Kingdom Come is a fantastic story created by Mark Waid and Alex Ross and is the predominant storyline for the universe designated as Earth-22. Originally, as a Hypertime reality, the universe was designated instead as Earth-96. The universe as a whole features a dark future with heroes and villains fighting in the streets and a disregard for human life. Thanks to the sacrifice of Captain Marvel, this dark age of heroes was able to come to a close and allow for a new age of young heroes to step up and lead to a better future.
This is not a post about the universe as a whole, but about a single character; Supergirl. Supergirl of Earth-22 doesn’t show up frequently or in any major depth but she is present in Kingdom Come #1 and has shown up in cameos in the continuing stories set in this universe. This universe presents a Supergirl that has left the 20th century behind and made her home among the Legion of Super-Heroes in the 30th century. In the 30th century she has settled down with Brainiac 5 and had a daughter aptly named Brainiac’s Daughter. The rest of Kara’s life in this universe isn’t shown but the rest of this universe having so many nods to pre-crisis DC it is likely that this Supergirl’s origin matches those of the pre-crisis Supergirl who also had quite a few stories with the Legion.
As with all the Supergirl in the Multiverse drawings on this site, this is my own artwork. This digital drawing depicts the Supergirl of Earth-22 hovering down towards the camera with her cape and hair flowing behind her. On her left hand is a wedding ring with a small detail of the Brainiac symbol to represent her marriage to Brainiac 5. The background shows the 30th century Metropolis with the Legion of Super-Heroes headquarters shown prominently. A motif of Supergirl’s symbol is in the top right with a 22 on top of it.
A surprisingly common trope in Supergirl comics is our titular hero battling herself. Sometimes it’s an imposter dressed as Supergirl, sometimes it’s a clone, and sometimes it’s a Supergirl from another universe. This is not a definitive list of every time Supergirl has faced off against herself, but I did go through my personal collection and found over a dozen examples of this peculiar face off. Because of the surprisingly large quantity of these covers, I’m splitting this post into 2 parts. I’m going to start with a book that has not come out yet but will hit shelves next week, Supergirl (Vol. 8) #2. Since the book hasn’t come out yet and we’re still very early on in this new title, there’s not a good way to determine what kind of fake this Supergirl is but if you stick around til the end I’ll give some predictions after we go through all the other stories in part one of my list. It is, however, important to note that this cover is an homage to another book on my list, Super DC Giant S-24.
Super DC Giant S-24 is the oldest book I’ve pulled that fits the Supergirl vs. Supergirl theme and it very well might be the first instance of this trope at all. Super DC Giant S-24 is a compilation book from June 1971 that collects Supergirl stories from 4 issues of Action Comics when Supergirl had a backup feature. The collected issues are 295-298 from the end of 1962. This is a storyline that featured Lena Thorul dressing as Supergirl for a costume party, Lesla-Lar once again enlarging herself to get super powers, and Lex Luthor gaining powers to help Supergirl fight the Phantom Zone villains. While Lena does wear a Supergirl costume in this story, she never fights Supergirl (unless you count them competing for the affection of Dick Malverne). And when Lesla-Lar comes to terrorize earth she doesn’t don a Supergirl costume and instead wears a brand new black and red outfit. So the cover may not be totally reflective of the inside story but it is rather striking.
Next on our list we go to a couple issues of Superman Family. Issue 203 is from the Fall of 1980. The Supergirls on the cover of this issue have different costumes, helping tell them apart, but we’re still met with the question of who is the real Supergirl? In the story titled “The Supergirl from Earth” we are introduced to Ellie Leeds, a young girl who fell into a coma the same day Kara Zor-El came to earth in her rocket. One day, years later Linda (Supergirl) Danvers is returning to Midvale for a much needed vacation and is met with someone else claiming to be Supergirl and wearing the same Supergirl costume Kara wore when she first arrived on earth. This mystery Supergirl is revealed to be Ellie Leeds who witnessed Kara crash to earth and was exposed to X-Kryptonite giving her the miraculous powers of Supergirl. Thankfully the story ends with the X-Kryptonite being destroyed so we no longer have to worry about an extra Supergirl flying around.
As we continue movie forward, Superman Family #215 from early 1982 has a cover featuring the Supergirl of the Future attacking our maiden of might. Throughout the story it is revealed that this is a Supergirl from the 5020th century that has come to the past to assist in the capture of one of her villains (also from the future) named Tal Belok and his 20th century companion Toxus. The antagonistic nature of this future girl of steel that is shown on the cover is only due to confusion and the pair quickly work together. However, by the end of the story after the villains are subdued once more, our present day heroine must be hypnotized lest her knowledge of the future cause turmoil to the present.
