This time out I’m taking a look at the Supergirl pages of questions from The Official Superman Quiz Book by Bruce Nash. This book was published by Warner Books in 1978 to tie into Superman the Movie released the same year. The cover boasts “Illustrated with Authentic Superman Comic Book Cartoons” and as such we see throughout the book dozens of illustrations that seem to be pulled from comic stories and covers that are sometimes edited slightly.

The opening to Supergirl’s quiz section (Pages 84-87) for instance feature this illustration taken from the cover of Action Comics 285 from February 1962. The artwork seems to be edited slightly to account for the break in the page. Supergirl and her cousin seem to be larger and take up more of the page and the buildings lining the street are pushed farther to the left and right. Superman, in the original, has his hand on Supergirl’s elbow and has such been redrawn so the pair can exist separately on either page. Otherwise the artwork seems relatively unchaged.

For this post I’m going to show the questions, give my answers to the questions, and then at the end after we go through all the questions I’ll shew the answers shown in the back of the book. I’ve only looked briefly at this book beforehand so I’ll be approaching the questions blind. Feel free to play along with me!

1. What is Supergirl’s birth-given name? Which is of course, Kara Zor-El.
2. Why was this name chosen for the Kryptonian Lass? Zor-El is the name of her father, however I’m not sure if the book is asking for more specifics than this seeing as many Kryptonian females get their last name’s from their fathers.
3. What were the names of her real parents? As mentioned a moment ago, Zor-El is Kara’s father and her mother is named Alura.
4. In what city was she born? Argo City. At the time this book was written, Kara was born years after the destruction of Krypton while Argo was floating in space.
5. How did Supergirl”s home city survive the destruction of the planet Krypton? Thanks to the scientific mind of Zor-El, Argo was placed under a protective dome that carried some of Krypton’s atmosphere with it.
6. How did the city continue to survive after its ground turned into a deadly for of anti-kryptonite? Lead sheeting was layered over the city’s ground to protect from the radiation.
7. What later happened to finally doom the twice-rescued city? The city was hit with a meteor shower that damaged the lead and caused the radiation to once again threaten the Argoians.
8. How did Supergirl escape her city’s tragic fate and make the journey to Earth? Zor-El fashioned a rocket much like his brother did years before to save Kal-El. Zor-El and family also used a super-telescope to see that Kal-El had grown up on Earth and become Superman.
9. How did Supergir’s parents manage to save themselves before their city perished? Zor-El used an experimental device to save himself and his wife in a pocket dimension called the Survival Zone.
10. Where are her parents now living? Assuming this means her Kryptonian parents, they now reside in Kandor after leaving the Survival Zone. Her foster parents, the Danvers, are living in Midvale.
11. How old was Supergirl when she arrived on Earth? 15.
12. Who first discovered Supergirl when she arrived on Earth? Superman, however it could be argued that Ellie Leeds may have witnessed the crash first.
13. What secret identity did Supergirl adopt? Linda Lee, and later Linda Danvers after being adopted.
14. Why did Superman initially choose to keep Supergirl’s existence on Earth a secret? He wanted to make sure she had her powers under controll before revealing her to the world, he wanted to have her as a secret weapon in case one of his enemies ever got the upper hand on him, and he wanted to make sure Supergirl could keep the secret identity of Superman safe.
15. True or False: Superman made Supergirl’s costume? False, it was made on Argo based on Superman’s as seen through the aforementioned super telescope.
16. In what orphanage did Supergirl live under her assumed identity after arriving on Earth? Midvale Orphanage
17. Who was the headmistress at the orphanage? This question is the first one that I’m not sure of the answer to. Supergirl’s stories in Action Comics are some of the stories that I’m not as familiar with.
18. What was the hairstyle of the first wig Supergirl used to conceal her natural blonde locks? Pigtails, which Fred Danvers would say are too childish for her after adopting the young girl.
19. Where did Supergirl keep her alter-ego’s robot hidden? In a hollow tree outside the orphanage.
20. Who was the first earthling to discover Supergirl’s existence? Again I would cite Ellie Leeds, the girl who slipped into a coma after seeing Kara’s rocket crash, however her story wouldn’t be told until 2 years after this story was published. So maybe the question refers to Dick Wilson (later Dick Malverne) who captured a picture of the girl of steel in her secret weapon era.
21. Who adopted Supergirl? Mr. And Mrs. Fred Danvers, Edna’s name wouldn’t be revealed until a few issues later.
22. In what city did Supergirl and her foster-parents live? Midvale
23. What is the occupation of Supergirl’s foster-father? Again my lack of knowledge of Supergirl’s Action Comics stories is coming up, but I think he is either an engineer or a police officer, I know post-crisis Fred Danvers is a police officer.
24. At what college did Supergirl obtain her undergraduate degree? Stanhope College
25. What was the name of her blonde roommate? Unsure on this one I guess we’ll learn together soon!
26. How did Supergirl secretly enter and exit the college campus without being seen? I would imagine she had a secret tunnel much like Superboy had when he lived in Smallville.
27. Who was the steady boyfriend of Supergirl’s alter ego while she was attending college? Dick Malverne possibly?
28. What college did he attend? I’m stumped once again
29. Who was the President of the United States at the time Supergirl’s presence on Earth was finally revealed to the world? John F. Kennedy. His wife, Jackie, even makes a remark of the girl of steel’s beauty!
30. Who is Supergirl’s best friend? I would say Streaky the Super-Cat
31. Who is Supergirl’s teen-aged merboy admirer in the undersea city of Atlantis? Jerro!
32. Which member of the Legion of Super-Heroes is crazy about Supergirl? Brainiac 5.
33. Where does Supergirl now work? Seeing as this book came out in 1978, I think the girl of steel was living in California and working for a television station with Nasty Luthor but I can’t remember the name of it.
34. Which one of Supergirl’s criminal foes is a duplicate of the Girl of Steel that was created by red kryptonite? Satan Girl, who you can read more about here.
35. What villainess tricked Supergirl into drinking a serum that periodically cancels out her super-powers? I can’t remember exactly but I’m willing to guess it was Nasty Luthor.

