Earth-72 is the first of the universes that I’ve covered that is sort of a universe I’ve already explored. If you’ve been keeping up you may remember my Earth-47 entry. As I mentioned in that entry, that universe is also known as Earth-72 and Earth-Prez. Now that we’re taking a look at Earth-72 it gives me a chance to take a look at one of my scrapped ideas from season 1. Earth-72 is pretty strictly relegated to just Prez and his various appearances since his initial series from 1972, and Earth-47 is more of an updated look at the universe that also includes psychadelic and groovy versions of some of the Justice League. Heroes like Sunshine Superman, Speed Freak, and Magic Lantern who form a team called the Love Syndicate of Dreamworld. They all showed up for the first time in Animal Man #23 and while it was more than a cameo appearance, they didn’t do too much and mostly just served to be part of the ensemble to represent the sort of multiverse that existed when DC was trying to not have a multiverse called Hypertime.
Earth-72 being strictly the Prez universe probably means Prez Beth Ross should have been the representative for 72, while Sunshine Supergirl should instead represent the more expanded universe of 47 along with the Love Syndicate. That being said, I feel like if there wasn’t the restriction of a number under 51, Earth-47 would’ve been designated as Earth-72 from it’s inception. Part of me wants to believe 47 was picked because it was the last universe with a 7 in it left because it is clearly meant to be a universe with the aesthetics of the 1970s. Sunshine Supergirl is not a canonical character, but as I mentioned above, Sunshine Superman does exist. His full origin, or even his real name, isn’t known but he does seem to have similar powers and abilities to his Earth-0 counterpart so it’s likely his origin is similar and the universe itself is just a bit more funky. A Superman existing always gives the possibility of a Supergirl existing and I have presented just that. Due to the 1970s aesthetic of the universe I have also brought in the most used, and my personal favorite, Supergirl costume featured in comics in the 70s.
As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Sunshine Supergirl is striking a pose with her right arm behind her head and her left arm outstretched. Her cape is out to the left. The background is the text “SUPERGIRL” repeated several times, and one of these “SUPERGIRL”s is in front of the hero. The top right has a motif of Sunshine Supergirl’s S symbol with a 72 on top of it. The entire artwork has a distressed look to it to give the look of an old vinyl record sleeve.
This month’s endeavor into my boxes of comics lead me to an issue in Supergirl’s 40ish issue run in Adventure Comics, specifically issue 398. I can’t remember entirely how long it was, but for a portion of Supergirl’s Adventure run each issue would reprint a previous Supergirl story as well as a brand new story and issue 398 is one of those. The reprint issue for this issue is a 14 page story from Action Comics #306, and the new story is comprised of 6 pages. There is a nice parity between these 2 stories as they both feature an unknow alien antagonist that Supergirl has to overcome, but are otherwise quite unrelated. This issue was released with a cover date of October 1970 and the Action Comic story is from 1963.
Coming in first is “The Maid of Doom” from writer Leo Dorfman, artist Jim Mooney, and letterer Milt Snapinn. This story is both the reprint story and also the cover story. Initially it feels odd, to me at least, for the reprint story to be the feature on the cover, but further reflection it makes a lot of sense. Supergirl in Action Comics was always the backup feature and hardly ever got the cover spotlight, so when reprinting the stories it makes a lot of sense for this story to show up on the cover. This cover is particularly striking, from Dick Giordano, showing the Super Pets lying dead around Supergirl as Superman is banishing her to the phantom zone.
The story opens with Linda on a movie date with everyone’s favorite non-super boyfriend, Dick Malverne, before Supergirl remembers she has a peace keeping mission to do out in space. Supergirl goes to 3 distant planets; Mutor with it’s shape changing inhabitants, The Mole World with it’s metal eating moles, and finally Erg who’s lifeforms all emit a bluish radioactive glow about them. Remember these planets and their life forms for later.
After landing back on earth near her secret entrance to the Danvers’ home, she is met by her trusty Super-Cat Streaky. Unfortunately for Streaky, it seems Supergirl has brought back a deadly virus back to earth which has tragically ended the life of the unsuspecting cat. Krypto, also nearby, comes over to see what’s going on and meets the same fate. Both of the super-pets had a bluish glow about them as they passed leading Supergirl to believe the root of the deadly virus came from the planet Erg. Thankfully the virus only seems to affect super-beings which is revealed when Supergirl tells her adoptive mother, Edna, what happened. This is not the end of tragedy though as Mr. Mxyzptlk and Comet both fall to the Maid of Doom before Superman shows up and tells her the only safe place for her is the Phantom Zone.
