This is a children’s book from 2018 written by Michael Dahl and illustrated by Omar Lozano. This is a children’s bedtime storybook that seems to be part of a line of books from Capstone that also includes Bedtime for Batman, Good Morning Superman, and Be a Star Wonder Woman. A blurb in the front flap of the book gives a good explanation of the story to come:
A young Supergirl fan faces her most elusive adversary: sleep!
As darkness falls, a young girl attempts to catch some Z’s while DC Comics’ Supergirl tries to save the world. With heroic traits like bravery, patience, and persistence, they’ll turn sleepless nights into sweet success and sweet dreams.
The protagonist of the story stays unnamed throughout to allow any child to project themself onto. The protagonist has brown eyes and dark hair and wears a white Supergirl Shirt and blue skirt as her pajamas. The story is told across 28 pages, and maintains a structure where each page spread has a panel for Supergirl and a panel for the unnamed protagonist. Each panel gets a small line of text and each side seems to play off each other with Supergirl representing daytime and the protagonist representing nighttime. For example, one page spread has “For a hero, the day is breathless, nonstop action…” as Supergirl’s text and finishes with “…so night is time to relax and breathe easy.” On the side of the protagonist. In this example both half’s mention breathing and this dichotomy is consistent throughout giving the story a nice even pace and lets the protagonist sit equal to Supergirl. The story also helps show that some challenges that children may face – like darkness and a long exhausting day of play – are similar to Supergirl’s challenges – like Kryptonite and meteor showers. But even through all these difficulties, both Supergirl and the Protagonist are able to face their fears and soar off to face the day.
While staying pretty close to the costume Supergirl wore in Superman the Animated Series and the latter half of the Peter David Supergirl comic, the costume presented in Sweet Dreams Supergirl is a bit different. As opposed to the classic white crop top, the maid of might is instead wearing a full white t-shirt with an S symbol on it. In addition, the boots of the costume presented here are very simplified whereas in the other iterations that I mentioned before they are almost always shown as lace up boots. Also present in the story is the costume our protagonist wears that is heavily based on this story’s Supergirl. Her pajamas include a short sleeve white Supergirl t-shirt, a frilly blue skirt, and sometimes a red cape. Also underneath she has a long sleeve red pj shirt, red pj pants, and red and white sock. This under set of pajamas is shown in blue on the cover (not red) and absent in the final couple pages when she’s flying with Supergirl.
The story has a couple nods to the wider DC universe. Characters like Superman, Wonder Woman, Streaky, and Comet all show up alongside Supergirl in her sections and on the protagonist’s side we also get to see plush versions of Wonder Woman and Streaky as well as a duck and a unicorn. Supergirl’s side of the book also has a couple brief showings of Green Kryptonite and the Daily Planet.
This book is obviously not for adults and doesn’t feature any heavy subject matter. But what it set out to do I think it did wonderfully. This book shows that no matter how big or small, powered or not, you can be super and have heroic challenges that you face and overcome each and every day. The story is wonderfully told with soft visuals and a nicely paced dualistic narrative that will surely be fun for any young Supergirl fan.
That’s all for today, I hope you enjoyed. If you have any questions, suggestions, comments, or corrections, feel free to leave a comment or send an email to blogofsupergirl@gmail.com
Earth-20 is home to the Society of Super-Heroes. A superhero team based on classic pulp era heroes of the early 20th century. The team is lead by Doc Fate, an amalgamation of Doctor Fate and Doc Savage, who seems to be the focal hero of the universe. While mostly unmapped, Earth-20 does have a featured title in the Multiversity line that really helps give a look into the characters and lore of the universe; The Multiversity: Society of Super-Heroes – Conquerors from the Counter-World. Doc Fate, as mentioned earlier, is the premier hero of the universe and lives in a windowless skyscraper in Manhattan. As a wielder of the Helmet of Nabu, Kent Nelson possesses all the powers generally associated with Doctor Fate along with being an expert hand-to-hand combatant and marksman.
