The Daring New Blog of Supergirl

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  • Supergirl Surprise 2: Supergirl Vol. 5 #27

    Back again for my monthly look at a random issue of Supergirl from my collection. For the month of May we’re looking at issue 27 of Supergirl volume 5 written by Kelley Puckett with art by Rick Leonardi, Dan Green, Drew Johnson, and Ray Snyder. This book was released on March 5th 2008. This issue is part of the arc where Supergirl promises to save a boy. At the time she just thinks she’ll save him like she would anyone else, but the boy has cancer and thinks she means that he will beat cancer with her help. The arc as a whole deals with Supergirl coming to terms with the idea of having so many powers but still being unable to save everyone. This is a common trope in Superman mythos most often show by Jonathan (Pa) Kent who dies in a way that Clark is unable to save him. The way this storyline flips the narrative is by having Kara refuse this idea and promising once again, after learning of the boy’s condition, that she would save him.

    Now that we’ve addressed the overall narrative, we can now look at the plot of issue 27 specifically. The story opens with Supergirl promising the boy that she will not let him die. Quickly she notices time has come to a standstill and she notices someone new in the room with her, the only other moving thing in the room is a man in some sort of protective suit pointing a gun at her. He fires off the gun and Supergirl handily catches the bullet not realizing it was kryptonite. Weakened now, she is unprepared for the second bullet but is saved by Superman slowly catching up to what’s going on. Superman, presumably at superspeed, sees into the stopped time and shoots off his heat vision at the attacker rupturing his protective suit. Unknowingly to Superman and Supergirl this activates some sort of teleportation bringing Supergirl and the attacker back to where the attacker was from.

    Now in an unknown environment with more people pointing guns at her and Kara having more questions than answers, she takes her initial attacker away and flies far from where they came from in an attempt to get some answers. Supergirl, now seeing more of her new surroundings, realizes this new place that looks so alien, also still feels like earth. After talking, she finds out that she is 400 years in the future and this man is part of a group that was trying to go back in time to stop Supergirl before she could drastically change the future by saving the boy with cancer. She is told that by doing this action she changes the course of history and in her attempt to make humanity better, she has made mankind feel like they aren’t human anymore.

    It is at this time that she also finds out that the only way back to her time is through the Time Machine that was destroyed upon her arrival and the only person who can fix it has just taken a suicide pill. Rushing him back to try to fix the machine in time they are met with the machine already put back in order. Apparently, while they were out, a group called The Batmen had come in and fixed the Time Machine. These Batmen seem to be descendants or clones of Bruce Wayne and help Kara return home and give her the advice to “do what you think is right”. And this is where the issue ends.

    I’m a huge sucker for alternate universes and possible futures so I’m quite fond of this issue that briefly looks into a future that might be. The story also addresses right and wrong and what makes people people. The narrative is left fairly open and doesn’t tell the reader how to think and more so just asks some questions of the reader and allows the reader to make their own decisions and think about what they think the right thing to do is.

    I really enjoy a lot of the art in this issue, especially the sequence where Kara catches the kryptonite bullet and a lot of the full page images. I do feel that some of the panels, especially the faces and the figure work, seem a bit inconsistent throughout the book and I assume some of the inconsistencies are because of the large amount of artist credits. This is by no means a deal breaker and they seem to consistently get Supergirl right and show her in some great dynamic poses. This story is also from a time in comics where they seemed to have less dialogue and larger panels as compared to comics that came out in the 70s and 80s. This isn’t a good or bad thing but I will say this issue is a fairly quick read with intricate artwork depicting epic scenery. I also think the lighter dialogue helps give the reader time to sit and think about the subjects mentioned before in regards to how Supergirl should approach her current challenge.

    This issue has been reprinted twice, first in the Supergirl: Beyond Good and Evil trade paperback released soon after the storyline finished, and again in 2018 in Supergirl Volume 3: Ghosts of Krypton. It’s been a while since I read this storyline in its entirety but I remember enjoying it and I still feel like it’s a great way to approach the theme of not being able to save everyone.

    Come back on Monday for my next installment of Supergirl in the Multiverse, and next Friday for a brand new blog post about something entirely different. Supergirl Surprise will return again the second Friday of June. For any comments, questions, corrections, or thoughts feel free to leave a comment below or send an email to daringnewblog@gmail.com. Thanks so much for reading!

