirl Surprise adventure I’ve come to really enjoy reading stories as single issues and seeing how the story both fits into a larger narrative and also stands on it’s own. “Sharper than a Serpent’s Tooth” is a great example of this.
This story is part of the back half of Peter David’s run where Buzz and Linda are trekking across the country getting up to shenanigans as they track down the essence of the Earth Angel that was once Supergirl. This issue picks up where the previous issue left out with Buzz in the clutches of a giant bug monster, however the 22 pages presented here have a really solid story told all by themselves. We find out that this bug monster, Dominique, is actually the demonic spawn of Buzz himself many years before when he was fully powered up as a demon. There is a good few pages at the start of the story where it seems like they are beginning to come to an understanding with one another, but they part later in the story with Dominique slashing Buzz with her poisoned stinger.
“But where is Supergirl throughout this story?” is a question you ma be asking. Why she’s torturing information out of a young lady of course. The above panel is a nice exploration of the difference between Superman and Supergirl with the lines “But… S-Superman wouldn’t kill anyone!” and “Too bad he’s not here.” Thankfully the young lady, Mara, does not get eaten by alligators and instead tells the girl of steel where Buzz is being held.
Supergirl and Dominique fight, the rest of the family including Mara realize that they’re all awful people even if Dominique is the only one that looks monstrous, and Supergirl takes Buzz to safety at the end of the tale. There’s some other stuff that happens and some good dialogue throughout but at the end of the day its just a great excuse for Supergirl to fight a big bug.
During the early portion of the story when Buzz and Dominique are talking, Buzz mentions that she doesn’t have to look like a monster and if she puts her mind to it. We are able to to see Dominique putting this to practice on the final page so it seems that Buzz was able to give her something even though he is generally an awful person.
A few miscelanious moments from the issue I wanted to talk about just briefly that didn’t fit well in the synopsis. First up we’ve got Supergirl employing a biting technique to get away from Viktor. I don’t know why but superheroine’s biting in combat is one of my favorite things to see in comics. Next we have just a brilliant string of dialogue where Buzz asks (rhetorically) for a cigarette and surprisingly Dominique hand him a pack. After finding out the pack came from a dead body, Buzz asks what he died from and “lung cancer” is of course the answer which is a very common joke but is delivered quite well here. Last but not least we have Buzz confirming that Hitler was in fact the spawn of a demon.
As an added bonus to my husband picking out this month’s book, I also had him take a peek through the ads to see which was his favorite. He picked this ad for Pokemon Stadium 2 for the Nintendo 64. 2001 seems really late for a N-64 game but I’ve heard a lot of good things about this title and it’s predecessor. Looking through the rest of the book, there weren’t really any good ads aside from this one but luckily we do have a couple letters to look at.
First up, from Mark Moore, we get a a short list of questions that are successfully answered by the editor Mike McAvennie, but in the past 24 years we do have a bit more to talk about with these questions. First up, the Elseworlds title that is referenced here is Supergirl: Wings if I’m not mistaken. Kara Zor-El in 2001 was nowhere in DC Comics, but a pre-crisis (sort of) Supergirl does show up at the end of the run and Kara Zor-El would return to main continuity in 2004, but the closest we’ve gotten to silver age Supergirl in my opinion is Sophie Campbell’s current run on the maid of might. Question 3 seems to be asking about a pop rock star Supergirl with tie in tv show somewhat akin to Josie and the Pussycats if I had to guess and the editor responds with “There are no plans for a Supergirl movie, TV series, or (hopefully) a pop rock album.” While Supergirl has yet to have a dedicated album (from what I know) she did have a 6 season television show a few years back and is set to star in a major motion picture next year! The other letter, from Clint Crawford discuses his desire for a “costume that will make her stand out from the rest of Team Superman”. Much like the editor, I cannot understand how the costume in use by Supergirl doesn’t stand out. Of the many long term costumes Supergirl has worn through her longstanding career, this costume with the white shirt and blue skirt seems the most varied from the rest of the blue and red Superman Family costumes.
I hope you had a fun time reading through another issue of Supergirl with me and I hope you join me again next time! If you have any comments or suggestions for future blog topics you can email me at daringnewblog@gmail.com or leave a comment below!
In short, Earth-44 is a universe where members of the Justice League are merged with members of the Metal Men. Characters like Gold Superman, Platinum Wonder Woman, Iron Batman, and others make up a team called the Metal League. The Metal League is a team of robots designed and built by Doc Will Tornado based on heroes from comics he read as a kid.
A version of this universe does show up in Infinite Crisis: Fight for the Multiverse and there is a Supergirl-44 much like the Arcane Supergirl from all the way back on Earth-13 of Supergirl in the Multiverse. The Supergirl-44 that is shown in the comic however is relatively unexplored and I’m personally not that big a fan of her look. For my drawing this week I have put together what I’m calling Electrum Supergirl. For her design I’m leaning a bit more into the classic Metal Men (and Metal Women) look and using electrum as opposed to gold to help set her apart from Superman.
As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Electrum Supergirl is standing in front of a large computer displaying “INTRUDER ALERT”. Electrum Supergirl is deflecting laser blasts coming from offscreen. A motif in the top right has Electrum Supergirl’s symbol with a 44 on top of it.
The Daring New Blog of Supergirl 