• Supergirl Trading Cards (Part 2!)

    Long time readers may recall my original Supergirl Trading Cards post, and at the end of that post I mentioned that if I got enough new Supergirl trading cards I would do a part 2. Now with an additional 5 cards in my collection I figure now is a great time to show an updated look at my Supergirl card collection. Much like last time I’ll show the cards, talk about where I got them, and mention any other thoughts I have on each card.

    Both this and the next card I’ll show are from the DC OverPower Card Game. While OverPower started in 1995, it would be 1996 before DC characters were added to the game. Much like the VS System I talked about last time, I’ve never played this card game and I have no idea how it works. What I do know however is that I found this card in a box full of a bunch of other superhero cards that were all 5 cents each so I can’t imagine they’re particularly popular. The card being called “Telekinetic Shield” is a good reminder that this Supergirl is not Kryptonian and instead a sort of psychic goo being. I don’t recognize the art from anything specific and I would guess it’s original. I don’t see the artist specifically called out but there do seem to be some signatures that read “SAI” and a second one that I’m unable to decipher.

    Here we have another OverPower card this one being “Levitation”. If I recall correctly, this may also be a not to the Matrix Supergirl who uses her psychic power to levitate as opposed to flying but I could be remembering that incorrectly. The effect of this card reads “No Universe cards may be played against Supergirl for the remainder of battle.” This got me curious as to what that means. Universe cards sound like they mean business so being immune for the rest of the battle seems pretty good. After looking into it, it does seem like Universe cards are pretty powerful and it seems like both of these cards are Special cards that can be used with their respective hero cards in what I can only assume is this games version of attacking. Once again this card has the same 2 signatures but no specific artist names listed.

    Moving from one dead card game to another, we now get what I’m pretty sure is Cir-El’s only official piece of merchandise. Cir-El was the main universe Supergirl for about a year in 2003 which was perfect timing for her to get a card in the Team Superman set of VS System. Comparing this card to the Kara Zor-El Supergirl covered last time, Cir-El seems to come in a bit under in regards to power level which lines up with her being only half Kryptonian as opposed to full blooded. “Daughter of Tomorrow” is a really good moniker for Supergirl that I don’t know if I’ve seen outside of this card but I might start implementing it some in my writing. “The product of an alternate timeline created by the Futuresmiths, Cir-El is the daughter of Superman and Lois Lane.” Really is the best way to describe this version of Supergirl and in such a brief sentence too. The illustrator is listed here as Richard Friend who I’m not familiar with but they did a good job with the card.

    This next item maybe doesn’t exactly count as a card, but it fits here better than anywhere else and I’m not sure when else to talk about it. This was included as part of a collection of artworks from a sort of book called “DC Comics: The New 52: The Poster Collection” this little book came with “40 removable posters” which I grabbed both the Supergirl and Nightwing “posters” from. These are sized more like postcards than posters and are on a sort of cardstock. Unlike the other cards covered today, this art is repurposed from the cover to Supergirl (vol. 6) #1 by Mahmud Asrar and Dave McCaig. I talked more about it in my Supergirl in the Multiverse Earth-52 post, but I’ve really grown on the New 52 costume and I think this poster is a great piece for my collection.

    Last but not least, although it is the smallest card I have, this little card that came with a Wendy’s toy! I mentioned it in my Action Figure post, but what I didn’t mention was that I actually had this card already when I wrote up my first trading card post. Getting this card actually somewhat inspired me to make the first trading card blog entry, but somehow I forgot to include it. Nevertheless we’re here now and we can talk about this weird relic of specifically National City era Supergirl. If this card didn’t say it was from 2023 I would’ve guessed 2016 or 2017 because that was really the only time in comics where Supergirl operated in National City, although her story in I Saw Ma Hunkle Kissing Santa Claus also mentioned the city. Aside from the somewhat odd inclusion of National City (which is probably the best know home base for the girl of steel thanks to a certain 6 season show) the rest of the information presented here is standard Supergirl information. I do quite like the art (which is also a very 2017 costume for Supergirl) it’s got a nice cartoony pop but it doesn’t say who the artist is.

    If you haven’t already, definitely check out my first Trading Card post, that entry had a lot more cards that came with figures as opposed to this more card game heavy entry. Also if you know who the artists are on the OverPower or Wendy’s cards please let me know so I can credit them properly. Finding out that the OverPower cards I have aren’t even the main character card definitely means I have more cards to track down. I also learned about HeroClix recently which is somewhere between trading cards and figures and I know Supergirl has at least a few of those. With all that being said, there is a very strong possibility of a part 3 coming at some point in the future so be on the lookout!