  • Supergirl in the Multiverse: Earth-17

    “World War III — The Great Atomic War — is over…and in its wake lies an earth in ruins!” Earth-17 is the home to the Atomic Knights, a group of 6 brave souls who, in time of crisis, found refuge from radiation in ancient suits of armor. These 6 heroes have taken on the duty of protecting their home of Durvale and bringing prosperity and rebirth back to the planet after the atomic destruction destroyed the planet in 1986.

    The Supergirl of this universe is Marene Herald, the sole female member of the Atomic Knights. Marene Herald is sister to Douglas Herald, and often love interest of Gardner Grayle the leader of the Atomic Knights. First appearing in Strange Adventures #117, Marene was not part of the initial team that took on the Black Baron who was ravaging the town of Durvale after the war. Gardner Grayle, after realizing the armor he found could protect him from the radioactive weapons of the Baron, gathered other members of the community to wear the armor and take back their town. While there were 6 suits of armor, one was much too small to be worn by a grown man so the team of knights was 5 strong. Marene would then secretly don the smaller suit of armor and help the rest of the knights. Marene would continue along with the rest of the Knights and would help continue to take back the planet.

    As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork and it depicts Marene wearing parts of her suit of armor (breastplate, pauldrons, and boots) on top of her iconic red dress. She is riding on one of the Atomic Knight’s giant Dalmatians. In the background you can see the ruined city of Durvale. The drawing is stylized like a postcard that has been ruined and damaged with faded edges and creases. Text saying “Durvale welcomes you!” Is at the bottom. A motif of the Atomic Knights symbol is in the top right with a number 17 on top of it.

  • Supergirl Season 1, Episode 1: Pilot

    “I’ve always felt the need to help people and tonight I finally got that chance”

    Supergirl is a show that first aired on CBS in 2015 starring Melissa Benoist in the titular role. Along with Melissa Benoist as Kara Danvers, the show also stars Mehcad Brooks as James Olsen, Chyler Leigh as Alex Danvers, Jeremy Jordan as Winn Schott, David Harewood as Hank Henshaw, and Calista Flockhart as Cat Grant. This episode, and most of the series, takes place in the fictional city of National City, California. Episode 1, titled Pilot, aired on October 26, 2015. The brief plot synopsis, provided alongside the dvd release of season 1, reads; “Superman’s cousin, Kara, finally embraces her superhuman abilities to become the hero she was always meant to be”. While this synopsis covers the basis for the plot, it leaves out a lot from this densely packed episode.

    The episode starts with a monologue by Kara Danvers as she explains her life from the day she left Krypton up until the present day, this origin includes her being trapped in the phantom zone, her arrival long after her cousin, the introduction of Jeremiah, Eliza and Alex Danvers, and her “normal” life of being Cat Grant’s assistant. The episode then shifts to a day in the life for Kara as she navigates being Cat Grant’s assistant and coworker to Winn Schott. She then meets new employee James Olsen who gives her a print of the first ever photograph of Superman. We cut to later in the day as Kara is getting ready for a blind date with the help of her sister Alex who is about to leave for a flight. On Kara’s (poorly matched) blind date, she overhears a news story of a plane about to crash and she realizes this is the plane her sister is on. While somewhat of a bumpy ride, she does successfully save the day and enter the public’s eye as Supergirl. Kara is ecstatic at the thought of saving lives and helping people, but her sister doesn’t think so highly of it and a brief fight ends the night for these 2 sisters. Cut to the next morning and CatCo is a buzz with the news of a new superhero in National City. Cat Grant’s is instructing her team to find out anything the can about this new heroine and afterwards Kara takes Winn up to the roof to reveal to him that she was the girl who saved the plane. We then go into a montage of her and Winn working on her costume and her preforming heroic deeds. As this is going on we’re introduced to Vartox, the villain of this episode who witnesses the saves of the maid of might and sets out to go attack her. We then jump to Kara suiting up as Supergirl to go save the day when suddenly she is taken down by kryptonite. Kara wakes up in the DEO and is met with Director Hank Henshaw. To Kara’s surprise, she also sees that her sister is part of this organization that hunts down aliens. Kara is once again told to stop fighting crime as Supergirl, but she refuses and storms off. She then hears a high pitched message that only her superhuman ears can hear and she follows the message to meet and face off with Vartox. Vartox easily takes out Supergirl, but before doing so, he informs her that he was a prisoner of Ft. Rozz and was sentenced there by Kara’s mother Alura. Before Vartox is able to make the killing blow, the DEO steps in to get her to safety. Back at the DEO, they study a shard of Vartox’s axe that got stuck in Supergirl’s arm. Feeling defeated, Kara returns to her apartment and is ready to give up the heroic life when Alex shows up with a Kryptonian hologram of Alura. This message from her mom gets Kara fired up and ready to go back into action. In the rematch fight, Kara is once again overpowered, but with a plan formed by Alex and the rest of the DEO, she is able to take Vartox down. The next day after her success she meets with James Olsen who informs her that he knew she was superpowered and tells her that her cousin Superman sent him to National City to check up on her. James also comes with a gift of the blanket that Superman came to earth in. This extra bit of motivation further elevates Kara to know that she’s doing the right thing in being a hero.

