The initial wave of Image comics that launched in the mid 90s included titles such as Youngblood, Spawn, WildC.A.T.s, and Savage Dragon, among others. These universes formed a connected universe much like Marvel’s and DC’s respective connected universes. DC Comic’s Earth-41 is a pastiche of this universe. For this week’s Supergirl in the Multiverse I’m looking most specifically at Savage Dragon, who has a counterpart in the DC version of the universe called “Dino-Cop”. Earth-41 does have a specific Superman analogue, Kal’amity, who is an amalgamation of Kal-El and Kh’ambt, however I feel that Savage Dragon’s longevity and legacy that has lasted to this day does give it a bit of an edge. Also Savage Dragon and Superman had 2 crossover comics that came out so it seems like fair game.
The Supergirl of this universe comes in the form of Amy Dragon. The original Savage Dragon was the emperor of the Krylan alien race before losing his memory when arriving on Earth. On Earth, with amnesia, Dragon lives his life as normal. The title takes place in real time and in the 30ish years since his introduction, Dragon has had a son named Malcom who has taken up the role of Savage Dragon and has started a family of his own. Malcom and his wife, Maxine, are raising 3 kids together; Tyrone, Jackson, and Amy. Amy, after being born didn’t immediately show any signs of being Krylan but would soon grow her head fin in and turn green. Amy stands apart from other Krylans in the fact that she has 5 toes on each foot as opposed to 2 as is standard, and also she is the first female born “Chosen One” which refers to the Krylans who have regenerative abilities and enhanced strength.
As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Amy Dragon is shown in the foreground with her hands on her hips and a large smile across her face. A large hole in a wall almost definitely caused by Amy, is behind her with rubble piled up all around her. A room with a couch can be seen through the hole. The top right features a green circle with a fin representing the Dragon family with a 41 on top of it.
Spinning out of the pages of Death Metal, DC comics would take a glimpse into the possible future of many of its characters in a line wide initiative called Future State. Future State, much like Convergence and Future’s End from previous years, replaced the main titles coming out with 2 part stories (although some had just one issue and some had up to 4) our very own Maid of Might had her own peak into the state of her future with Kara Zor-El: Superwoman. This book, referred to as simply Superwoman moving forward, was written by Marguerite Bennett with art by Marguerite Sauvage, letters by Wes Abbott, and released in January and February of 2021.
This quote from one of the antagonists at the start of issue 2, while meaning to be rude, the quote does gives a fairly accurate depiction of how we see Kara at the start of the story; “You got the look of some gunslinger who done hung up her pistols.” Retirement also seems like an accurate term for Kara in this tale. Now living on the Moon, Kara is helping out in a refugee center where Krypto has his gravestone. Kara, unlike her cousins Clark and Jon, isn’t seen as one of the greatest heroes in this story and is instead just doing her best to exist and help where she can on the Moon colony when she is met with a crashing spaceship containing a young girl.
Jumping out of the rocket is Lynari Lili’alo from the Starswamp Asteroid. Lynari is a rambunctious and excitable young girl who can shape shift and steal powers from other powered beings. Lynari spends a good chunk of her first encounter on the moon wrecking havoc and destroying Kara’s well tended flower bed around Krypto’s grave. Eventually, after a fake threat from Superwoman, the young alien calms down and allows Kara to show her around the colony and the pair help repair some of the damages caused by her crash and subsequent rampage. Lynari seems to grow as a person and learn a lot from her time spent with Kara, but Lynari doesn’t understand why she, with all her powers as Superwoman, allows the other moon colonizers to push her around and belittle her as they do. Once again the pair fight and before any conclusion can be reached, other beings from the Starswamp Asteroid show up and try to take Lynari away.
After living a pacifist life for so long, it wasn’t Kal being grown when she got to earth, or Jon taking over as the world’s savior, or any of the colonists on the moon treating her unfairly that caused her to snap, it was a young girl in trouble that needed saving that brought Superwoman the warrior out after being Kara the pacifist for so long. A fight of course ensues and we learn more of Lynari’s past. When the villainous aliens use the same threat that Kara used on Lynari before, “This is a quantum detonator. Do as we say or we blow this whole Moon to smithereens,” Kara of course thinks it’s a bluff because it was when she said it. Unfortunately, it was no bluff a massive explosion destroys the colony. The destruction of the colony really sends Kara over the edge and she begins to unleash her full fury, but Lynari steps in. Lynari, after seeing how much peace can be good from watching Kara, she doesn’t want her to succumb to the rage. Lynari uses her learned compassion and she takes Superwoman’s powers once again to remove the Starfall jewel from herself and in doing so removes her powers and those of her aunt so she can no longer cause harm. Lynari and her aunt, Kimari, continue on in life, they help the Moon colony rebuild and grow bigget than ever. Lynari grows old with Kara, they watch the colony grow and succeed, and Lynari lays Kara to rest nest to the dog that she loved so dearly so many years ago.
