Sometimes when picking a random Supergirl comic to talk about sometimes I’ll re-roll the random number generator if it’s from a series I’ve covered recently or a book I’ve talked about recently in another post. So when it came up that I should read Adventure 401 as the next entry in Supergirl Surprise after reading Adventure 398 just last month I almost skipped it. However, I did take a look at the cover and saw one of my favorites, Nasty Luthor. Now Nasty hasn’t shown up so far in any major capacity on my blog, but along with Lesla-Lar and Reactron, she’s one of my favorite foils to the girl of steel so I figured I’d dive into what would surely be a wonderful battle of wits between the enemies. Boy oh boy was I wrong. This issue was not particularly good but I think that’s some of the fun of Supergirl Surprise, it’s always a surprise which story I’ll read so let’s dive in and see what this issue has in store.
Adventure Comics #401, from November 1970, starts with a story titled “The Frightened Supergirl” Which had Jack Abel inking, John Costanza lettering, and Mike Sekowsky doing just about everything else including editing. My particular copy of this book is quite bad shape with a cover that’s nearly ripped in half but aside from a bit of a panel on page 9 missing, it’s still in perfectly readable condition and 55 years old so I can’t be too upset. The story is told from the perspective of Nasty Luthor as she relays the story of how she captured Supergirl to her uncle Lex which starts with Nasty attending a luncheon at Stanhope College honoring Supergirl’s achievements. Here is where Nasty puts her plan into action.
Nasty puts a Fear Formula, invented by the genius that is Lex Luthor, into Supergirl’s water that she needs because she’s so parched giving her speech. This Fear Formula, as the name suggests, causes Supergirl to be terribly afraid of everything like spiders and rats and even a boy dressed up like a cowboy. The Frightened Supergirl is not only frightened, but also running around like a bull in a China shop absolutely destroying anything in her path as she tries to flee to safety.
Police are unable to subdue the girl of steel, but Nasty offers her help and is able to get Supergirl into her care with gentle and kind words. Nasty then takes her back to her hideout and frightens her again with a rat. Nasty and Lex are thrilled at the success of their Fear Formula and look to show it off at the next crime convention, but not before Nasty has a bit of fun.
Nasty has acquired a special remote control car that will follow a sensor that can be clipped to anything, including Supergirl’s cape. Nasty puts the sensor onto Supergirl, which causes the car to chase her and in Supergirl’s rush to safety away from the car she can never escape she destroys the building that the Luthors are in and it seems nothing can stop the frightened Supergirl’s rampage when suddenly…
We find out it was all a dream. That’s it. Story’s over. Nothing happened and nothing mattered. Jan Butler, Linda’s roommate stumbles in with the same remote control car that was in her dream. As it may be apparent, “it was all a dream” stories kind of bother me, as it feels like the story just doesn’t matter and it’s a waste of time. I think this story especially isn’t great because it is also Nasty’s second appearance and is referenced in the Direct Currents page as a big deal that she’s back, and since it’s just a dream it’s kind of like Nasty wasn’t really in the story at all.
While we’re talking about Direct Currents, let’s take a look at the whole page. My understanding is that Direct Currents was a running feature in all the DC books being published and it served as a bit of promotion to get DC readers interested in the rest of the books in their line. The first title mentioned here is Strange Adventures which I’ve been getting into recently since they often have nice one and done science fiction stories. The Atomic Knights are also mentioned and long time followers of the blog might remember the Atomic Knights from my Earth-17 entry of Supergirl in the Multiverse. On the right side of the page, we get mention of Adventure Comics itself which has the mention of Nasty’s return to menace Supergirl. There is also mention of the backup feature starring Tracy Thompson who debuts this issue. I did read this backup story and it didn’t really interest me, it was a sort of horror/ghost story but it wasn’t particularly interesting and I can’t imagine the character stayed around for very long.
