Near the end of 2003 there was a 3-part story told across issues 806-808 called Supergirls. 2003 was an odd year for the girl of steel, Kara Zor-El had been absent from comics since the Crisis and the Matrix Supergirl had long ago merged with Linda Danvers but even her story wrapped up in the early months of the year. As such the role of Supergirl was left open and would soon be filled by Cir-El. Cir-El was introduced as the future daughter of Lois Lane and Superman. I do plan on doing a full exploration of Cir-El at some point but for today I want to talk about what might be her best story from her brief time in comics.
As mentioned earlier, Supergirls was told from issue 806-808 of Action Comics and all 3 issues have the same creative team. Joe Kelley writing, Pasqal Ferry, Cam Smith, and Guy Major on art, and Comicraft providing letters. The issues came out from August to October of 2003 and while the covers all call the story “Supergirls” the story is listed on the inside as “Hungry Ghost” referring to the antagonist Byakko. As the title suggests, this isn’t a story of just one “Supergirl” but 3 and surprisingly none of them are named Kara. The stars of this story are, in order of appearance, Traci Thirteen, Natasha Irons, and Cir-El. Cir-El is the only of the trio that actually uses the moniker of Supergirl but Superman does refer to the group as “Super…Girls” so if they had gone on to further adventures I’m sure that would be their team name. Both Traci 13 and Cir-El are fairly new characters to the lineup having both appeared for the first time at the beginning of the year. Traci sometimes shortens her last name from “Thirteen” to “13” and sometimes goes for “Girl 13” but generally doesn’t bother too much with a superhero identity. She is the daughter of Doctor Terry Thirteen who spends a lot of his time debunking supernatural and magical occurences. Naturally, as his daughter, Traci has what is referred to as “City Magic” drawing most her power from her urban surroundings and can do all the general magic things that you would expect. Cir-El, as I mentioned earlier, is the sort of future daughter of Superman and also has a alter ego of May and there seems to be some sort of split personality thing going on between the two. Cir-El, being half-Kryptonian, has all the normal Kryptonian powers but to a lesser degree because of her diluted DNA. Natasha Irons is the most developed of the trio fist appearing all the way back in 1994. She has, up until now, only been a support for her more well know uncle, Steel. Although throughout the story she comes into her role as a proper superhero herself when she takes up her uncle’s hammer and a new suit of armor to become the new Steel.
The story itself features a half-dead Superman, injured at the hands of Byakko, another recent addition to Superman’s cast. Byakko is able to phase in and out of things which is how she is able to so easily lodge a pipe in the man of steel and also gets the better of all the Supergirls throughout the story. Byakko blames the death of her husband on Superman, a reference to her introductory story, thus resulting in a lack of Superman action for 3 months in Action Comics.
Even though the Supergirls are really no match for Byakko, their admirable determination – and a bit of a pep talk from Nat – helps Byakko realize the world is much better with Superman than without and withdrawals herself from the battle as she tells Lana “[Superman] has wonderful children. My husband would have admired them very much.” This brings up another notable point of the story, Lana Lang. Lana is of course a well known childhood friend and confidant of Clark Kent. More recently to this story, however, she is the wife of Pete Ross who has just jumped from Vice President to President after the arrest of former President Lex Luthor. Throughout the story we see Lana getting an apartment in Metropolis and we learn of her plans to leave her husband. There is also reference to a Kiss between her and Superman that I assume was well documented and happened in a previous story. This supposed romantic relationship is what leads Traci to Lana’s apartment after finding an incapacitated Superman in the streets and kicking off this storyline.
Much like my feelings for Cir-El as a whole, I feel my enjoyment of this story is much more about its potential rather than its execution. The story itself isn’t anything stunning, and the dialogue doesn’t do much for me. But the idea of 3 young teen girls in Metropolis working together to figure out their powers and save the day is really interesting to me. I would love to see this group have continuing stories as we learn more about these “daughters” of Superman. Unfortunately, Cirl-El would vanish from existence just a few months later never to be seen again aside from a brief cameo in Superman/Batman a couple years later. Traci and Natasha have continued to appear in comics and even bounced in and out of a romantic relationship since this story so there is a bit of continuation of this team, but I think without Cir-El they aren’t really Supergirls.