  • Supergirl in the Multiverse: Earth-54

    The space faring adventurer by the name of Tommy Tomorrow is a member of the Planeteers in the far off future of 2054. The Planeteers are a peace keeping operation that travels the galaxy helping those in need. Colonel Thomas Tomorrow and his compatriot Captain Brent Wood travel in their spaceship called the Space Ace. Tommy Tomorrow had many adventures as a backup feature in Action Comics starting with Action Comics #149. Tommy Tomorrow has shown up in various forms across different continuities but him being a part of DC ‘s science fiction corner and being a Planeteer is pretty consistent.

    I was not able to read the entirety of Tommy Tomorrow’s appearances, but in what I could read (the stories collected in DC Finest: Science Fiction) the only Planeteers shown were Tommy, Brent and their un-named commander. It was implied that the Planeteers were a fairly wide organization and it’s safe to assume there are plenty other Planeteers. My idea for this additional Planeteer, Tori Tomorrow, is someone who looks up to Tommy, possibly a niece or cousin of either Tommy or Brent, who later in life joins the Planeteers and takes up the moniker of Tori Tomorrow after her idol.

    As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Tori Tomorrow is on the left side of the panel with a ray-gun held aloft. The bottom part of the panel has text reading “Join the Planeteers” in front of and behind Tori’s legs. The background features a space scene including space ships (one being the Space Ace). The top right corner has a purple and yellow circle representing the Planeteers with a 54 on top of it.

  • Nightwing and the 4 Supergirls

    You can probably guess at this point that I’m a pretty big fan of Supergirl, what you might not be aware of is that I’m equally into Nightwing. Nightwing, the Dick Grayson one, first appeared as Nightwing in Tales of the Teen Titans #44 in 1984 and by 2005 he had met and interacted with 4 separate variations of the maid of might. A single Nightwing meeting 4 different Supergirls in a mess of continuity resets and revisions while Nightwing’s history remained relatively unchanged is what I want to discuss here. The 4 Supergirls are; Pre-Crisis Kara Zor-El, Matrix Supergirl, Cir-El, and Post-Crisis Supergirl. The Pre-Crisis interaction and the interaction with Cir-El are rather brief so I’ll only cover them briefly, and I’ll mostly focus on The Batman Chronicles #20 and Supergirl (Vol. 5) #3.

    I’ve had this thought in my mind for a while and its partly because I was positive Nightwing would have been included in the group shot of all the heroes shown in Supergirl (Vol. 2) #20. It even proclaims on the cover that the New Teen Titans are in the book! I was just as surprised as anyone else to find out Nightwing does not show up and it’s because Supergirl #20 released the month before Tales of the Teen Titans #44. I worried briefly that maybe the Pre-Crisis Supergirl never met Nightwing before her untimely demise, but both heroes do show up in Crisis and even stand near one another on the Monitor’s satellite so it’s reasonable that they could’ve had some conversation.

    The Nightwing story in Batman Chronicles #20 is just one of 3 stories from the issue and is titled “The Rage of Angels”. Written by Ian Edginton, penciled by Mshindo Kuumba, inked by Bob Almond, with colors by Noelle Giddings and letters by Ken Lopez. This, of all the comics I’m covering in this post, is the most interaction we have between Supergirl and Nightwing. While just 10 pages, this is a very clear cut Nightwing and Supergirl team-up and doesn’t have the ensemble cast that most the other stories I’m covering have.

    We open in Blüdhaven where Nightwing is staking out a shipment coming in that is transporting illegal substances into his city. His plan was to take it slow until a certain red cape entered the scene. Apparently this shipment also had a stop in Leesburg which is the home to the Linda Danvers/Matrix Supergirl. Supergirl has a much more aggressive approach than Nightwing’s stealth plan, but together they are able to successfully apprehend the Russians that are smuggling in guns, drugs, and refugees.

    The police and FBI show up and the captain of the ship seems like he is planning on pulling his diplomatic immunity when Supergirl, as Nightwing says, “puts the fear of god” into him. The pair finish off with a farewell and agreement that they made a pretty good team together. This story does a good job of fitting nicely in both Nightwing and Supergirl’s worlds at the time of it’s release in early 2000 with Supergirl having the flame wings that were present near the end of her time bonded to the Matrix, and Nightwing being the hero to Blüdhaven while not being very well respected as such. I also wanted to note that Nightwing pretty immediately calls out this Supergirl as “not a Kryptonian. She’s something else” which is possibly just to get Batman readers up to speed if they hadn’t been keeping track of the goings on of the S side of the universe.