You can check out the image for the full list of answers but I’ll discuss some of the answers I got wrong or didn’t know. Looks like question 2 did have a more specific answer to the original question of Kara’s name as she was born under the constellation of the same name. Questions 3-16 were all answered correctly and it looks like Miss Hart is the name of the orphanage’s headmistress. For question 23 I was right when guessing engineer, although I did cheat a little by giving 2 answers. Supergirl’s blonde roommate, from question 25, is apparently Jan Butler. I guess I’ll have to make an effort to read the rest of Supergirl’s stories in Action Comics. For question 26, looks like she has a secret chimney not a secret tunnel. As shown in the answer to question 28, looks like Dick went to State Tech. I guess if I had to give a human as an answer to Supergirl’s best friend, Lena Thorul is a good choice, however I would think of her more as Linda’s best friend seeing as she doesn’t know Linda and Supergirl are the same.

Looks like I got my timing correct on the answer to question 33, Linda was living in California (San Francisco specifically) and working at a tv station (KSF-TV specifically). Unfortunately we can’t go out on a high note since I got the last question wrong. It wasn’t a serum from Nasty but from Starfire but probably not any Starfire you might be thinking of. This Starfire isn’t Tamaranean or any other kind of alien warrior, she is just a human crime lord with one eye and 5 comic appearances during Supergirl’s run in Adventure Comics.

I hope you enjoyed this fun test of my Supergirl knowledge! Let me know if you tried along with me and if you knew any of the questions that stumped me. Feel free to write in at daringnewblog@gmail.com

The Bizarrogirl arc ran through issues 53-57 of Supergirl (Vol. 5). All 5 issues of this story are written by Sterling Gates and Jamal Igle did penciling for the first 4 issues with Jon Sibal, John Dell, Richard Friend, and Marc Deering providing inks. Bernard Chang took over penciling and inking for issue 57. Blond, Jamie Grant, Jim Delvin, and Nei Ruffino all contributed to colorist duties and Jared K. Fletcher and Travis Lanham handled lettering. While the artist teams feel pretty loaded, the changing between the artists isn’t really noticeable or jarring reading through from what I could tell. Looking at after knowing the artists changed I can tell the differences but it doesn’t take away from the story. The story was released from June to October of 2010 and seems to Supergirl’s fresh start after the events of New Krypton. I haven’t really looked much into solicitations from books that came out before I was actively collecting, but I did notice something when I was doing my research this week and that was the fact that Bizarrogirl seems to have been planned out as a surprise antagonist. Generally comic books are solicited about 2 months in advance so when issue 52 of the series was on the shelves, issues 53 and 54 had already been solicited and when you look at the covers and synopses you see stuff like “[CLASSIFIED]” and “… when she finds out just who this thing is and where it’s from!” and the covers have fairly generic art with only Supergirl shown and Bizarrogirl doesn’t show her face on a cover until issue 55. I can’t speak for people who read this book as it was coming out, but I really like this approach and it helps build the mystery and suspense of who or what crashed in Centennial Park during the events of issue 53.