While the universe has not been mapped enough to have a Supergirl analogue, I have taken what we know of the prominent hero, Doc Fate, and created Laryn Nelson, Kid Fate. Laryn Nelson first appears in Countdown to Mystery #1 from 2007. Countdown to Mystery also serves as the origin of Kent V. Nelson, a relative of the original Doctor Fate. This first issue shows Kent acquiring the Helmet of Nabu and he witnesses some flashbacks including one of his daughter, Laryn. In this universe my thought is that the Earth-20 Kent Nelson also has a daughter named Laryn who is a huge fan of her father’s heroics and creates a costume in hopes of being his adventuring sidekick, Kid Fate.
As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. This drawing depicts Laryn Nelson, Kid Fate, standing on a red rug with her hands on her hips. She is wearing a homemade costume reminecient of the Earth-20 Doc Fate. There is a floor length mirror in the background along with a poster of Doc Fate and the Society of Super-Heroes Comic. The top right has a motif of Kid Fate’s symbol with a number 20 on top of it.
Last week saw the debut of Sophie Campbell’s brand new Supergirl ongoing series that is full of references to many pre crisis characters and places both well know and obscure. While the book is perfectly fine to hop into not knowing any of these references, I wanted to take a Quick Look at all the characters, places, and things that Sophie put into the book and briefly discuss their history in the greater Supergirl mythos. This will not be a review of the story or the art but I will go out and say I quite enjoyed it and I can’t wait for next month!
Starting with What? There’s 3 items I’d like to talk about. The Yellow Ring of Nor Kann, the comb, and the hollow tree in Midvale.
The Yellow Ring of Nor Kann first appeared in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #69. Nor Kann is a Kryptonian scientist that survived the explosion of Krypton by being in Kandor when Brainiac shrunk the city down. From the bottle city, Nor Kann was a common ally of Superman and Jimmy Olsen when they had their Nightwing and Flamebird adventures in the bottle city. In the case of Jimmy Olsen #69 — The Dynamic Duo of Kandor! — Superman and Jimmy encounter a thief that has Superman’s powers and is stealing relics from all over the city. This thief is later revealed to be Nor Kann who was hypnotized by the Superman Revenge Squad. The Squad forced him into making a ring that was able to absorb the solar rays of earth’s yellow sun even in the bottle city and steal the relics. Now broken from his hypnosis, Superman entrusts Nor Kann with the ring to use in emergencies and he held onto it until his death in Action Comics #317. However, it wasn’t until Supergirl (Vol. 1) #2 that the girl of steel added this ring to her collection. This story features her taking one of her professors at Vandyre University into Kandor to attempt to cure his uncurable disease. While in the bottle city, Supergirl finds the ring and uses it to help her face the challenges she faced in a city where she had no powers.
As for Supergirl’s Chromatic Super-Comb, we look forward a few years to Supergirl (Vol. 2) #17. Through the events of the story, Supergirl has to save her boss, Dr. Metzner, after he is kidnapped and taken to a remote island. To arrive under the radar, Supergirl shows up as Linda Danvers and is brought close enough to the doctor to do a quick costume change and tell him “I just borrowed your secretary’s identity for the afternoon,” this then leads the doctor to later exclaim to Linda how striking the resemblance between her and Linda was when Supergirl had on a brunette wig. It is then revealed that Linda had just invented the comb that reacts to her hair that she has charged with color sensitive molecules making the wig no longer necessary for her civilian secret identity. As a fun fact, this is also when she decides to add the headband to her Supergirl costume.
The final entry in our “What?” category is the hollow tree in Midvale. This story features a new boy, Johnny (later revealed to have the real name Price Valzorr), arriving at the orphanage where Linda is living at the time. Through the course of the story we find out that this boy is an alien who has a power that allows him to see in the dark. This superhuman ability causes him to view Linda using her powers that would normally go unnoticed by the other orphans. Supergirl is able to return the alien prince back home and it is revealed that, to cover her absence from the orphanage, she used a Linda Lee robot to stand in for her. This is also the first time the Linda Lee robot is shown, she becomes a frequent tool that Linda uses in her time at the orphanage to help protect her secret identity.
As we move into the Where? category none of the locations seem to be overwhelmingly obscure and most fans will probably recognize the cities of Metropolis, Kandor, and Midvale.