Sorry to end this on a bit of a downer, I do really enjoy this story and I’m quite fond of the art throughout, and how can I think it’s bad when my biggest complaint is that there isn’t more. With the more loosey goosey nature of DC’s current Everything-is-Canon continuity, I could see Cir-El showing back up, but I really don’t think she would be able to exist aside from a mention or a cameo when we have characters like Jon Kent and Otho-Ra and Osul-Ra filling similar roles. Cir-El could be good to use in an elseworlds story (Powergirl of the Tangent universe in the Superman’s Reign story has a bit of a Cir-El vibe) or we could even see continuations of this Supergirls team told as past stories like Peter Tomasi did with the later Super Sons stories. Be on the lookout for an upcoming post about Cir-El’s full history and feel free to send comments and questions to daringnewblog@gmail.com !
The amalgamated home of the Justice Titans, Earth-32, features heroes that are combinations of 2 heroes from Earth-0. The concept was first explored in Batman: In Darkest Knight which showed Bruce Wayne was selected to join the Green Lantern Corps. Other heroes from the universe include Black Arrow (Green Arrow & Black Canary), Aquaflash (Aquaman & Flash), and Super-Martian (Superman and Martian Manhunter) among others.
In this universe some members of the Martian race lived alongside Kryptonians and had their cultures intertwined. Such is the history of Kal, the Super-Martian who we learn more about in Lex Luthor: Year of the Villain #1. This issue also reveals he is in a romantic partnership with this universe’s Lex Luthor who has also taken up the mantle of Batman. Ms. Super-Martian appears briefly in Dial H for Hero #10 but her origin isn’t explained. Because of her costume similarities to Earth-0 Kon-El Superboy, it’s possible this young member of Young Justice International is a clone of Lex and Kal much like Kon-El. While her name isn’t revealed in the story, I think based on other characters from the universe her name would most likely be M’gann.
As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. A digital drawing that depicts Ms. Super-Martian jumping down towards the viewer with her arms and legs outstretched. A night sky is obstructed in the background by various skyscrapers. A bright yellow light is backlighting Ms. Super-Martian. The top right corner has a motif of Ms. Super-Martian’s S symbol with a 32 on top of it.
Lena Thorul was a fairly important character in Supergirl’s life in the Silver and Bronze eras and was even called Supergirl’s best friend as we found out in the Official Superman Quiz Book we covered a few weeks back (read about that here). Lena Thorul is the sister of Lex Luthor who, from a very young age, had her name changed to Thorul so as not to be associated with her more villainous brother. Because of how young she was when her parents decided to change their surnames, Lena is unaware of her fiendish brother and instead is lead to believe her brother was killed in a mountain climbing incident. The Luthor family’s newly aquired name, Thorul, is of course an anagram of Luthor which is pointed out more than once in the comics that Lena shows up in mostly by Superman and Supergirl to let the reader know who this mysterious girl is. If you are looking for info on the Lena Luthor currently showing up in Supergirl comics, this post is unfortunately not where you’ll find those answers. This Lena is Lex’s sister, while that Lena is his daughter. I do plan on covering Lex’s-daughter-Lena in a future post however so keep an eye out for that coming up!
I won’t be doing full synopses of all of Lena’s stories but I do want to go over some of the major beats and important parts of her life as she showed up in the pre-crisis era, including her first appearance. Although Lena is most often associated with the girl of steel, her first appearance is actually in a story from Superman’s Girl Friend Lois Lane #23, The Curse of Lena Thorul. This is a rather brief story that mostly involves Lois traveling to Cardiff to write up a story about witches and finds a librarian (Lena) who shares a striking resemblance to one Louella Thompson, a terrifying witch from centuries past. Lois is convinced that Lena is Louella reincarnated and even encounters some supernatural events over the next few days when writing up her article. Fortunately, Lois and Superman have to track down the recently escaped Lex Luthor who reveals that he is the cause of all the supernatural shenanigans going on and he did so as to not draw attention to his, now revealed to the reader, sister. Lex wants nothing more than to let his sister lead a normal life not burdened by his criminal acts and even allows himself to be jailed again by Superman once Lois promises not to run her story. This theme of Lex keeping his relationship to Lena secret is a constant thread throughout the rest of Lena’s appearances and it makes the greatest criminal mind of our generation seem almost sympathetic. Oddly enough, this reincarnated witch storyline would show up as a major plot line for Lana Lang being posessed by Isobel Thoreaux in season 4 of Smallville, to mixed success. I can’t imagine this is a direct reference to this story but it is odd to see that the idea of a reincarnated witch would happen more than once so closely related to Superman. It would be like if Lena Luthor from the Supergirl show suddenly became a witch 5 years after being introduced to the show.