After our hero is subjected to the same fate as Mon-El, we get a surprising image of Superman turning into a fish before diving under a lake. From here we find out that wasn’t Superman at all but one of the Plasmos from the planet Mutor! We find out from Sklor, the Plasmo, that he had just successfully executed a plan to rid Earth of it’s heroes Supergirl and Superman so that the rest of their race can take over the planet. Sklor retells the story from his point of view and we find out that Supergirl is not the deadly menace we were led to believe and all the deceased super-beings were actually Sklor shape changing and acting. He was also able to convince Superman and the Super-Pets to go to the future as to not disturb his plans.
All looks pretty dire for the girl of steel when suddenly she shows up again in the Plasmo’s lair! Supergirl, through some rather convoluted reasoning, was able to thwart Sklor. After realizing the best plan they ever could’ve thought of ended in failure, the planet Mutor decides to sign a treaty with Earth and also to not conquer any other planet. The UN celebrates by raising a Supergirl flag and everyone is happy aside from probably Sklor who probably doesn’t have many friends left on Mutor.
Before we get to the 1970 story, we get a full page of Supergirl letting you know the story you just read was old and she doesn’t dress like that anymore. This is a nice transition between the A and B stories and also serves to highlight the fan costume designs for the maid of might which were featured in the issues around this time.
“Catcher in the Sky”, by Mike Sekowsky with inks by Dick Giordano and letters by John Costanza is a brief little 6 page story with some really exceptional imagery of Supergirl. Linda is sat bored at home watching reruns on TV when she hears of a mysterious tragedy as the US Carrier Whitney has vanished into thin air. Supergirl suits up and rushes to the scene.
While the story doesn’t have a lot of real estate in regards to page count, that hasn’t stopped the art from producing some great sweeping images of Supergirl in action. Although she looked good doing so, she too was met with the same fate as the Whitney as she suddenly vanishes. Supergirl has now found the Whitney along with everyone and everything else that vanished and soon gets on the case to find out what happened and how to fix it.
It seems like the son of a scientist from an alien alternate dimension has been messing around with his dad’s equipment and has snatched stuff from our world into his. This alien race is much larger than any earth being so it takes all of Supergirl’s strength to get their attention to get her and the people of earth back home.
Thankfully the alien dad is much more accommodating to the earthlings and sends everyone back where they belong. The story then ends with the alien dad spanking the alien son. There is also a 1 page tease for the next issue which features Johnny Dee-Bum which seems to be a big deal but I don’t think he’s nearly as important as he’s made out to be.
While I didn’t see any letters that really stood out to me, I have to note that “Super Fe-Mail” is a particularly bonkers choice for a letters page. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this and it definitely won’t be the last but I needed everyone else to know about it. I also found this really cute ad for some animal figures and the cow at the top just looks really goofy. Neither of these stories are astounding by any means, but they’re goofy 60s-ish super hero alien stories and I always have a fun time with those. And between the cover and the interior art it’s a rather stunning issue visually.
This is not the first Supergirl I’ve covered from Earth-0 as part of Supergirl in the Multiverse, that was Kara Zor-El covered as the first entry in the series. Earth-0 is the “main” universe and has produced many such heroes that can fall under the role of Supergirl, or in this case Power Girl. I did consider labeling Power Girl II as Earth-2 due to her ties to Karen Starr, or potentially Earth-52 because of her introduction in a New 52 series, but at the end of the day, being a part of the mainstream universe (Earth-0) was the best fit.
First appearing in Huntress/Power Girl: World’s Finest #23, Tanya Spears is a fellow scientist working with Karen Starr (Power Girl) at Starr Industries. Tanya is young, but already a well renowned scientist in her own right with 2 PhDs by the age of 17. As such, Starr has taken her under her wing as a protege, and when Power Girl returned to her home of Earth-2 she had Spears take up after her in more than one way. Tanya soon finds out that she has gained some of Power Girl’s powers, namely strength and invulnerability. With her newfound powers, she seeks to make a name for herself as a superhero. Taking up the hero name her mentor left her, Power Girl would go on to join the Teen Titans, then later the Elite (where Manchester Black drugged her giving her the power to grow in size), and when last seen she was part of Deathstroke’s super hero team Defiance. Spears has not really had a great place to shine since her introduction and generally seems to make some poor choices in regards to super hero teams, but with further guidance from her mentor I feel like she could really make a name for herself.