    There is quite a lot in this episode and it very easily could’ve been spread across a few episodes, maybe the first episode would just be her saving the plane, then an episode of her and Winn working together on a costume and doing small saves, and then the Vartox episode. While this approach would’ve worked and I think it could’ve been good that way too, I’m glad it’s all in this first episode because it really helps give a feel for the series. All of the main cast is given something to do and they all play a part in the progression of Kara becoming Supergirl. Winn is a huge support with Kara starting out as a hero, James is mostly keeping to the sidelines but casually supporting Kara stepping up, Cat Grant is Kara’s boss but also helps Kara by often giving her words of advice and speaking up for Supergirl, Alex starts off rather wary of her sister stepping into danger but eventually gets more comfortable and sees that together they can make great things happen, Hank Henshaw seems the most underdeveloped in this episode and is mainly just there as the hard edged and disapproving military agent trying to keep Supergirl out of the skies.

    I really love how this show approaches the girl of steel and I feel like Melissa Benoist really nails the role. The idea of a girl sent to protect her baby cousin but getting there too late and not having a purpose in life is an interesting approach to the character. Kara is shown as someone who really wants to be a hero and save lives but doesn’t know how. This lets us see a superhero who is just starting out, but isn’t new to her powers like so many other superhero shows of the time were doing. Instead of learning how to fly, we see her learn how to save the day.

    I really enjoyed revisiting the pilot to this series and it made me really want to dive in and look back at the rest of the show. If you enjoyed my thoughts or have anything to add to the discussion feel free to send me an email at daringnewblog@gmail.com. Thanks so much for reading!

  • Supergirl in the Multiverse: Earth-16

    Our heroes have abolished the supercriminal element, the sidekicks have grown into celebrity and the children of heroes have begin taking up heroic roles and joined together as The Just. This is Earth-16 also known as Earth-Me. Earth-16 features many characters that became prominent in the 90s of DC Comics like Connor Hawke Green Arrow, Kyle Rayner Green Lantern, Marcus Aelius Alpha Centurion, and Kon-El Superboy. Because of this heavy emphasis on the heroes of this era, I have picked the Matrix Supergirl for the basis of this universe’s Supergirl.

    The Matrix Supergirl comes from a pocket dimension that the post-crisis Superman visited a couple times. She is a protoplasmic organism made by Lex Luthor and was made to look like the pocket universe’s Lana Lang. This version of Supergirl first appeared in Superman (vol. 2) #16. She would later come to the main universe once her pocket dimension fell to destruction. On Earth she would become a close companion of Superman, get in a relationship with Lex Luthor II, and eventually merge with Linda Danvers and become a fallen earth angel.

    As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts this is my own artwork and is based on the iconic cover to Adventure Comics #397 drawn by Mike Sekowsky and Dick Giordano. Along with the composition being based on the iconic cover, it is also meant to look like a magazine cover to show the celebrity status of this earth’s heroes. Supergirl is lounging in the foreground illuminated by a spotlight, she is surrounded by 9 images of various costumes and forms the Matrix Supergirl has taken throughout her existence. The top right features a motif of Superwoman’s S symbol with a 16 on it.