Before going into my thoughts on the story or any of the overarching themes, I did want to take a brief moment to recognize the covers for the 2 issues of this story. The A covers for each issue are done by Paulina Ganucheau, for issue 1 we have a good look at Superwoman’s costume in the story but otherwise doesn’t tell you much of the story would include. Her cover for issue 2 on the other hand, shows Superwoman using her heat vision on the 3 Starswamp aliens she fights in the issue in a pretty dynamic composition. The A covers also have the standard Future State trade dress that was used throughout the line and I feel like it has a really clean look but it does somewhat limit the art that can go onto a cover. Alex Garner also did a cover for each issue, and the two have a nice dichotomy with his issue 1 showing a calm and peaceful Superwoman, while his 2nd cover shows a much more aggressive Superwoman and this depiction correlates nicely to how Kara is shown in issue 1 as opposed to issue 2. Issue 1 had a 3rd cover that was it’s second printing and is done by Margueritte Sauvage who did the interior art as well. This is an all blue cover that has a more thorough look at Superwoman’s new costume in a sketchbook page style. While we’re on the subject, I do think this costume for the girl of steel looks really nice. It’s got a nice casual look and the dress instead of a more iconic cape helps set this costume apart from her peers and shows that this Kara isn’t a hero as much as she’s just trying to get by.
Sauvage has some really exquisite art throughout this book, her panel layout has a very loose and fluid feel to it that doesn’t limit itself to standard panel borders. Her gentle linework and soft coloring elevates the idea of the peaceful life that Kara has been living. She also does a great job at depicting Lynari’s powers and it’s never confusing what is happening on the page. Wes Abbott should also be applauded for his lettering work, once again we have really clean depictions of text and dialogue from all parties in the story that is really easy to follow and read. There’s a sequence in issue 1 where Lynari, instead of using words, is just depicted as speech bubbles with emojis instead of words.
While the story is enjoyable and I like how Kara and Lynari are depicted, I don’t think the story has enough room to breathe and explore the themes and story the team was trying to accomplish. The story seems to be trying to say that compassion and pacifism are preferable to rage and violence. Lynari is shown as rather brash at the beginning and by the end she is pulling Kara back from going over the edge with her rage. While this is a nice bit of character growth from Lynari, it’s hard to fully believe it when reading since there isn’t much time spent on her learning to be reserved. We get a couple montages, and the sequence of her building the dam is quite nice. But then we get a rapid sequence of events when Lynari blows up at Kara for being so calm around the rudeness thrown at her, to the major fight against the space eels, to Kara unleashing her rage, to Lynari pulling Kara back. While I do understand that the story was limited to 2 issues because of the Future State event, the story does seem like it would benefit from at least a couple more issues to help show Lynari’s growth as a character a bit more. I do think the 5 pages at the end of issue 2 are really strong and have a nice sense of time shown. This is after all the fighting and we just get to experience the colony regrowing and the pair of heroes grow old and Kara finally finding peace at the end. I by no means think this is a poorly written story or that it is unenjoyable, I just wish it had a bit more room to breathe or more room to learn about the Starswamp Asteroid and Lynari’s past.
Switching over to the main heroine, Kara herself. The depiction of her here is quite different from how she had been portrayed before this point. The main universe Kara Zor-El, especially between 2005-2020, had been shown as aggressive and brash, similar to Lynari’s portrayal here. The pacifist Supergirl (Superwoman in this story) was also similar to her portrayal in one of Bennett’s other works, Bombshells (covered briefly for Supergirl in the Multiverse: 24), but otherwise I’m not very familiar with a pacifist Kara Zor-El, that seems much more like Jon Kent’s current vibe. I don’t mind the take on the character, and I especially enjoyed it in the aforementioned Bombshells series, but once again I don’t feel like the story gives the character enough time to build into something believable. Kara snapping back into rage mode at the end of issue 1 doesn’t really feel earned since we didn’t have the time to see her experiencing life as a pacifist. I feel that Krypto’s gravestone is also underserved, again since we aren’t shown Krypto or given any real backstory of their relationship the weight of the loss isn’t felt as strongly. I do feel that the creative team is more than capable of telling this story, I just wish there was a bit more to it. Maybe a sequel or prequel to this story that helps expand the lore could help elevate it.