The next 2 pages are advertising “A new beginning for Superman” and it has a couple panels exploring the evolution of Superman as a character all to get readers hyped up for Superman in 1971. We do also get 1 panel previews of the other Superman related titles and Supergirl gets a panel showcasing her new costume that she began using back in Adventure 397.
Most of the letters on the Super Fe-Mail page are talking about people’s like or dislike of Supergirl’s new costume and while it isn’t my favorite Supergirl costume by any means, it has grown on me slightly, although if I was reading the comics in 1970 I probably would have been on the side against this particular costume. I didn’t notice any interesting ads this time out but before I go I did want to let you know there were 21 panels in the Supergirl story where Supergirl was screaming.
The Amalgam Universe was born from the cross dimensional being known as Access during the pages of Marvel vs. DC back in 1996. This birthed a total of 24 one-shot comics spread across 2 waves that showed stories of characters that were amalgamations of characters from the DC and Marvel universes. The Amalgam universe has several numeric designations such as 1996, 962, 9602, and 496 as well as just being referred to as the Amalgamverse. My coverage of this universe will feature 5 entries for Supergirl in the Multiverse and my initial plan was to use some of these alternative number designations for each. However, to make categorizing them easier I will just be using what seems to be the most likely DC designation of 496.
As mentioned above, the Amalgam universe would take a character from the DC universe and one from the Marvel (sometimes more than 2 characters would merge). There are 2 canonical Amalgam characters that fit the Supergirl role, but I am also going to be putting together 3 of my own amalgamated Supergirls. This time out is one of the canonical ones, American Girl. American Girl is an amalgamation of Supergirl, specifically the Pre-Crisis Kara Zor-El version, and Bucky Barnes. This character only shows up as part of the Amalgam Universe trading cards, specifically the Classic Power Blast series in a card titled Secret Crisis of the Infinity Hour #7. This card, like all cards in this series, is an homage and for Secret Crisis of the Infinity Hour #7, it is an homage to Crisis on Infinite Earths #7. Super Soldier stands in for Superman and the now deceased American Girl stands in for Supergirl. The back of the card mentions that “although American Girl was patterned after his old partner, the two characters had never met before this issue.” This is cleared up a bit more in the Secret Crisis of the Infinity Hour Canvas Cards set, specifically #9, which mentions American Girl was Super Soldier’s successor, as well as naming her Carol Barnes. While I couldn’t find any specific “old partner” in either Super Soldier or Super Soldier: Man of War, this seems to be referencing a Bucky Barnes type. American Girl being Super Soldier’s successor points to the possibility that after Super Soldier’s icy fate after his face off with Ultra-Metallo, perhaps the Super Soldier formula was used on another person, Carol Barnes, granting her similar super-abilities.
As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. American Girl is taking up the center foreground, running towards the viewer. She is running down a path with fields on either side of it. The top right corner has a motif of American Girl’s symbol with a 496 on top of it.
The DC Book of Lists is a book by Randall Lotowycz that takes the 85 years of history (at the time) of DC Comics and reorganizes legacies, histories, and hierarchies – as it mentions on the cover – as well as loads of other information into easy to digest list format. Published by Running Press and released in 2021, this is a fun book that seems to have a lot of research put into it and, by Lotowycz’s own admission, doesn’t care about continuity resets and instead takes the entire history of DC when organizing such topics as Superman and Batman’s first meetings (page 64), all the colors of Kryptonite (page 115), and all the times we’ve seen Darkseid sitting down (page 105). While the book has an absurd amount of references to the girl of steel (as you might be able to tell by the mess of post it notes in my copy shown above) but today I’m going to focus specifically on the 2 pages Lotowycz dedicated specifically to Supergirl, and specifically when she strayed a bit from the heroic ideal.