Metropolis has been home to Superman since his initial debut back in Action Comics #1 but wasn’t named until the next year in Action Comics #16. Metropolis is often called The City of Tomorrow and has prominent locations such as The Daily Planet, Lexcorp (currently Supercorp), and Centennial Park to name a few. Metropolis has long been a home to many superheroes but most recently in Action Comics #1050, there seemed to be a large push to have the whole Superman Family operating out of Metropolis including Supergirl.
The Bottle City of Kandor is a prominent piece in Superman’s collection in his arctic Fortress of Solitude. This is a living city from Krypton snatched away from the planet before its destruction by Brainiac. Kandor has been seen in a few different forms since its initial appearance in Action Comics #242. Most recently, staring in the New 52 era of DC Comics, Kandor was show as the bottled city as it normally is. However, instead of the classic living city, this Kandor was full of Kryptonians locked in suspended animation. Most recently, during the events of Absolute Power, the Kandorians had woken from their suspended animation. In the Action Comics Weekly story Phantoms Superman has gone against the wishes of the Kandorian Science Council and has been banished from the city.
Midvale is the Silver Age home of Linda (Supergirl) Lee. It appears along with her in Action Comics #252 and would continue to be her base of operations until she enrolled in Stanhope College near the end of Supergirl’s time as a backup feature in Action Comics. While being depicted in both Supergirl (1984) and the Supergirl television show, Midvale was relatively absent from the comics since Crisis on Infinite Earths until Mariko Tamaki’s Being Super which takes place mostly in the town.
The final question to ask is Who? For this, I’d like to cover 9 characters that appear in this story. In order, as they appear in Sophie’s issue #1; Princess Shark, Krypto, Streaky, Lar-On, Lesla-Lar, Eliza Danvers, Jeremiah Danvers, Dick Malverne, and Clarissa Giltedge.
Princess Shark is a brand new character introduced in this issue but seems to be based on the Superboy villain of King Shark, who first appeared in Superboy (Vol. 4) #0. Princess Shark as she is shown seems villainous but maybe just misguided currently and maybe she can be set on a path to a more heroic life.
The Super-Dog himself, Krypto! A longtime companion of Superman from his boyhood first showing up in Adventure comics #210. Krypto is also a refugee from Krypton and is most often associated with Kara’s big cousin Kal, but she has been adventuring with him quite frequently in recent years especially in the miniseries Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow.
Looking quite mischievous as he appears here is Streaky the Super-Cat. First appearing in Action Comics #261. As opposed to Krypto, Streaky is a regular house cat that accidentally gets superpowers after being exposed to X-Kryptonite. Streaky has most recently appeared as a common companion to Power Girl in her comic series that started in 2023.
Lar-On is also a refugee from Krypton, but unlike his fellow Kryptonians, Lar-On is a bright pink Werewolf. While not showing up frequently, Lar-On did make quite a few appearances alongside Supergirl in her comic run from 2016 where Supergirl helps him through one of his lycanthropic rampages.
Lesla-Lar, although not named here, is very recognizable by wearing the same green outfit she wears in her first appearance in Action Comics #279 when she concocts a plan to steal Supergirl’s powers and also her role as the Maid of Might. Lesla-Lar is a Kandorian scientist turned criminal who seems obsessed with Supergirl.
Along with Lesla-Lar, the Danvers first appeared in Action Comics #279. The Danvers are the adoptive parents of Supergirl in all their iterations aside from the Supergirl series from the 90’s where Fred and Sylvia Danvers are the biological parents of Linda. While the Danvers have been a constant in Supergirl’s life, it wasn’t until the television series when they would be named as Jeremiah and Eliza. Jeremiah and Eliza would make the jump into the comics around the same time in Superman/Wonder Woman #29 from 2016.
The long time companion and love interest of Supergirl is Dick Malverne. He has shown up in many different forms and shown up quite frequently outside of main continuity that you can read about more in my Dick Malverne blog post. His passing that Kara mentions in this issue is in reference to Dick’s death in Solo #1 from 2004.
The most absurd reference that Sophie seems to pull in is Clarissa Giltedge, who makes just one appearance, in Action Comics #296, where she isn’t even the main focus. The story instead revolves around Dick Malverne thinking that Lena Thorul is secretly Supergirl and trying everything he can to prove it, while also becoming quite infatuated with her much to Linda’s displeasure. Clarissa mostly just serves to wear a set of jewels that sets the plot in motion when robbers break into the costume party – that Dick, Linda, and Lena are attending – to steal them. It’s honestly impressive that Linda recognizes her.