  • Supergirl Revealed, the story of Lesla-Lar

    Supergirl Revealed, the story of Lesla-Lar

    A few years into Supergirl’s run as the backup feature in Action Comics Superman was ready for his cousin to jump into the spotlight and be revealed to the world. Supergirl, up until this point, had been kept as Superman’s secret weapon and would only operate in secret until Superman felt she was competent and trained in her powers. The story begins in Action Comics #278 which has Superman telling Supergirl he is ready to reveal her to the world but due to a handful of shenanigans, and the evil plot of Kandorian Lesla-Lar, Supergirl would not be revealed to the world until Action Comics #285. This 8 issue storyline was rather unheard of in the 60s when these comics were coming out. Unlike today when we often see multi-issue storylines telling a single story over a handful of issues or even plot lines evolving in the background over a full run, the stories of the silver age often stayed self contained in a single issue. Often times these issues even contained multiple stories, in the case of Action Comics Supergirl only had an 8 or 12 page story per issue, making this 8 part storyline even more impressive.

    While the story does have an overarching plot thread, and has a clear beginning and end, each issue does have a clear standalone narrative as well. We’ve got one issue where Supergirl goes back in time and becomes a historical figure, an issue where Lesla-Lar disguised as Supergirl teams up with Lex Luthor, an issue that retells the origin of Superman and Supergirl through the narrative structure of Linda watching a Kandorian film about her, and so on. I’ll save the specifics of the individual stories for later and today focus just on the plot thread that ties all these stories together.

    In the first issue of this arc Superman approaches Linda to tell her he’s finally ready to reveal her to the world as Supergirl. This is part of the character’s lore that goes back to Action Comics #252. After coming to earth and showing her super powers, Superman convinces her that until she is fully trained in both her powers and keeping a secret identity, she will stay hidden and be his secret weapon. With that in mind, the idea of Supergirl getting revealed had been a long time coming. Superman sets up a television broadcast with a special announcement but then right before Superman is ready to bring her in suddenly, and mysteriously, her powers are no more making the reveal unnecessary so Superman once again puts it off. The issue ends with Linda, now powerless, at Midvale Orphanage wondering if her powers will ever return.

    The next issue shows Linda trying to adjust to this new powerless life and coming to realize she no longer has to stay at the orphanage. She can get adopted now without accidentally revealing her identity to her foster parents. And so we meet Mr. And Mrs. Fred Danvers (Edna wouldn’t be named until a few issues later). The introduction of the Danvers is another of the reasons why this story is so crucial to the Supergirl mythos. The Danvers have come to be almost synonymous with the character and have been present in many incarnations since their introduction in this story. Along with the Danvers, we’re also met with the antagonist, Lesla-Lar.

    It is revealed here how Supergirl lost her powers. Lesla-Lar is a scientist living in the bottle city of Kandorian who shares a striking resemblance to Kara Zor-El. She has cooked up a plan to take away Supergirl’s powers. With a newly depowered Linda (Supergirl) Danvers, Lesla uses a teleport ray to trade places. While in Kandor, Kara undergoes brainwashing to make her believe she is Lesla-Lar and carries on in Kandor having no idea she ever had powers or was the cousin of the world’s greatest hero. Lesla-Lar on the other hand, now grown to full size and under the rays of earth’s yellow sun, now has superpowers which she plans to use for nefarious deeds.

    Lesla’s plan is told in the pages of the next few issues structured around Kara (as Lesla) in Kandor exploring the bottle city. Her plan involves sneaking Lex Luthor out of jail and helping him destroy Superman. Her idea is that once she and Luthor get rid of Superman, she can easily dispose of Lex Luthor which would in turn remove any proof of her ties to him. Once Superman and Luthor were both out of the picture, she would reveal herself to the world, as Supergirl, and be the most powerful being on the planet easily able to conquer it. A few moments that happen during these issues involve Supergirl realizing she regains her powers in the past and future only being powerless in the present, and also Krypto realizing Lesla isn’t the real Supergirl by smelling her perfume. Lesla (as Supergirl) also briefly tricks Superman into thinking she’s found a cure for her powerlessness in order to trick him into revealing her to the world as Supergirl. This reveal is once again thwarted as the real Supergirl returns, now powerless and unable to be cured by the phony cure Lesla used. At this point Lesla-Lar is unceremoniously exited from the story and Mxyzptlk makes a quick appearance.