I’ve had a wonderful time reading through this book over the past week or so, but my biggest issue with it is that it doesn’t always give issue numbers for the stories and characters it references. I do understand that it’s probably an insurmountable task when you’re talking about 242 pages of non-stop facts. That being said, the fact that some of the lists do reference specific issue numbers (like the list of times Suicide Squad members died in the field on page 4), just makes the lists without feel a bit underdeveloped. Because of this, I’m going to take the 13 baddie Supergirl’s that are listed on pages 145 and 146 and do my best to give you at home a good editors note on where to find out more about each not-so-good maid of might.
The first entry, which also has an image associated with it, is titled “Black Magic”. This is one of the entries from the list that I wasn’t particularly familiar with so tracking down the issue (Action Comics #324), and reading the story was a fun diversion into wacky silver age comics. I do really love the silver age Supergirl stories and this is no exception. Supergirl encounters a weird guy, gets into some shenanigans that cause her to grow devil horns and go evil, and by page 13 everything is right back to normal like nothing happened. It’s fun, it’s exciting, and the story features probably the only iteration of “Flame Kryptonite”.
Next up is “Brain on Fire” and readers of the current Supergirl comics may be familiar with the character this entry is referencing, Nightflame. Nightflame first showed up in Adventure Comics #421, and isn’t quite a bad version of Supergirl in my opinion, but more so the Innerverse version of all of Supergirl who lets all her bad thoughts come to life and tries to get control of Supergirl’s body. It’s possible I’m in the minority but Nightflame isn’t one of my favorite pre-crisis Supergirl villains so maybe my reaction to her inclusion here is a bit biased.
“Bad Hair Day” was the other of the entries that I didn’t know right off the bat, but it comes from Supergirl #8 from 1972 in a story appropriately titled “A Head-Full of Snakes!” This story opens with Linda rehearsing for a play at Vandyre University where she is playing the role of Medusa. She then gets cursed by the actual Medusa’s ghost and she gets cursed to start turning anyone she looks at to stone. This story actually has a similar story structure to the one from Action Comics #324 with Supergirl helping someone at the start, getting cursed where she turns on her fellow heroes, and then everything just going right back to normal at the end. A perfectly serviceable story but I do feel like “turn people to stone” doesn’t have quite as much potential as “devil ring that gives you 3 wishes” so it doesn’t quite hold up to me.
From here we move into the Matrix era of the list with “Identity Crisis” and while this isn’t a reference to the critically acclaimed miniseries of the same name from 2005, it is a story where Supergirl thinks she’s Superman and tries to take out the man of steel all while sporting a gray and brown costume that’s particularly striking. This storyline went for a few issues in 1989 across the various Superman titles of the time, I’ve got Action Comics #644 called out specifically here for the simply astounding George Pérez cover that really shows off the brown and gray version of Superman’s costume that Matrix is wearing.
After many months of being in a relationship with Lex Luthor II (who was actually just Lex Luthor I with better hair), Matrix finally finds out that he’s bad news in her 1984 miniseries Supergirl (Vol. 3). The image shown here is from the cover to issue 4 of the mini and shows Supergirl’s reaction to finding out Lex had been cloning her for nefarious deeds and Superman is trying his darndest to stop her from killing Lex. Does this really count as Supergirl going bad if she’s just getting Lex back for being a tool? That’s for you to decide! I will say this is one of my favorite alternate Supergirl costumes and was used as inspiration for me in my most recent Supergirl in the Multiverse post on Super-She-Hulk.
Very soon after the Matrix merged with human (earth-born angel) Linda Danvers, the hero got her mind taken over by a certain gorilla named Grodd in Supergirl (Vol. 4) #3, but issue #4 is where she really starts getting up to monkey business. The cover to #4 seems to be referencing Angel and the Ape, another DC property, with the tagline “The Ape and the Devil”, and throughout the issue Supergirl is under the thrall of the psychic ape. It takes Linda seeing her father endangered by her actions, and a little help from Wally, to break free of Grodd’s influence and back to rights, but she does eventually overcome the fiend.