Lynari learning compassion and the joy in being calm seems like the main theme of the story. Lynari definitely gets there in the end and her solution to the conflict is a nice subversion of expectations and does seem like the solution this version of Kara would prefer. Lynari, still young, seems to have gained a lot of wisdom in the months of shadowing Kara. While maybe a bit underdeveloped, the story is still enjoyable and the artwork is spectacular and worth a read. I hope you enjoyed my look at Kara Zor-El: Superwoman, I’ve got some more posts about cosmic Supergirl stories coming up in the next few weeks so stay tuned. If you have any further thoughts, questions, or corrections, give me an email at daringnewblog@gmail.com.
Appearing alongside its multiversal counterpart of Earth-20 in The Multiversity: The Society of Super-Heroes #1, we have Earth-40. While Earth-20 had mostly heroic characters that were amalgamations of golden age dc heroes and classic pulp heroes, Earth-40 seems to pick up the slack of villainy that the former universe seemed to lack. The prominent characters that we are introduced to are Sinestro, Felix Faust, Parallax, Blockbuster, Lady Shiva, and their leader; Vandal Savage. Their story generally only involves the conflict between the two universes, and aside from these villainous fiends being the leaders of their world, their characterizations and looks are relatively unchanged from their Earth-0 counterparts which leads us to this universe’s counterpart to the girl of steel.
With Vandal Savage as the leader of the Society of Super-Villains, we can look to one of his many children; Scandal Savage. Scandal, sometimes called Marquise, is the daughter of the immortal conqueror, and she first appears in Villains United alongside the Secret Six and is often associated with that crew. Scandal herself is fairly estranged from her father and even worked with the Six at one point in mission to take out Vandal Savage himself. While Scandal doesn’t show up herself in Earth-40, as I mentioned earlier the characters shown are fairly consistent with their Earth-0 counterparts and its very likely that Earth-40’s Vandal Savage also had plenty of heirs across his immortal life.
As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Scandal Savage is hanging off the side of a train. It is a rainy night ant the train is overlooking a cliff. Lighting is striking in the background. A motif in the top right has a silver circle, representing Scandal, with a 40 on top of it.
Supergirl (Vol. 5) #55 “Fakeouts” was written by Sterling Gates, pencils by Jamal Igle, inks by John Dell, Richard Friend, and Marc Deering, Colors from Jamie Grant and Jim Devlin, and Jared K. Fletcher on lettering. The middle part of the Bizarrogirl storyline (which I covered a couple months ago here)
As we hop into the 6th installment of my random look at a single issue of my Supergirl collection we land on “Fakeouts”. This was the middle part of the Bizarrogirl storyline (I covered it a few weeks ago here). This was the 55th issue of Supergirl’s 5th series and came out in 2010. It was written by Sterling Gates, with pencils by Jamal Igle, inks by John Dell, Richard Friend, and Marc Deering, Colors from Jamie Grant and Jim Devlin, and Jared K. Fletcher on lettering. With the initial face off between Bizarrogirl and Supergirl happening last issue, this issue works as a stepping stone to set up Supergirl recognizing Bizarro-World is in trouble and having her head off at the end.
The issue opens with a flashback to the Anti-Arctic of Bizarro-World having a drastic seismic event and Bizarro-Jimmy and Bizarro-Lois walk in on Bizarro #1 loading Bizarrogirl into a rocket that he also planned to be on in an attempt to escape from the turmoil all around them. Due to Bizarro-Jimmy and Bizarro-Lois however the rocket gets sent off with just Bizarrogirl inside. Shifting back to the present, Supergirl is still in the metallic state she was left in last issue after getting hit with Bizarrogirl’s solid-vision. Really impressive full page art here that really sells the fact that Supergirl has been turned into metal.
Thankfully, as we soon find out, Supergirl had learned from the Flash how to vibrate her molecules through solid objects. Back in the game now, Supergirl continues the fight with her imperfect twin and is eventually able to get her away from citizens that could be in harms way. Before she rushes off after her, Supergirl does check in on Gangbuster and lets him know he’s got a couple busted metacarpals but is otherwise in alright condition. The panel layout in this particular issue is quite good, Kara’s flashbacks are shown with rounded corners and it’s done like this a few times throughout the story. In contrast, the Bizarrogirl flashback at the start of the issue had really ragged edges. I’m not sure who in the line of artists would be responsible for choices like this but it’s a really great visual shorthand to differentiate from the square edges of the main story.