After her introduction in Lois Lane #23, Lena would quickly find a new home in Midvale. A brief dialogue from Linda (Supergirl) Danvers in issue 295 of Action Comics reveals that Lena moved to Midvale “last year”, most likely having moved from Cardiff as she was shown living in during the events of Lois Lane #23. Lena seems to have made fast friends with Linda and this friendship would only grow from here. Lena would appear in issues 295-298 of Action Comics where we learn Lena has ESP or Extra-Sensory Perception. She is also trying to get a job at the FBI but is unfortunately denied the position because of her blank background check. This causes Supergirl to break the time barrier and go back to find out Lena’s past. Here we learn a bit more about her and Supergirl finds out that not only is Lena is Lex Luthor’s sister, but her ESP powers came from a science experiment gone wrong when they were younger. The story would continue with Lena joining a criminal gang which we find out is only done so that she could help take down the criminal gang and in doing so it puts her in a great position to get that formerly denied FBI job. The next 3 issues are all related and tell a story where Lena interacts with Dick Malverne a bit and even dresses up as Supergirl. The storyline would shift to Lesla-Lar showing up and Lena getting trapped in Kandor while Lex Luthor teams up with the girl of steel to take out the Phantom Zone villains in an attempt to save his sister. The story of course ends with Lena safely removed from the bottle city and thankfully still unaware of her criminal brother. This set of 4 issues really helps build up the character and helps define her place a lot better then her appearance in Lois Lane’s book and making Lena a contemporary of Supergirl’s feels like a much better fit for her.
Lena would again show up a couple issues later in 300 and 301 of Action Comics, but only very briefly. These 2 issues mostly tell the tale of Comet the Super-Horse and Lena only shows up in a couple spots to show off her fantastical ESP powers. Her ESP powers do have a similarity to Comet’s own telepathic powers so her inclusion in this Super-Horse story is fitting.
Lena shows up again in Action Comics 313 and we get continuations of all the major elements of her character. She is continuing trying to get a job with the FBI when she is tasked with interviewing Lex Luthor. During this interview Lex reveals the truth to Lena about being her brother which sends Lena spiraling into a dissociative state where she gets temporary amnesia, ends up in Africa, and begins using her ESP powers to control the wildlife. Thanks to a gunshot, Lena’s memory is restored and she takes her Jungle Princess act into a circus performance in Metropolis. Halfway through her act as Jungle Princess, Lena is overcome with anxiety about the world finding out she’s Luthor’s sister and asks Supergirl to take over for her in the act. Meanwhile Lex Luthor is concocting a plan to escape from prison, but also to give Lena some flowers that wipe all traumatic memories from her mind meaning she no longer knows of her secret criminal brother. Lena would briefly appear in the next issue, 314, but only in a single panel as the story revolves more around Supergirl’s biological and foster parents. All the lists I’m referencing seem to say that Action Comics 316 also features Lena, however upon reading it, I only saw her name mentioned in a single panel by Supergirl and she doesn’t actually appear.
Given the lack of Lena in the past couple issues, I was happy to see the story in Action Comics 317 centers around her. The story introduced us to a new boyfriend of Lena’s, Jeff Colby, that seems to be a rather serious relationship. Throughout the story we’re introduced to Jeff via Lena having an ESP premonition that Jeff is about to be in a plane crash. Linda spots him with her super-vision and helps his parachute land near where the girls are having a picnic. Strangely enough Jeff doesn’t mention the plane at all and keeps it a secret from Lena leading Supergirl to do some investigating. Throughout the story we see; Supergirl finding out Jeff is a spy, Linda hypnotizing Jeff into falling for her, Lena now hating both Jeff and Linda, Supergirl realizing Jeff isn’t a spy and is instead a double agent working for the FBI, Lena planning a new life in Africa, Supergirl using a robot of Jeff to get Jeff and Lena back together, and finally a wedding between Jeff and Lena with Linda as the Maid of Honor. A truly bonkers story that requires a whole lot of just accepting how things play out and going with it.
It would be 5 years later before we saw Lena Thorul again, but she would be once again starring opposite of the girl of steel in Adventure Comics 387 and 388. It’s fitting that Lena has been absent for so many years because in this issue we are introduced to Val Colby who is the son to Lena and her now Husband we met in Action 317 which is a nice bit of continuity. Val is shown to have PK powers allowing him to lift things with his mind and see through walls and all other super powered things. Val received these powers not only by inheriting some of his mother’s ESP but also from a space rock given to him when he was younger by an anonymous donor (of course it was none other than his fiendish uncle Lex Luthor). Lex is also shown saving young Val from a car about to fall on him, which then leads Val to rescue Lex from prison after seeing him caged up on TV. Lex would attempt to lead Val onto a life of crime but between the young tot’s carefree nature, and a little help from Linda Danvers, Val eventually realizes that Lex isn’t a role model and has Supergirl take him back to his mom. Also due to events in the story, Val loses his powers and Lex even tells the young lad he was only acting like his uncle to use his powers for evil thus keeping his relationship to Lena a secret. While these two issues didn’t have much focus on Lena herself, it was nice to see some world building and see that Lena has a life of her own.