“Matrix Returns” is actually a story I referenced way back in my Supergirl vs. Supergirl Part 2, specifically 1999’s Supergirl #30. Once again this storyline took place over many issues and eventually ends with Linda overpowering the gooier version of herself but not before Superman steps in and it’s finally revealed to him that Matrix isn’t just a protoplasmic organism anymore and is actually merged with a sort of human.
That was the last of the Matrix era entries and now we move up to the Pre-Flashpoint Kara Zor-El and her first bad girl form “Welcome to the Dark Side”. Once again this is a storyline I covered from the Superman/Batman title in my post Superman/Batman: Apocalypse. This was the second story arc of the title and served as the re-introduction of Kara Zor-El who had been absent in comics since her death in Crisis on Infinite Earths. The story arc started in issue 8 of the title, but issue 12 has the cover that shows off Baddie Kara the best. I did want to note, in regards to this entry, this story got mentioned fairly recently in the pages of New History of the DC Universe by Mark Waid and Kara being under Darkseid’s control was actually how Waid tied the pre-crisis and post-crisis Kara Zor-El characters together. In my opinion I think it’s a really smart approach and feels like a pretty seamless way to merge the 2 characters without too much retconning.
Kara would soon get her own title after re-debuting in Superman/Batman, but would quickly get split into “Supergirl Black, Supergirl Blue” by Lex Luthor using black Kryptonite. This split happened in the back half of Supergirl (Vol. 5) #3 (I covered the first half of this issue in Nightwing and the 4 Supergirls) after Supergirl left the Outsiders she got ambushed by Lex Luthor who instigated the split and it would take until issue 5 (shown above) before the pair recombined with a little help from Wonder Woman and the Lasso of Truth.
Speaking of Wonder Woman, “Executive Mistake” refers to the Amazons Attack event (the 2007 one not the 2023 one) where Supergirl and Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark) tried their best to help out and ended up probably causing more harm than good. The event as a whole was a 6 issue mini-series as well as a handful of tie in issues but the cover I always think of when thinking of this event is the one show above from Supergirl (Vol 5) #20 which I’m pretty sure is when the event the entry is referencing happened.
Much like the last entry, “Supergirl at the End of the World” also references a “bad Supergirl” that wasn’t under the influence of anything and was doing what she thought in her heart was right. Unfortunately what she thought was right was heavily influenced by H’El who was obviously manipulating her throughout the H’El on Earth crossover which ran for a handful of months through all the Super titles in 2013, specifically Supergirl (Vol. 6) #14-17.
“Raging Out” of course refers to Kara’s brief stint as a Red Lantern and my personal favorite Supergirl arc from the New 52. The arc started in Green Lantern #28 and would continue on in the Supergirl and Red Lantern titles for the next few months until Supergirl would remove the ring and return to her normal red/blue slightly-less-angry self. The story arc would explore Kara’s anger about her home world being destroyed and all the nonsense that she had gone through since landing on earth.
The final entry is one I am familiar with and is shown referenced on the page, from Supergirl (Vol. 7) #36, although I don’t think I’ve read the whole event. “Supergirl the Infected” is referencing the Year of the Villain and specifically Supergirl the Infected. In my defense however, this is an event heavily influenced by the Batman Who Laughs and I cannot stand that loser.
And that brings us to the end of the list. I think this was a fun look and it was an interesting thing to list in regards to the girl of steel. This sort of off-the-wall list grouping is pretty common in this book and it makes for a much more exciting and fun read as opposed to a strictly referential text. As I mentioned before, my main issue with the book is that it doesn’t list issue numbers all the time. I will say that when I went through the Supergirl entries, it was hard to nail down a single issue for some of the entries so I can see where sometimes it would be tricky. Another minor issue, for the Supergirl list specifically, is the exclusion of Satan Girl! Satan Girl is like the epitome of Supergirl going bad (and if you want to read more about her check out my blog post on her here). Thanks so much for reading and if you’d like me to go over the rest of Supergirl’s mentions from the book let me know and be ssure to check out this book as a whole if you can.