We get a quick couple pages here of Cat Grant building up to the Toyman arc coming up, and we build on Cat’s continued plot of trying to badmouth Supergirl in the Daily Planet when we see “Does Supergirl Have a Daily Planet Informant?” typed up on her computer. Supergirl literally crashes back into the story and puts her best effort into a quip, “Me have a fight to get back to”, and then flies to the outskirts of the city and freezes Bizarrogirl to get her back for the solid state she was in at the start of the story.
This is all just a distraction however and the real plan is soon revealed. We get a nice look at Kara being well versed in science with her plan to de-power Bizarrogirl with similar radiation to that of a K-Class star as provided by Dr. Light. Along with the K-Class radiation, the plan also included Bizarrogirl being taken to S.T.A.R. Labs to be studied. Supergirl, after learning Bizarrogirl is a refugee like her, decides to take matters into her own hands and snatches Bizarrogirl away from Dr. Light and back to the rocket that brought her to Earth. The issue ends with Supergirl and Bizarrogirl in a rocket headed back to Bizarro-World.
I mentioned the art earlier with the page of solid-state-Supergirl and the use of panel borders to differentiate flashbacks, but I also want to applaud Jamal Igle for some really exceptional compositions throughout the whole book. There are quite a few 2 page splashes in the book that are all used quite effectively in a lot of cool and exciting action sequences. There’s also a moment this issue where Bizarrogirl gets punched out of one of her boots. There’s really good continuity of the boot being missing through the rest of the story. All around really great art from the whole creative team.
While I’ve been looking at the ads in the books for all the Supergirl Surprise books I’ve covered so far, this was the first entry where I found just a bunch of ads that I wanted to talk about. First up was this Journey’s ad for some DC Comics branded converse that I would absolutely go for. Then I wanted to mention the weird dichotomy of the anti-weed ad and the 5 Gum ad that reads “Everyone experiences it differently” both showing up in the same book. While we’re on it, the Above the Influence ad features a bunch of odd sayings but my favorite is “5 ft 10 and a whole lotta attitude”. The Hero Factory ad is only getting included this time out because I think I’m still a little bitter about Hero Factory replacing Bionicle even 15 years later. To close out I wanted to show off a 2 page ad for Metroid Other M, a game which I’ve not played but I love Samus’s vibe and the ad definitely makes me want to check it out. I think the main reason I got so much out of these ads was because in 2010, while I wasn’t buying these comics, I was getting targeted ads for a lot of these products in a lot of other ways.
Thanks for sticking around! I hope you had a fun time taking a look at this book from my collection, and I hope you come back for more! If you have any thoughts or suggestions for Supergirl content for me to cover feel free to email me at daringnewblog@gmail.com!
Earth-39 is home to the Agents of W.O.N.D.E.R., DC’s legally distinct version of the Wally Wood creation; T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. This team of agents works for the Higher United Nations tasked with handling the extra-normal and any other threats too strange for anyone else to handle. The main thing that sets this team apart from others is their powers not only come from their gear, but this gear is also unfortunately has a flaw that causes the users to die after prolonged usage. Similar to some of the last few universes we’ve covered (34, 35, and 36) the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents have bounced around between a handful of publishers with DC getting volumes 3 and 4 of the series. Tower and JC Comics had the first couple runs and IDW picked it up after DC. Neither the title nor the characters have shown up in about a decade (I think) so I’m unsure who currently has the rights but the concept of heroes that can die using their powers and then new heroes being able to take up the gear and carry on the legacy is a fascinating concept that I could see having interesting potential.
This universe doesn’t have a clearly defined Supergirl, which we’ve seen a few times so far, but it does seem that Dynamo is the prominent hero and the Superman analogue. NoMan could also potentially be the Superman figure with his similarities to Doctor Manhattan (although it should be stated that NoMan came first) but I read both those figures much more like The Martian Manhunter. With the legacy aspect of these characters and how their powers are passed, it would be very interesting to see a female Dynamo and that would be a clear Supergirl analogue. We did see a similar thing happen when a female Raven took over in the 4th volume of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, but as of yet we haven’t gotten a girl Dynamo. What we do get however is Colleen Franklin who is a field leader for the current team (think Rick Flagg on the Suicide Squad). This alone doesn’t get her into the ranks of Supergirls, but her parentage is revealed throughout her story and we find out her father was Leonard Brown, the original Dynamo who settled down with a reformed Iron Maiden who he fought against with the rest of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents.
As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Colleen Franklin is standing in the foreground in a standard T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agent uniform holding a gun. Behind her are her parents Dynamo and Iron Maiden. The top right corner has a motif of the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents thunderbolt with a 39 on top of it.
The Daring New Blog of Supergirl 