    Cir-El barely has a dozen appearances so it’s really impressive that she not only shares an appearance with Nightwing, but also they’re both on the cover to Superman/Batman #5. This is the penultimate issue of the first arc of the Superman/Batman title and features the sidekicks of the titular heroes breaking into the White House after President Lex Luthor reported to the world that he had captured Superman and Batman. Dick Grayson and Cir-El don’t directly interact here but it seems the “S-Team” (Superboy, Supergirl, and Steel) and the “B-Team” (Nightwing, Robin, Batgirl, and Huntress) would’ve had to planned an operation like this beforehand and are in radio communication the whole time.

    Supergirl (Vol. 5) #3 is part of the Post-Crisis Kara Zor-El’s exploration through the DC Universe as she tries to find a place for herself. This issue has her meeting up with and trying out for the Outsiders, currently led by Nightwing, in a story titled “The Girl of Steel Chapter 3: Outsiders”. Jeph Loeb writes, Ian Churchill pencils, and Norm Rapmund inks with letterer Richard Starkings and colorist David Moran. We open the story with Grace, Lightning, and Supergirl fighting in what can be assumed is a training exercise. Supergirl also has some internal monologuing during this time and the reader gets some insight to how Supergirl feels about the other Outsiders, including her confusion about why Grace doesn’t have a hero name and why Thunder’s name really doesn’t make sense.

    This all changes when Nightwing shows up. Here we find out that our girl of steel has a teenage crush on Nightwing (and who can blame her). We get about 4 pages of Supergirl looking dreamily at Nightwing and not hearing a single word he says. Supergirl then kisses Nightwing and then runs off to take on Lex Luthor by herself. The back half of this issue doesn’t feature Nightwing since Supergirl fried the controls to the Pequod (the Outsider’s main mode of transportation).

    I’ll probably wait to cover the rest of the story at some other time, possibly as part of Supergirl Surprise sometime down the line. I do want to mention however that some of the art in this issue is really great especially Supergirl breaking out of the chains and the whole of the Supergirl/Grace fight.

    I didn’t really have a goal in mind with this post other than having an excuse to talk about my 2 favorite super heroes. I’ve been reading through my Nightwing comics recently and I liked the variety of stories here and enjoyed reading some Nightwing stories that are a bit adjacent to his normal series that I didn’t read as part of my Nightwing reading. This was by no means every iteration of Supergirl and Nightwing together but I feel it represents the somewhat irregular timeline that DC has. Dick Grayson from before the first Crisis, around New Teen Titans, up to Flashpoint really had a pretty uninterrupted continuity while Supergirl in that timeframe seemed to have a pretty irregular stability and it seemed they kept trying to reinvent her. Let me know if you have a favorite Supergirl Nightwing team up or if you have any other heroes that team up with Supergirl that you’d like to know more about!

  • Supergirl in the Multiverse: Earth-53

    Earth-53 has made a few brief appearances in the recent DC Comics lore in comics like The Green Lantern #11 and Dark Crisis: The Dark Army #1 where we have met a universe that seems much like our own but slightly different with all of mankind being apes. When this universe first showed up it was referred to as “Earth-53” but is most often referred to as “The 53rd Earth”. More recent mentions of the universe have taken to calling it Earth-52, although I think Earth-52 is much better represented as a continuation of the New 52 as I mentioned last week in my Supergirl in the Multiverse post (found here). As I was reading the DC Finest Science Fiction collection for unrelated research I came across a story initially published in Strange Adventures #45 titled “The Gorilla World” that had humans Albert and Cora Dawson transported to an adjacent world where the inhabitants were all gorillas. It is stated here that Gorillas evolved to be the dominate species as opposed to Humans who remained savages and eventually went extinct. I don’t think this story is followed up on ever and I don’t believe it served as inspiration for the later Earth-53, but it was a cool coincidence that I wanted to mention.

    Earth-53 is home to the Primate Legion which is only shown to include Ape versions of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Atom, and Aquaman, but the idea of instead of humans we have apes can easily be applied to any resident of the DC Universe. Super-Ape is named as Titano the Super-Ape, obviously a reference to the Superman foe (who is currently mini sized and showing up in the current Supergirl comic). Continuing on with this theme, I’m going to call this universe’s Supergirl Tee-Nah the Super-Ape after Tee-Nah the new gorilla staff member at the Daily Planet that first appeared in Superman Unlimited #2. With this universe being fairly unmapped, it’s hard to say exactly how the super-heroes differ from their Earth-0 counterparts but until it is more defined I will just assume Tee-Nah is from a very ape-like Krypton and shares the same origin as Supergirl but if she was instead an ape.