The Amalgam Universe was born from the cross dimensional being known as Access during the pages of Marvel vs. DC back in 1996. This birthed a total of 24 one-shot comics spread across 2 waves that showed stories of characters that were amalgamations of characters from the DC and Marvel universes. The Amalgam universe has several numeric designations such as 1996, 962, 9602, and 496 as well as just being referred to as the Amalgamverse. My coverage of this universe will feature 5 entries for Supergirl in the Multiverse and my initial plan was to use some of these alternative number designations for each. However, to make categorizing them easier I will just be using what seems to be the most likely DC designation of 496.
As mentioned above, the Amalgam universe would take a character from the DC universe and one from the Marvel (sometimes more than 2 characters would merge). There are 2 canonical Amalgam characters that fit the Supergirl role, but I am also going to be putting together 3 of my own amalgamated Supergirls starting with Super-She-Hulk. This is obviously an amalgamation of Jen “She-Hulk” Walters and Supergirl, but I did base this specifically on the protoplasmic shape changing Matrix Supergirl, partly because these 2 characters appear together in a panel in the DC vs. Marvel crossover extravaganza, but also because I had a good idea for the character herself.
Everyone knows Mae Walters, she is one of the most famous super heroes of the West Coast, Super-Girl, and is often see helping out wherever she can with a friendly face. That is as long as you don’t make her angry, you won’t like her when she’s angry. When angered, Mae looses control of her protoplasmic form and she changes shape into the hulking aggressive monster known only as Super-She-Hulk!
As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Super-Girl is shown in the foreground and behind her is her much larger, much angrier, Super-She-Hulk form that is crumbling the ground beneath her. The background has a pink-purple sky. There is a large yellow question mark on the left side of the page with the text “Is she HERO or is she MONSTER”. The top right corner has the symbol of Super-She-Hulk with a 496 on top of it.
Supergirl and Batgirl came in to prominence and popularity fairly quickly in the silver age and while Supergirl had a few years head start, both characters would come to be some of the more well known super heroines in comics. The 2 issues of World’s Finest that I’ll be covering today are the first and second meetings of the pair although neither of them are quite team-ups in the strictest sense. Supergirl showed up a few times in World’s Finest prior to 169, and while I’m sure to cover them at some point, this is just a look at the Supergirl/Batgirl meetings in the title.
Both of these stories feature some kind of twist at the end and this will be a synopsis of the stories so if you do not want to be spoiled on either of these stories, maybe read the books and come back. Unfortunately these books are not on the DC Universe Infinite app so you’ll have to find some back issues or some of the collected editions that feature these stories. World’s Finest 169 from 1967 was written by Cary Bates, had pencils from Curt Swan, inks by George Klein, and letters from Joe Letterese. The story was titled “The Supergirl-Batgirl Plot” but we’ll come to find out that title may be a bit misleading.
Jumping right in, the splash page shows Superman and Batman pretty down on their luck, while the young female heroes are bragging about it to one another on the phone. The story then begins with Supergirl flying “somewhere between Stanhope College and Gotham City” when she is suddenly attacked by a giant cloud hand! She is unable to break free and Batgirl happens to see this unfortunate attack taking place and tries to lend a hand. While both girls are then captured and the hand is unbeatable by either party, a little bit of teamwork, radiation from Sueprgirl’s x-ray vision, and a bomb from Batgirl’s bag, the pair are able to break free.
We then see Superman and Batman in Gotham attending a celebration and being recognized by having their costumes and other paraphernalia put into a time capsule to be opened again in 500 years (see you again in 2467). Both Linda (Supergirl) Danvers and Barbara (Batgirl) Gordon see this ordeal on television and make a mental note to themselves that there will be some changes to make the male heroes stop looking so much better that the equally fantastic Supergirl and Batgirl.