As I mentioned before, this story takes place directly after the events of New Krypton (which I have not covered on the blog yet but I will at some point) and deals with a lot of the trauma and emotions Kara is facing after once again losing her home planet. Picking up on a storyline that had been introduced earlier in the run, Kara is living with Lana Lang who has moved to Metropolis and is working at the Daily Planet. Kara tells Lana she wants to put Kara and Supergirl behind her and wants to live as Linda, a normal human girl that isn’t a Superhero. Lana is supportive of her decision to start living life as Linda Lang, but worries about her putting away the cape for good. This worry is furthered when Metropolis is struck with a mysterious threat that has landed in a frozen crater in the middle of the city. Lana urges Kara to go and help face this threat but she refuses and instead goes and hides in her room that she has soundproofed to prevent her superhearing from picking up the sounds of the city. While Kara sits moping, Dr. Light and Gangbuster head out from S.T.A.R. Labs to investigate and are met with a monstrous backwards version of the girl of steel. The issue ends here on a cliffhanger and picks back up in the next issue with Jimmy Olsen on a motorcycle saving a kid on his way to get a photo of the new threat facing the city. Jimmy is able to get the photo and it automatically uploads to the Daily Planet servers before Jimmy is knocked unconscious and taken prisoner by Bizarrogirl. It is this picture that Lana sees at the Planet and she sends it to Kara with the message “A Bizarro with your face is tearing up the financial district”. Kara stil hesitates as she remembers the destruction of New Krypton, but she does eventually suit up and make her way over to encounter the Bizarro shaped threat to the city.

I have taken the liberty to translate the Kryptonian text shown here for your reference: “Identity confirmed.” “Hello, Kara Zor El.” Nothing too crazy but it is a nice touch that Kara has a secret closet which she also had starting in Action Comics 279 in her room after being adopted by the Danvers. Speaking of references, this closet is full of them! Starting from the bottom left we have a brunette wig which is a classic Linda accessory, and a red headband which is a reference to Supergirl’s pre-Crisis costume. Above that is a Kryptonian Sunstone in a jar next to a small Eiffel Tower and behind that is a picture of what I assume is Kara and Cassie Sandsmark cleaning up after the events of Amazons Attack. There are 2 Daily Planet papers framed: “The Supergirl from Krypton” and “Why the World Doesn’t Need Supergirl” both of which have shown up previously in this title. Her costume and a selection of belts take up the center and behind it you can just barely see a spear that references her time on Themyscira. The right side is mostly obscured by Kara herself, but we can make out her Nightwing helmet that she wore when her and Power Girl were in Candor. A small Superman doll is shown on a middle shelf and unfortunately I can’t quite tell what that small framed object in the top right is. If I had to guess I would say it’s a piece of her ship that crashed to earth or possibly a small piece of New Krypton salvaged from it’s destruction.

ADDENDUM: Thanks to a response from Sterling Gates on Bluesky, I do have confirmation that the framed photo is of Kara and Cassie, however it’s a picture of them catching King Shark not cleaning up from the Amazon’s Attack event as I thought. He has also clarified that the red and white framed item is a small piece of Alura’s uniform that she was shown wearing throughout the New Krypton saga.

Supergirl and Bizarrogirl then have their first fight where we see Bizarrogirl being protective of her ship and gets very nervous when it gets hit with stray debris. It’s at this point we see Bizarrrogirl’s new power Solid Vision which is her own bizarro version of X-Ray Vision that turns whatever she looks at into solid metal which she uses on Supergirl. Thankfully Supergirl had trained with the Flash to learn how to vibrate her molecules to pass through the solid matter that Bizarrogirl had turned her into. With this element of surprise, Supergirl is able to get the upper hand and formulate a plan with Doctor Light to subdue Bizarrogirl. During their fight Supergirl hears of a thread to Bizarroworld, a “Godship”, that is coming to destroy their planet and Bizarrogirl was sent to earth as a refugee to save her. Using her light based powers, Dr. Hoshi uses the light of a K-Class star to depower her the same way a red sun would depower a Kryptonian. After Supergirl hears Dr. Hoshi’s plans for Bizarrogirl she starts to realize maybe she and her have more in common than just a blue skirt. Supergirl takes the currently unconscious Bizarrogirl and zooms back to her downed bizarrorocket and prepares the journey back to Bizarro-World.