Hopefully you are all a bit more versed in the lore of some of these odd people, places, and things that show up in Supergirl #1. If you noticed any errors or missinformation or have any other thoughts that you’d like to share, feel free to leave a comment or send me an email at daringnewblog@gmail.com.
Earth-19, sometimes called Earth-1889 or the Gaslight Earth. A universe that first broke onto the scene in an original graphic novel called Batman: Gotham by Gaslight. This story is also important as it was the first in a long line of titles that were branded as Elseworlds. The universe has shown up quite a few times since its debut in 1989 and has 2 direct sequels; Master of the Future, and The Kryptonian Age. The basic premise for the universe is putting the heroes of the Earth-0 universe and having them exist in the Victorian era, specifically the last quarter of the 19th century. For the most part the stories focus on Batman but have slowly expanded and started introducing more and more heroes.
The Kryptonian Age, as you may suspect, introduces us to Clark Kent who is the extremely lucky Sheriff of Smallville. He also appears in a Superman costume in the final page of issue 6. Not much is shown of this character but he does seem to have all the classic powers of the Earth-0 Superman. With this universe barely having a Superman, we are left without a Supergirl. However, based on the Superman costume shown and using some elements from classic Victorian dress, I have put together a Supergirl that is more powerful than a locomotive. My main thought for this Supergirl is not someone who has the same powers or origin as Superman, but is a young girl (Kara Danvers) who sees Superman in action and is inspired to be a hero like him. Perhaps in her first adventure she encounters something that gives her powers (like super speed as shown in my drawing).
As with all the Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. This drawing depicts the Supergirl of Earth-19 running alongside a steam train. Behind Supergirl is a giant dust cloud that she’s kicked up as she runs. A large smoke plume is coming out of the train and in the background on the right a city can be seen. A motif of Supergirl’s S with a 19 on top of it is in the top right corner.
Superman/Batman: Apocalypse is an animated film released by Warner Home Video in 2010. The movie stars Tim Daly as Superman, Kevin Conroy as Batman, Andre Braugher as Darkseid, and Summer Glau as Supergirl. The film is a sequel to Superman/Batman: Public enemies and both of these movies are fairly accurately depictions of the comic series Superman/Batman from 2003. Apocalypse adapts issues 8-13 of the series a story arc sometimes called The Supergirl from Krypton and sometimes just called Supergirl. The story acts as a new introduction of Kara Zor-El.
I’ll only touch on the plot briefly because I encourage readers to check out this story either in its comic or movie form. Kara Zor-El’s ship crashes in Gotham harbor and is found by Batman. After a few scenes of Kara experiencing her new powers, Batman is able to track her down and use Kryptonite to bring her back to the Batcave. From here she meets Superman and finds out that they’re cousins to one another. The next chunk of the story shows Kara acclimating to life on earth, she learns English, she learns to shop, and then with the help of Wonder Woman and the Amazons she learns to fight. While on Themyscira, the island is attacked and Kara is kidnapped and taken to Apokolips. Darkseid, ruler of Apokolips, brainwashes Kara to be one of the Female Furies and it takes the combined efforts of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Big Barda to get her back to earth safely. Back on earth she and Clark go to Smallville where Clark has set up for her to meet his parents Jonathan and Martha. However, as soon as they get there they are attacked by Darkseid. A fight breaks out and results in Darkseid getting sent through a boom tube and ending up either in the depths of space or the source wall, depending on if you watched the movie or read the comic. With the threat passed, Kara is now revealed to the world as the hero Supergirl.
In the comics Kara Zor-El had been absent since her death in Crisis on Infinite Earths but Supergirl had shown up in a couple different ways. First as the Matrix, who was a protoplasmic clone of Lana Lang from an alternate dimension who later merged with a human girl named Linda Danvers and became an Earth Born Angel. The second attempt at a post crisis Supergirl was a character named Cir-El, the daughter of Superman and Lois Lane from the future that was actually just a creation of the Futuresmiths and was removed from continuity soon after her debut. While both of these versions of Supergirl have their fans and are interesting takes on the character, there’s something about the simplicity of a Supergirl from Krypton that, for me personally, works really well.