From here we get a bit of a montage of Superman and Batman appearing a bit less heroic in times of needs and the girls picking up the slack. Superman and Batman seem to suspect the pair of super heroines at this point but are un-prepared for what happens next. Supergirl has stolen the Fortress of Solitude (and apparently Superman’s powers) and Batgirl has emptied out the Bat-cave leaving the man of steel and the dynamic duo helpless.
Chapter 2 of the story, Clash of the Super-Teams!, continues right after. Batman and Robin have found the Bat-Plane stashed outside of the Bat-Cave which they fly to the arctic and find Superman stranded. Batman and Robin seem to still be able to continue on in their crime fighting ways, but on a mission Robin seems to disappear with the Bat-Plane leaving just the caped crusader by himself.
Batman, now on his own, passes the powerless Superman hitch-hiking outside Metropolis and the pair set to work together to finally put a stop to those conniving females. Unfortunately they soon blow out a tire on the batmobile and are quickly approached by the heroines who are there to have a showdown. Pairing up, Superman (with his powers restored) faces off against Supergirl who hurtles a Kryptonite asteroid at him while Batgirl attempts to take out Batman with a large pair of scissors.
Superman and Batman are able to take out these foe-ish super gals only to find out that they’re Black Flame and Catwoman in disguise (as Supergirl and Batgirl respectively). The fiendish pair of villainesses explain their plan to the World’s Finest pair and show the real Supergirl and Batgirl tied up nearby. But it isn’t actually the real Supergirl and Batgirl. The real Supergirl and Batgirl come in to reveal the second twist of the story.
The imposters weren’t actually Black Flame and Catwoman, they were none other than Mxyzptlk and Bat-Mite who are revealed to have been taking bets on which of their hero’s would solve the mystery first. Mxy wins the bet and instead of Bat-Mite actually giving him the earned 100 Magic Units, the fiendish imp instead tricks Mxyzptlk into saying his name backwards thus banishing him to the 5th dimension for 90 days. Bat-Mite reveals he only did all that to get rid of Mxy for a while and everything will be back to normal as if the past 18 pages had never happened.
A particularly wacky story, and while I did enjoy the premise of Supergirl and Batgirl teaming up to usurp their male counterparts, the plot gets a bit ruined for me personally by the reveal that Supergirl and Batgirl technically don’t actually do much in the story. I do have another minor gripe, although this time it’s not the fault of the story. For those who may remember, I did a post about Black Flame a few weeks ago where I thought I had read all her appearances, but this issue was not included in the list I looked at for my research. I understand that it wasn’t actually Black Flame, but rather Mxy in disguise, I do think this should still count as a cameo by Black Flame at the very least. If nothing else this just gives me further cause to do a follow up Black Flame post in the future.
Moving into our second feature, The Superman-Batman Split, from 1968. This story was written once again by Cary Bates, this time with penciling by Neal Adams, inks by Dick Giordano, and letters by Gaspar Saladino. This story thankfully does feature Supergirl and Batgirl, although I wouldn’t necessarily count it as a team up between them, and they are treated more as supporting characters this time as the story features Superman and Batman much more prominently.
Getting into it, Clark (Superman) Kent is on assignment for the Daily Planet and we seem him starting up an interview with one of his favorite actors Ronald Jason. Terror soon strikes as the actor reveals to the intrepid reporter that he knows Clark Kent is Superman and proves it by launching a chemical bomb at the reporter which leaves him in just his indestructible Superman costume. This isn’t the only reveal however, as the actor too removes his clothing to reveal he is an alien from the Sirius System named Dur and he needs Superman’s help.
Meanwhile in the Bat-Cave, Batman encounters an uninvited guest in his private quarters named Tiron. Tiron too is an alien from the Sirius System and lets the caped crusader know that Superman has been tricked by Dur and we find out that Dur isn’t an official of the planet but instead a killer and Tiron needs Batman’s help to stop the threat.