    As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Tee-Nah the Super-Ape is diving down towards the viewer. Tee-Nah is a blonde ape wearing a Supergirl costume. There are a few buildings shown behind her and a building that looks like a version of Lex-Corp has a shattered window that it seems the Super-Ape is jumping out of. The top right corner features a motif of Super-Ape’s symbol with a 53 on top of it.

  • Supergirl Surprise #9: Supergirl (Vol. 4) #9

    As I have been doing this Supergirl Surprise series I’ve generally found the single issues hold up pretty well on their own. This issue however I was totally lost reading through it. Tempus Fugit, cover dated as May ‘97, has credits that read “David, Frank, Smith, Prentice, D’Angelo & Digital Chameleon with Pittarese” It looks like the order is writer, penciler, inker, colorist, letterer, and finally editor with both D’Angelo and Digital Chameleon on colors. Looking into it, it seems the reason I was so lost reading through this is because this is part 2 of 2 of the Tempus Fugit story.

    The story opens with a brief interlude showing the young Wally (who I’m pretty sure ends up being God) asking his grandparents to go out and see a friend – remember this for later – before cutting to what I assume is where the previous issue left off. A double scythe wielding foe named Tempus is obliterating the Danvers’ home while Buzz is sitting looking like an absolute d-bag. We get a reminder here that this is the Matrix Supergirl when she blasts Tempus with a “psi-blast”. Realizing her parents are banged up but otherwise okay, she tells Fred that she’s going to go after Tempus and try to alert Supergirl to the crisis at hand.

    From here we get another interlude with Cutter at the Leesburg Tribune, before we see Buzz and Tempus having an argument. In the midst of their argument, they see Wally and an attempted fireball soon gets knocked away by Wally’s baseball bat like it was nothing. Supergirl catches up to Tempus at the hospital and this is the main action sequence of the comic. Around this point some dialogue between Buzz and Tempus reveal that their plan is to push Supergirl over the edge into murdering Tempus. Before this can happen however, Buzz stops her and asks if she wants to continue on the Linda Danvers life or change to be more like Supergirl. This moment of clarity snaps our hero out of it and Buzz gets whisked away. The story then ends with Linda waking up the morning before and it seems Wally has turned back time so that the Danvers’ house wasn’t destroyed, Dick Malverne wasn’t brainwashed to being Tempus (yeah I forgot that too!), and everything is just back to normal.

    Peter David is an exceptional writer and this Supergirl series is often regarded as the best for our maid of might and this issue continues this trend. Me being lost as I read through this second part of a 2 part story doesn’t diminish the quality but it was an interesting thing to experience with this series, although I didn’t much care for the Groundhog’s Day starting over ending we got but maybe that’s just me. I’m interested to see how other comics approach the single issue vs larger storyline approach especially miniseries like Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade or Superman/Supergirl Maelstrom. The final panel at the end of the issue features a newspaper that while cut off can still read “Gary F Thanks R For Suppor” and it seems like this is meant as a send off since it’s Frank’s last issue doing art on the book. I don’t always like Gary Frank’s art and sometimes it falls a bit into the uncanny valley for me, but I do think there are some pretty exceptional panels in this book and the full page spreads are particularly successful. Linda does spend the first 10 pages of this issue half naked which is a weird outfit to wear to dinner with her parents but you do you.

    A couple cool ads this week for the second wave of Amalgam. The first page near the front is in black and white and advertises Lobo the Duck, Thorion of the New Asgods, and The Dark Claw Adventures and the ad page in the back (full color now) showcases Bat-Thing, Spider-Boy Team-Up, and JLX Unleashed. I’m not sure exactly why the front ad is in black and white, perhaps it was part of the marketing or maybe it was a printing error. The colorless ad is on the inside front cover and the ad on the inside back cover is also in black and white so I’m leaning towards either printing error or it was intentional as possibly a cost cutting measure. Looking at some other books in my collection from around this time, it seems like DC books from cover date April and May 1997 have colorless inside covers but it seems isolated to those two months based on the Supergirl and Nightwing books I have (I don’t have any other books from those cover dates). Otherwise I didn’t notice anything notable while reading through this but I really enjoyed this different experience with Supergirl Surprise and I hope to have more surprising adventures through my collection.