Lena would appear again in a Supergirl story now in the pages of Superman Family 168. This story is somewhat of a sipiritual successor to Lena’s second appearance which was titled The Girl with the X-Ray Mind and the story from Superman Family is The Girl with the See-Through Mind. Here we see Lena helping Linda teach a class on telepathy and we’re introduced to a young girl named Jan who, much like Lena herself, has psychic abilities. Jan is very adamant about not wanting her abilities that we come to find are empathic in nature. Unfortunately another woman is in trouble and Jan is the only one who can point Supergirl in the right direction to save the day. Supergirl gives a speech to Jan about how even the maid of might sometimes feels othered and like she doesn’t belong but she knows that with her powers she can help those in need. This seemed to be what Jan needed to hear and the trio of super powered girls goes off to fight a would be magician and save the damsel that Jan was empathically linked to. This is a nice story that calls back to Lena’s first two appearances with a magical villain and a telepathic girl. The issue of Superman family also has a 2 page spread going over Lena’s full history for any new readers that may be unaware of the ESP powered sister of the greatest criminal mind.
The next story with Lena is a short Lex Luthor backup from Action Comics 486 and it’s a rather sweet story that shows Lex escaping from prison, heading to Midvale, and secretly giving his nephew a present. For only being 6 pages, this story does a lot in showing Lex’s care for both his sister and his nephew and also shows the reader that Val has continued to grow up since we last saw him and we also find out he’s even come to like Batman more than Superman.
Lena would show up again for 4 Supergirl stories in Superman Family from issues 211-214. The first 3 issues seem to be building up the friendship between Lena and Supergirl where Lena even finally connects the ESP dots of Linda being Supergirl. Lena moves to New York and starts working alongside Linda at GBS as a secretary for the writer working on Linda’s soap “Secret Hearts”. Lena would become a confidant to the girl of steel and I really started to feel her as a best friend to the girl of steel. We also had a couple moments of Lena and Supergirl working together to save the day and it could’ve been a nice direction to take the Supergirl character that gives her someone that she can always rely on that isn’t her cousin or her parents. Unfortunately, come issue 214, Lena finds out that her brother is Lex Luthor and knowing that everyone knew except her, including her best friend and her husband, sends her over the edge and comes to resent Supergirl. While she does seem to calm down a bit by the end of the story, this drastic turn in Lena’s character seems a bit out of place and I can only think it was some editorial mandate to keep Supergirl a bit more as a solo heroine. This final issue also reveals Lena had some selective amnesia resulting in her once again not knowing that Linda is the girl of steel. Looking at the dates on these stories it looks like they were published soon before Supergirl (vol. 2) started getting published so I could believe someone trying to get to a more blank status quo before the new series starts.
Unfortunately this would be the end of Lena in the pre-crisis era. Her first appearance is relatively unnecessary to her overall arc and it’s once we get into her appearances in Action where we start to get some proper development. Lena is a girl with ESP powers who wants to join the FBI. Unfortunately we never see her actually employed by the bureau but she does get married to someone working there. This marriage would also be a very important part of her development as a character and we would see Lena go from Thorul to Colby and even see her have a son and watch him grow up through the course of her appearances. We even saw Lena develop her ESP powers and mentor another young girl with growing psychic abilities. Lena, Lex’s sister, has shown up a few times since in comics and it looks like she was an antagonist in the Rebirth era Superwoman series as Ultrawoman. Lena has also shown up in a few elseworlds stories like DC Superhero Girls, and Cosmic Adventures in the 8th grade, but I think her most prominent appearance has been on the CW Supergirl show where she was portrayed by Katie McGrath. I do think based on the current ages of Supergirl, Superman, and Lex Luthor in comics it makes much more sense for Lex’s daughter Lena to be a peer to Supergirl as opposed to his sister so most likely we won’t see Lena Thorul again but I am excited to see the friendship between Supergirl and Lena blossom.
Thanks so much for reading! I hope you learned something about Lex Luthor’s sister, I know I did. If you have any comments or questions or if you think I overlooked any Lena appearances let me know by writing an email to daringnewblog@gmail.com.
Earth-31, formerly known as Earth-494, first showed up in Detective Comics Annual #7 from 1994. The DC Comics annuals from that year were all Elseworlds stories and this story is no different. The story tells a tale of a different sort of Batman, a Captain Leatherwing pirate captain of the Flying Fox. Neither the classic, nor current iterations of this universe have very many appearances but the theme is pretty easy to follow. This is of course the pirate universe.