The pair arrive at Bizarro-World and Kara is baffled to see that it’s suffered intense destruction and has been nearly blown in half. After landing Bizarrogirl is met with a mob that’s furious at her for abandoning their world when the Godship came. Bizarro Lex Luthor (Him am bald, and bald men am the sexiest) informs the duo of the goings on of the planet while Bizarrogirl has been away before promptly getting eaten by a shout from the Godship. Bizarro No. 1 then joins them and takes them to his Fortress where he gives Supergirl a more specific rundown of the devastation of Htrae and Supergirl decides to fly off to the other side of the planet to take a closer look and confront the Godship head on.

After finding out the Godship isn’t a ship at all and is in fact a giant alien life form, the girl of steel is promptly shot all the way through the planet back into Bizarro’s fortress. Supergirl, realizing she needs more manpower, works with Bizarro and Bizarrogirl to bring together an army. This army is Bizarro clones of all the citizens of New Krypton. These Bizarro-Kryptonians make a good attempt against the Godship but aren’t able to overpower it. Bizarrogirl now afraid runs from the fight and tries to get her rocket working again to once again leave the planet and run away.

Supergirl soon finds her and has a nice long talk with her Bizarro reflection about how they’re not so different after all. This sequence not only helps Bizarrogirl return to the fight but also gives Kara a bit of introspection of herself. Kara helps Bizarrogirl see that even if she’s scared, she can still do a lot of good for the rest of her planet, something Lana was trying to tell Kara at the start of the story. Bizarrogirl now back in the fight, works with Supergirl and uses her apparently unique ability of Solid-Vision to finally put a stop to the Godship.

They’ve saved the planet but Bizarrogirl has now seen to exiling herself because of the life she took while on Earth. Supergirl comes to talk to her and she gives Bizarrogirl some advice that also applies to herself: “[self-punishment] might never end…but if it does end, it will be because you look in a mirror and realized you’ve already punished yourself enough.” With that, Supergirl rockets away and heads back to Earth now with the newfound confidence to get back into the hero game back in Metropolis.

I will readily say I’m not usually a fan of Bizarro stories and generally find them either boring or annoying. This story on the other hand, is not only a wonderful Bizarro story but also one of my favorite Supergirl stories of all time. The way Bizarrogirl is portrayed not as a dumb backwards clone of Supergirl but instead as a imperfect reflection really puts Bizarrogirl on a totally different level as an antagonist for the girl of steel and I think it’s really thanks to the writer. Sterling Gates had been on the title for a while at this point, starting in issue 34, but since then most of the issues he worked on were tie ins to the various chapters of the New Krypton Saga and this seemed to be the first arc that wasn’t tied to a crossover and stood on its own as a purely Supergirl story written by Gates, and his interpretation of Bizarrogirl is a great way to jump into a new status quo for Kara. Sterling Gates is pretty generally regarded as one of the best Supergirl writers and he’s definitely one of my favorites. The continuation of Supergirl post New Krypton is handled quite well in this story and the trauma Kara is going through feels real. Supergirl and Bizarrogirl’s dialogue throughout really helps explore these themes and helps Kara find out more about herself. Another thing I noticed on my most recent read through is sometimes instead of writing out full conversations there would just be little narration boxes that feel like diary entries or thoughts from Kara. We get messages like “It must’ve taken hours. Me charging her, her attacking the beast” and “so we talked once the crisis was over. She started thinking about her actions.” These breaks really help the pacing and make the story feel like it takes place over a period of time and not just a couple days.

Something that I haven’t covered as part of these issues yet is the background plot with Cat Grant. Cat has been a persistent thorn in Supergirl’s side for a while now and was responsible for the front page article “Why the World Doesn’t Need a Supergirl”. Cat first shows up overhearing Lana on a phone call talking to Kara and would use this connection that she suspects to ask Lana for a favor at the end of the story. This would lead into the next story arc where Supergirl would work with Cat Grant against Toyman. Both the Bizarrogirl and Toyman stories are collected together in the Supergirl:Bizarrogirl TPB as well as Supergirl (Vol. 5) Annual 2. While the seeds of the Toyman story do get planted in these issues, it really feels like a different story which is why I haven’t covered it in this post.

I think this book is definitely worth reading for any Supergirl fan. As I mentioned above it has been collected as a TPB with printings in 2011 and 2016, and the back issues probably aren’t too hard to get you hands on. The issues are also all on the DC Universe Infinite app with a standard subscription. The story does work as a sort of epilogue to New Krypton, but it stands on its own fairly well and does a good job at explaining what happened without overloading the reader with exposition.

Thanks for reading along with me! If you’ve got any comments or suggestions for future posts feel free to send an email to daringnewblog@gmail.com and stay tuned for more adventures of the girl of steel.