As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Tanya Spears, Power Girl II, is towering over a city. Surrounded by skyscrapers, Power Girl II stands as a skyscraper herself and she is supporting a toppling skyscraper from falling. A motif in the top right has a gold oval with a 0 on top of it.
I’ve been watching through the CBS/CW Supergirl television series over the past few months and after starting season 2 I recalled a drawing I made back when the series was airing. I started looking through my stuff and thankfully I have all my old sketchbooks in one place and was able to find the drawing I was after fairly easily. However, in doing so, I also stumbled across quite a few other Supergirl drawings from quite a large span of time. This post will mostly be an archival effort to help preserve my otherwise non-digitized art but I will try to group them as best I can. For those of you who keep up with my blog, you’ll know Supergirl in the Multiverse is my artwork and is made digitally. This is sort of a where did I get started with drawing Supergirl and maybe a way to reassess where I’ve been to see how I can go further. This is by no means every Supergirl drawing I have ever made, and I’ve excluded a lot of sketches that didn’t really go anywhere so you’re not looking at too many just messes of scribbles.
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This is the aforementioned Supergirl Season 2 drawing made hastily when I was thoroughly invested in the Supergirl show and probably reading an absurd amount of Supercorp fanfiction as we all were back in 2017. For those of you who can’t immediately tell what’s going on I’ll describe it from left to right and top to bottom. Starting with James saying “I don’t do a lot this season”, then Mon-El flexing in a mirror “I’m only a good guy to get in Kara’s pants”, Supergirl onlooking the scene in front of her says “Don’t fight please”, while her good friend Lena pats her shoulder and says “It’s ok sweetie”. The scene in the front has Alex with her boot on Winn’s face with the pair saying “Winn, that’s a bad idea” “It’s not THAT bad of an idea”. Maggie Sawyer is standing on a box with a bubble saying “A small proud girlfirend” while J’onn is standing in the background sighing.
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After finding what I was initially looking for, and realizing what a rich treasure trove it was of Supergirl content, the next thing I sought out to find was my oldest Supergirl drawings. While I have been drawing for probably most my life and I have sketchbooks from as far back as middle school, these two drawings seem to be the earliest I could find. They are both definitely from high school and they seem to be from junior or senior year (around 2013-2015). I was pretty thoroughly invested in comics at this time but a lot more focused on the Bat side of things as opposed to Superman and family so the S didn’t show up quite as often so these 2 drawings could very easily be the first Supergirls I ever drew.
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The rest of my drawings I can’t really pinpoint a timeframe for so it won’t so much be in chronological order and more so grouped based on theme. I will preface this drawing by saying I found a lot of Power Girl drawings in my old sketchbooks (not as much as Supergirl of course) but I do generally like to keep Supergirl and Power Girl separate because they deserve to stand on their own as characters. All that being said, I did really like this Power Girl drawing and the way it commanded the space of the page.
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This set of 3 drawings is all part of my attempt at differentiating and defining what I had considered to be the 6 clearly defined versions of Supergirl. In all actuality, after an absurd amount of Supergirl research, I feel like 4 is a better number but it’s also kind of like the 4-6 canon Robins depending on how you count. The 6 Supergirl’s I decided on for this almost-project were Power Girl, Cir-El, Modern Kara Zor-El, Pre-Crisis Kara Zor-El, Linda Danvers/Matrix, and Pre-Flashpoint Kara Zor-El. Like I said, having Kara Zor-El on there 3 times is probably overkill and at most all versions of Kara Zor-El can basically be broken down to be older than Kal or born after Kal on the floating chunk of Argo. Woman of Tomorrow tried to do both and the history doesn’t really make sense with that but that’s another conversation. You can also see here the start of me looking at the S Symbol and how it can have slight variations to define separate Supergirls, which would later become a staple of my Supergirl in the Multiverse series.