Mary El is the rebellious niece of Admiral Gar-El who has escaped her cozy rich lifestyle to live the thrills of the pirate life as captain of the ship, Comet. Captain Steel-Skin, so called for her invincible skin, leads her crew of pirates pillaging the 7 seas. While Admiral Gar-El has shown up a couple times since showing up in The Multiversity Guidebook, mostly it is as a cameo. As such, Captain Steel-Skin unfortunately doesn’t actually exist in canon but I feel the idea of a pirate universe consisting of pirate versions of all our favorite DC characters has room to tell lots of stories.
As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Captain Steel-Skin is shown flying above cresting waves pulling her ship Comet behind her. The ship has its sails aloft and a flag at the top showing the crest of the house of El. Captain Steel-Skin has her sword drawn pointing forward as she leads her ship. The top right features a motive of the El Crest with a number 31 on top of it.
Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes #17 was written by Mark Waid, had art by Barry Kitson, Mick Gray, and Natahan Eyring, and was lettered by Phil Balsman. This book is cover dated June 2006 and was part of the 5th volume of Legion of Super-Heroes that started the year prior. Supergirl took over the title as co-star and would remain in the book, and the 31st century, until issue 36 of the title.
The story mostly centers around Supergirl as she has just arrived in the future and how the rest of the Legionnaires feel about her. On either side of the spectrum we have Invisible Kid infatuated with the Girl of Steel who even offers to give up his flight ring for her, and Light Lass who seems quite frustrated that a perky young blonde can just waltz into the Legion just because of the S on her chest. Throughout the story Kara seems perfectly capable as a Legionnaire, stopping a robotic threat to the city that had the Legion and the Science Police overwhelmed all in just 4 pages. Later on she encounters an earthquake and not only stops the disaster with a whistle, she also finds the source of the quake in a young man named Seiss who didn’t know he had created subsonic disruptions while having indigestion.
It’s not all sunshine and rainbows, however, as Cosmic Boy makes the point that with all the trauma Kara has just been through in what seems like such a short period of time to her, she thinks that her entire life right now is a dream. This, coupled with Light Lass’s general dislike for Supergirl, puts the Legion in a tricky position. Obviously the girl seems a touch unstable, but she is doing a lot of good so they finally decide to make her an honorary member of the Legion. Honorary because they are unable to provide a new flight ring for her seeing that Brainiac 5 is currently M.I.A. That is until Atom Girl shows up with a special gift for Supergirl from Brainiac 5 himself, a flight ring.
I’m not usually a fan of the Legion and generally get bored by the stories. This issue, and series, on the other hand was a lot of fun to read, and it definitely helps that Mark Waid is such a great writer. The story explores how Supergirl must be approaching so many crises in a row since leaving her home planet behind. This plot is expanded upon even more in later issues of the title wherein Supergirl does come to the realization that this isn’t a dream and she has to come to accept that. That’s not the case for this story though as Supergirl is given a world where she is a great hero, always has an easy solution to every problem, and gets anything she could wish for. There is also a scene, after he is saved by Supergirl, where Seiss is approached by the dominators in what is probably a set up for a future story but it’s not overly relevant to this issue specifically. There’s also a nice moment after the robot battle where Supergirl uses her heat vision on a piece of rubble to give to a nearby Science Police Officer as a souvenir. The issue really packs a bunch into such a small space and it really makes it feel worth the money spent on it.
I’d previously only read these Legion stories as collected editions since I got those first for my collection and I think they left out these title pages that I’ll show above. It’s a way to introduce potential new readers to the Legion characters in an interesting way that shows there’s just a handful of Legionnaires to focus on this time but there’s way more on the team. I do however think it’s a weird set of Legionnaires that are picked for the line up this issue mostly because of the exclusion of Light Lass and Invisible Kid who seemed to be rather relevant in the story especially over Saturn Girl who I think only has one line. So while I like it visually it may not be the best explanation of characters in this issue specifically.
Looking briefly at the ads I noticed this one for HeroClix which I never had as a kid and I don’t think I was aware of them until a bit more recently but I have heard of them and this ad made me want to look and see if there’s a Supergirl HeroClix. Looking into it (very briefly) it looks like HeroClix is not only still making new figures, but there’s also quite a few different Supergirls out there that I’ll have to keep an eye out for!
Thanks for reading! As always feel free to send in any comments, questions, suggestions, or corrections to my email daringnewblog@gmail.com. See you next time!
The Daring New Blog of Supergirl 