This Kara Zor-El isn’t quite the same as her Pre-Crisis counterpart and her origin has quite a few differences (read about the Pre-Crisis debut of Supergirl Here). One of the major changes was the idea of Kara being older than Kal and being a teenager when Krypton was destroyed and being trapped in suspended animation for years as Kal grew up and became Superman. This suspended animation factor to her origin has similarities to the Supergirl from Superman the Animated Series and Power Girl’s origins. This idea of Kara being older than Kal has now become the norm and has been adapted into nearly everything including Smallville and the Supergirl series from 2015. Personally I think the suspended animation angle to her origin is quite good and Kara being alive on Krypton and remembering it before its destruction creates a nice distinction between her and Superman and leads to some interesting stories.
Another major change to this new version of Supergirl is how immediately she was integrated into the wider DC Universe. This Supergirl didn’t live her first few years in an orphanage in Midvale as a secret weapon for Superman. She was trained by Wonder Woman and her origin is closely tied to Batman which leads to both these characters becoming mentor figures for her along with her cousin Superman. This is expanded upon bit more thoroughly in the comic, during the scene when she is revealed as Supergirl on Themyscira many of the major heroes of the DC universe are present including the Justice League, the Teen Titans, the JSA, and the Outsiders.
In this movie Batman is very standoffish towards Supergirl and doesn’t trust her and has trouble believing that she is who she says she is. The main question that keeps coming up in the story is Batman asking Kara what the name of her mother is. Kara remembers Kal’s parents, Lara and Jor-El, and her own father Zor-El but doesn’t remember her mother’s name. Batman’s mindset is that all the information Kara has presented about her life on Krypton immediately after coming out of the rocket is that all the information is widely known or information that Superman had told her. It is near the end of the movie when Kara approaches Batman and says “Alura”. I think while the answer to Batman’s question was part of why he started trusting Kara, her evolution as a hero throughout the story also plays a major part in him trusting her.
There are 2 scenes from the movie that are some of my favorites that aren’t present in the comic or are much less prominent. The first is near the beginning of the movie when we see a montage of Clark taking Kara through Metropolis and she’s trying on clothes and shopping and really exploring her new life as a human girl. There’s something very fun and lighthearted about this scene. The scene is present in the comic but it isn’t as long and is mostly restricted to the hot dog scene and a panel of Clark mentioning that Kara had certainly gotten the shopping part of being a teenage girl down. The second scene that I want to talk about happens near the end in the climactic battle against Darkseid. In the comic Supergirl is taken out of the fight pretty early as she fakes her death to throw darkseid off his game leaving Superman to continue the battle by himself. The movie has Supergirl playing a much more active role and she spends a lot of time actively fighting Darkseid. She is also responsible for activating the boom tube that sends Darkseid into the depths of space. I really enjoy this more active role she plays here and feels like a much better start to her heroic career as opposed to her hiding away for most of the fight.
There’s a few parts of this movie that I’m not particularly fond of. Kara starts her life on earth and comes out of the rocket naked and she stays this way for quite a while, this coupled with the constant over sexualization of the character never sits right with me especially considering Kara is supposedly 16 during this story. A good chunk of this story has Kara in an antagonistic role, first when Batman is untrusting of her after she arrives on earth, and then when she is under Darkseid’s control on Apokolips. These two factors are both very prominent in the Apokolips portion of the story in the middle when Superman is faced with having to fight supergirl and the outfit Kara is wearing doesn’t leave much to imagine.
While this isn’t my favorite Supergirl origin story, it is a really easy and fun way for new fans of the character to get to know the Girl of Steel. Also looking at the story without solely focusing on Supergirl, there’s some pretty great scenes and a lot of cool action sequences. This storyline would also lead to an ongoing Supergirl title that started in 2005 which is full of really interesting storylines that further develop Kara and her history with Krypton and her future as a hero. Thanks so much for reading! If you liked my blog post about this movie or just want to hear more about it, fellow comics fan Mike Bailey did a podcast episode about it in his Moving Kryptonian Images maxi series that you can find Here. For any thoughts, questions, corrections, or suggestions feel free to leave a comment or email me at blogofsupergirl@gmail.com.
The Daring New Blog of Supergirl 