Batman seeks to even the playing field a bit with his own Kryptoinan that he seeks out at Stanhope College. Batman and Supergirl think together and come to the conclusion that surely Superman must be keeping Dur at the Fortress of Solitude and head straight there. The man of steel is waiting for them however and a tussle between the 2 most powerful being ensues. Batman uses this opportunity to sneak in and find Dur. Superman too quickly takes out Supergirl and easily cages the dark knight and is able to relocate Dur to another secure location. Supergirl has now freed Batman and Superman has re-secured Dur promising to get a partner himself now.
Part 2 of the story, A Tale of 3 Teams, opens with Superman fulfilling his promise and we find out the partner he had in mind was none other than Batgirl. His method of contacting her, dressing up as a statue gone wild, is a bit odd, but I do like this story teaming up Batman and Supergirl and Superman and Batgirl in a subversion of expectations so I’ll let it slide. Batgirl gets filled in on the goings on and we are introduced to the aforementioned 3rd team which is Robin and Jimmy Olsen.
Jimmy and Robin, using hidden cameras, apparently find out the real secret of the 2 aliens and attempt to rush to the scene when they are met with a sleeping gas putting them out of commission.
From her the real battle that was teased on the cover comes to a head as Superman, Batman, Supergirl, AND Batgirl all begin battling it out. Batman dons some Kryptonite gloves to take on Superman while Supergirl is momentarily thwarted by some goo from Batgirl’s bag. The tables turn as Supergirl uses her heat vision to burn off the sticky substance and Superman gets Batman tied up with his cape. This all comes to a stop however when Tiron, watching the battle unfold on the sidelines, collapses.
From here we get the major twist of the story. Tiron reveals that he isn’t an alien at all, but Ronald Jason in disguise and furthermore Dur doesn’t exist either and was another of Jason’s acts. Ronald Jason tells the gang of heroes of his brother Desmond, who was a scientist that made many gadgets and gizmos, but more startling was the fact that his brother found out that Batman had the same voice print as Bruce Wayne, and Superman had the same voice print as Clark Kent. Soon after this discovery, an explosion at the lab occurs leaving Desmond dead and Ronald exposed to enough radiation that he too will soon perish. Instead of pulling a fiendish act now knowing the greatest secret of all, Ronald instead thinks of a character he can play. Using some of the recovered gadgets from his brother’s destroyed lab, Ronald invents 2 new roles and attempts to have his final act be “the greatest performance of all time”.
After Ronald Jason reveals his story, he then passes away and Robin and Jimmy finally show up on the scene and we find out that this is the secret they discovered earlier before getting hit with sleeping gas. Once again there is a twist as we find out Superman knew all along and simply played along with Jason so he could fulfill his final acting role. Superman used his knowledge of the planet Dur told him about and his x-ray vision revealed that the alien face was just a mask. Superman also filled Batman in on the goings on at some point but the two decided that it would be best if they continued on to let Jason have his final wish. Supergirl and Batgirl however weren’t told of this and they were rightfully pissed since they had been fighting for real.
I do much prefer this latter story to the first, but the last page where Superman tells everyone he knew the whole time really undercuts it. It somewhat takes away from Ronald Jason’s story and turns him from a clever and effective actor to someone helpless that Superman is just playing along with. I feel like Jimmy and Robin’s involvement in this story is also unneeded since they really didn’t do much and their removal wouldn’t really change anything. Everything up to and including Jason telling everyone it was all an act was a really engaging story to me and felt like a perfectly reasonable plot line that could get Superman, Batman, Supergirl, and Batgirl to fight each other. I do wish that at least one of these stories had Supergirl and Batgirl actually working together, but there is an issue of Adventure Comics that is a more proper Supergirl/Batgirl team as well as a Superman Family issue so the duo do get their time to shine as a team. Let me know what you think of these stories and if you think I should cover the other Supergirl/Batgirl stories!
The Daring New Blog of Supergirl 