Moving forward, we now see a Supergirl fighting not just one, but 9 other Supergirls! The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #11 starts with Supergirl in the clutches of the Council after she is thought dead at the hands of Reactron. While the Council had her captured, Professor Drake was able to make 6 (almost) perfect replicant clones of Supergirl the only issue is they’re only 12 inches tall. Nevertheless, they still have all the powers of the Last Daughter of Krypton and those powers are soon put to use as they track a weakened and escaped Supergirl back to the fortress of solitude. After a dangerous battle that nearly cost Supergirl her life, she is eventually able to overpower and then depower the 6 mini Supergirl clones. This cover isn’t totally a lie, Supergirl is in fact overpowered by small clones of herself but at no point does she face 9 clones. There are only ever 6 clones present.
We’ve now gone through and looked at all the pre-crisis Supergirl vs. Supergirl covers which feels like a nice place to break and discuss the various duplicate Supergirls so far. The first 2 stories both feature imposter Supergirls, first with Lena Thorul and then Ellie Leeds. We also saw a future Supergirl from 500,000 years in the future, which for our purposes we’ll sort under the “Supergirl from another universe” category. We then close out the list with clones. My prediction for this mystery Supergirl that’s shown up in Midvale in Sophie Campbell’s new book is that we’re dealing with an imposter. While Lesla-Lar seems to be the obvious choice for someone dressing as Supergirl, she loves to do so as shown in her first appearance that I talked about here. She has also been confirmed to show up in the book where she’s shown briefly in Kandor and she is mentioned in some future solicits. With all this pointing towards Lesla, I don’t think she’s the culprit. I think we should look, instead, to Ellie Leeds, the star of Superman Family 203. This is a character that knows about Kara’s history and is shown with Supergirl’s powers. Maybe she’s stumbled upon a new piece of X-Kryptonite and taken up saving the day in Supergirl’s absence. Ellie Leeds being the “Fake” Supergirl would also explain why she’s in the classic Supergirl costume from her first appearance and also why her body type is different from “Real” Supergirl in a way that wouldn’t really work if it was Lesla-Lar in the red and blue. The set up for the story is very similar too, in both cases we have Supergirl coming home from her heroic life in the big city only to be met with another Supergirl already there. While Ellie Leeds is my first guess for this potential new Supergirl, I think a relatively untapped well of double Supergirl stories lies in the form of robots. Supergirl, and Linda, robots were a huge part of Supergirl’s life in Midvale and a major presence in Silver Age comics which would be a fresh and exciting new take on the Supergirl vs Supergirl trope.
I’m looking forward to cracking open Supergirl #2 when it hits shelves next week and I hope you are too! Join me next Friday as I finish up the list of Supergirl vs Supergirl and maybe bring in an updated insight for our new mystery Supergirl. Thanks as always for reading and feel free to send me an email with any thoughts or suggestions at blogofsupergirl@gmail.com.
The universe presented by Darwyn Cooke in The New Frontier has the designation of Earth-21. This somewhat idealistic take on the early silver age of DC comics and how they brought forth a new age of superheroes after masked heroes became outlawed at the end of World War II. The initial New Frontier miniseries shows new heroes like Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter grow to prominence and work together with heroes like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman along with others to face a worldwide threat. This triumph would lead to a surge of new heroes including Supergirl.
Supergirl of earth-21 on shows up in 2 panels of issue 6 of New Frontier and even when she is shown it’s merely as a background character in a wide shot with other new and young heroes. Because of how the rest of the story is presented, it is likely this Supergirl (Kara Zor-L) shares many similarities to her counterpart of the pre-crisis earth-1. It is possible, that since the Superman as presented in New Frontier is further along in his superhero career, maybe Clark would have taken Kara in with him as opposed to leaving her in an orphanage. I’ve also seen reference to her being a part of the earth-21 Teen Titans, this is not directly stated at any point during any appearance of the universe. This universe is much more interwoven than the original silver age of DC comics so it would make sense for her to be a part of that team as opposed to a solo secret weapon for Superman.
As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. A digital drawing based on the cover to Action Comics #252, now showing the earth-21 Supergirl emerging from her rocket after it lands on earth. The top right corner has a motif of earth-21’s Supergirl’s symbol with a number “21” inside it.
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.