These next 5 pieces are all alternate costume designs I put together for Supergirl either leaning more into her Kryptonian heritage (like the first 3), going for a more street clothes look (like the 4th) or just borrowing her sort-of-cousin’s costume (like the 5th). I really like the idea of Supergirl having a more alien costume than Superman and it leans into her history of growing up on Krypton as opposed to growing up on earth. The street clothes variant doesn’t really have any reasoning I just thought it looked cool. Seeing the 90’s Superboy costume on a female figure might make you think back to the unused pitch by Magdalene Visaggio where she wanted to tell a story of Kon -El being a trans woman and going by the name Skyrocket. I’m not positive, but I do think this drawing was made before this pitch saw the light of day or at the very least it was an unrelated drawing. I would love to see the Skyrocket storyline explored somehow.
These next 8 drawings all kind of just fall into standard Supergirl drawings and I don’t have much to say about them. I do like the little splash of color in the the shirt rip drawing and I feel like it adds a nice dynamic flare. Otherwise this is just a standard collection of Supergirl drawings.
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My last little set is a bit of a look at Marvel/DC crossovers. On the left is me drawing Supergirl on the cover of Marvel Ultimate Endgame #1 mostly as a joke, but the right is the never to be explored crossover of Mayday “Spider-Girl” Parker and Cir-El Supergirl. There isn’t too much explanation for the Endgame sketch, I got the Ultimate Endgame blind bag because I thought it would be fun. As you can tell, I got the blank variant in the blind bag and the 10 minute drive home from my comic shop I had the idea of drawing Supergirl on it as a joke. In an attempt to farm content, I took to Bluesky (@spupergirl.bsky.com) to ask my followers if they would like to see that and there was a great response. I had a lot of fun drawing this and I have yet to read the comic (and I probably won’t). Mayday and Cir-El are a great team up and I feel like they would get along and It would be a great story to see in an upcoming Marvel/DC crossover. I imagine there aren’t any DC execs here reading but if you are, I would do it for free.
I hope you enjoyed taking a trip down memory lane with me. I do have a handful of digitally drawn Supergirls that aren’t part of Supergirl in the Multiverse, so if you would like to see those here, let me know and stick around. I do like the idea of keeping an archive of my Supergirl artwork as both a portfolio and a historical record. Also when I was going through my sketchbooks I found this cool alternate Spider-Man drawing I did that I have no other reason to ever show anywhere so enjoy!
Earth-D is the first of the Multiverse that I’ve covered thus far with a letter designation as opposed to a number, although universes 5 (S), 10 (X), and 26 (C) all had Letter designations before the Crisis obliterated them. Earth-D was a universe envisioned by Marv Wolfman as an intended reboot of the DC Universe with a more racially diverse cast of heroes than what was currently in comics. My understanding is that this universe was Wolfman’s pitch as to what would come after Crisis on Infinite Earths and has been compared to the jump from the Golden Age (JSA and the like) to the Silver Age (JLA and others). However, this radical change to the mainstream continuity was not implemented and it would be another decade and a half before this universe came to be seen in a published comic. Legends of the DC Universe: Crisis on Infinite Earths from 1999. This one-shot special was an additional chapter in the Crisis on Infinite Earths event and told of Barry Allen Flash winding up on this earth and helping it face the coming Crisis sweeping the Multiverse. There are minor differences from the Earth-0 we know but its fairly recognizable and well explored in the 48 pages of the special, one change is the prominent super-team is neither the JSA nor the JLA, but the JAA or the Justice Alliance of America. Aside from this one-shot, the universe has yet to show up again, but a similar universe (also called Earth-D) in the Justice League Infinity miniseries. This appearance does have some fairly major differences from the Earth-D proper and with its adjacent nature to the Timmverse, I am choosing to dub this variation Earth-12-D that I may revisit in the future.
As mentioned above, this universe’s main defining trait is its racially diverse cast. This can be seen in Supergirl and Superman’s darker complexion giving them the appearance of African Americans, although they’re not from Africa or America but rather Krypton. Another major difference is in the relationships of major heroes, Hawkman and Hawkgirl aren’t reincarnated soul-mates but rather siblings and likewise Superman and Supergirl aren’t cousins but a married couple. Superman and Supergirl are from Krypton, but they lived very full lives before the planet’s destruction and were even heroes on the planet, leading them to be the chosen representatives to be saved from the planet’s destruction. Aside from their altered origin and relationship status, they seem very similar to their Earth-0 counterparts in personality, powers, and morality.
As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Supergirl of Earth-D is standing in the lower left corner with her hands on her hips and looking up. Behind her is the meeting table of the JAA and in the top right corner is a motif of Supergirl’s S symbol with a D on top of it.
The Daring New Blog of Supergirl 