    Linda, still saddened by the loss of her powers is ready to give up the Supergirl life for good when suddenly she feels strong and powerful again. Her miraculous cure for powerlessness was done by Mxyzptlk. He was popping in on his normal menace through the 3rd dimension and stumbled upon a young powerless girl that he thought would make for a good prank. His idea was to give an ordinary girl the same superpowers as Superman without the weakness to Kryptonite. His plan of course backfires when the ordinary girl he chooses is the Maid of Might herself, Supergirl. Now more powerful than ever, Superman is once again ready to reveal herself to the world. As mentioned a moment ago, this is when Lesla-Lar exits the story. She sees Supergirl fully powered again and tries to use her ray to take her powers again, but because her powers are now from Mxyzptlk the ray no longer works. It is during Lesla’s frustration that the Kandorian police come in and arrest her. While Superman is now ready to reveal Supergirl, he has some business to attend to in the 50th century and puts Supergirl to watch over the earth while he’s gone.

    During this time we face the final stretch of shenanigans before we finally get Supergirl’s debut. The shenanigans being “The Six Red K Perils of Supergirl”. Supergirl, now immune to Kryptonite, goes into space to get rid of 6 Red Kryptonite meteors. For plot reasons, a technicality is introduced in her Kryptonite immunity that makes her only immune to green Kryptonite. Over the next 2 issues we see Supergirl get very fat, turn into a wolf-girl, get very tiny, grow a second head, get fatal vision and kill everyone she loves (don’t worry this one is just a silly red-k hallucination), and finally grow a fish tail. These red-k mutations are all fairly brief and inconsequential, but do all for around dates that Supergirl is going on with one of her boy-friends, Dick Malverne. This storyline marks Dick’s first return to Linda’s life since he tried to expose her as supergirl at the orphanage, and begins the romantic life between them. As Supergirl finally winds down from the last of the red-k, Superman returns from the future.

    Superman reveals he encountered Mxyzptlk on his way back and reveals to Supergirl that he was why she had her powers back and was immune to Kryptonite. With Mxyzptlk now defeated, Supergirl no longer has the Kryptonite immunity but does have all her powers back the way she should. It’s not really explained what finally caused her powers to come back all the way but I guess Lesla-Lar being locked up probably had something to do with it. Now, without any further obstacles, we can finally get to what fans had been waiting for for nearly 3 years, Supergirl Revealed to the world.

    Action Comics #285 is a novel length story, this is what it was called when a story took up a whole 24 page issue back in the day. While this issue is notable for being a milestone issue in Supergirl’s life, it’s a tad unremarkable on its own. Superman informs Supergirl that she can tell her foster parents about her super heroic identity before the worldwide reveal which she does after saving them when their car falls through a bridge. The rest of the first part of the story goes rather well with Supergirl making global announcements of her existence and she sees Kandor, Atlantis, and alien planets celebrating Supergirl. The back half of the novel length story features Superman going off into space and publicly leaving Supergirl to defend the planet. This story feels basically the same as any other Supergirl of the time but does feature the general public reacting to Supergirl which sets us the new status quo for the Maid of Might.

    This storyline has been reprinted a number of times mostly along with her other backup adventures in Action Comics in collections like Supergirl in the Silver Age, Supergirl Archives, Showcase Presents Supergirl, and the recent DC Finest: Supergirl. While I quite enjoy this storyline I feel like it looses itself in the middle a bit. I think the idea of a Kandorian stealing Supergirl’s powers and life is a very exciting story idea and I like what’s done in these first few issues. Once Mxyzptlk and Red Kryptonite enter the story and Lesla-Lar gets pushed to the side the story feels like it’s trying to waste time to further prolong the reveal. While I don’t particularly care for Mxyzptlk giving Supergirl Kryptonite immunity, or the rather arbitrary return of her powers, and I feel like they didn’t really stick the landing in the final issue, I do still find this storyline quite enjoyable. Lesla-Lar is a great foe for our heroine, the 2 red-k issues show a lot of wackiness in rapid succession, and the introduction of the Danvers and the reintroduction of Dick Malverne are great at building up Linda’s supporting cast. It looks like Lesla-Lar shows back up in Superman Family and she’s also been mentioned in the solicitations of the upcoming Supergirl series so I’m excited to read more of her.

    Thanks so much for reading my blog! If you have any thoughts, questions, comments, or corrections about any of my posts feel free to contact me via email at blogofsupergirl@gmail.com