The Daring new Blog of Supergirl

  • What, Where, and Who? Supergirl (2025) #1

    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.

  • Supergirl in the Multiverse: Earth-19

    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

    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.

  • Supergirl in the Multiverse: Earth-18

    Earth-18 is home to the Justice Riders, a Wild West style Justice League based mainly on the 80s and 90s Justice League International family of comics. In their debut appearance, Sheriff Diana Prince gathers up a handful of other lawmen and former accomplices including Kid Flash, Hawkman, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, and J’onn J’onzz and leads them in a quest to Helldorado in a battle against Maxwell Lord. The story ends with the team disbanding with no promise of further stories which seems to be the case. Most appearances of Earth-18 past Justice Riders are brief cameos or the team dying in the pages of convergence. Earth-18 is also the name of a similar universe first appearing in Multiversity that has a similar but slightly different team of Justice Riders but again this universe has been mostly restricted to cameos.

    When finding a Supergirl for this universe, and often for all the universes, I first look to finding the Superman of the given universe. Kryptonians don’t have a lot of presence in Earth-18, Clark Kent is mentioned briefly and shows up at the end of Justice Riders as a dime novelist but doesn’t show any sort of super powers. In the Superboy storyline titled “Hyper-Tension” that ran from issues 60-65 of his title from the 90s featured a hypertime version of Earth-18 and shows Kid Kon-El. Kid Kon-El seems to have similar powers to the New Earth Superboy implying the possibility of Kryptonians on this earth and also Kon’s steed is named Comet, a common companion to Supergirl in many iterations. For Earth-18 I mostly focused on the pre-flashpoint version of the universe and leaned into the idea of JLI in the Wild West. Power Girl was a member of the Justice League during it’s JLI era and showed up in Justice League America, Justice League Europe, and Justice League International and I feel like she would at the very least have been mentioned if Justice Riders ever got a proper sequel. Making her Sheriff of Argo feels like a nice casual reference to classic lore and also her being a sheriff would also help to connect her with Diana who is also a sheriff. And while Sheriff Karen Starr of Argo doesn’t actually exist in Earth-18, her steed Comet does.

    As with all of my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. This drawing depicts Karen Starr, Sheriff of Argo in the foreground standing against her steed Comet, a brown horse. They are standing in a desert environment with the town of Argo shown in the background. Orange and red skies imply the sun is setting on the horizon. The top right features a motif of Power Girl’s symbol with an 18 on top of it.

  • 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!