The Daring new Blog of Supergirl

Supergirl is making a pretty impressive push this year in comics with her new ongoing series as well as some one shots and specials and original graphic novels all releasing in buildup to her new movie set to come out in June later this year. DC’s Supergirl Next Door that came out just a couple days ago is one of these specials and it falls in with the rest of DC’s quarterly (I think) holiday anthologies. Supergirl also appeared in the last anthology I Saw Ma Hunkel Kissing Santa Claus as well as the one from last Summer, Kal-El-Fornia Love. I’m going to go over all three of these Supergirl stories today starting with the most recent and working backwards.

A Dream of Different Stars is the lead story in 2026’s Supergirl Next Door and can somewhat be seen as the cover story but the cover, by Amy Reeder, and the story don’t really match so I wouldn’t necessarily say they’re related. This story was written by CRC Payne, art by Paulina Ganucheau, color by Kendall Goode, and letters by Lucas Gattoni. This is a cute 10 page story from the point of view of Linda Danver’s next door neighbor named Allen. Allen is shown to be a fairly unpopular kid, even referring to himself as “invisible”, but this doesn’t stop his new neighbor Linda from dropping in on him to look at the stars together.

At this point we find out Linda has been sneaking up onto Allen’s roof for some time now since it has a better view of the stars. This seems to be a tradition for the pair and we see a few other nights of the pair looking at the stars and chatting late into the night. Linda begins telling Allen of dreams she has of a different night sky and different stars and it’s a memory of Linda’s birth parents and her dad telling her the names of the stars and constellations. Linda tells Allen of some of the constellations like Flamebird and Nightwing before we go into a brief montage of Allen working on a project in his room.

Allen shows Linda what he’s been working on and we see that it is a homemade planetarium that lights up his room with the stars Linda dreams about. As I mentioned above, this is a very cute story and does a great job at showing Supergirl’s history with Krypton without getting too heavy with it. It shows her with a sadness about her but still shows her having a good life and making friends. This is part of the Valentine’s Day special and this is told as a Valentine’s Day story (Allen presents the planetarium on Valentine’s Day), but Linda and Allen’s relationship reads as purely platonic to me and it felt rather refreshing. The anthology as a whole did a good job at showing many different types of love not necessarily romantic and it led to some surprising team ups that wouldn’t seem like immediate choices for a Valentine’s Day special so I would absolutely recommend picking it up.

Moving on to I Saw Ma Hunkel Kissing Santa Claus, and the story Holiday Woes. Featured above is the variant cover to the book by Ryan Sook, and the Supergirl story is written by Ash Padilla, pencils by Anthony Marques, inks by J.Bone, Colors by Nick Filardi, and letters by Steve Wands. This story has Kara being invited to the Kent farm in Smallville for Christmas where Clark has set up his cousin on a blind date with Pete Ross’s son. A lot of this 10 page story is Kara worrying about her super-heroic responsibilities in National City, but we’re soon introduced to Kara’s blind date (or are we?)

This “Ambush date”, as Lois puts it, doesn’t do much talking and mostly let’s Kara lead the conversation, but we do find out he’s something of a computer scientist. Their conversation gets interupted by Supergirl having to rush off to save the day no less than 3 times, but her not-quite-date sticks around and continues to listen to her vent. Kara talks about feeling like the whole world is on her shoulders and she doesn’t have time to devote to herself and figuring out who she is when she’s not “working” when her companion gives her some great advice about having friends and family that are helping her out and that even if other people don’t look like they’re unbothered might have the same struggles she’s having.

After this her date seems to disappear, and Kara catches back up to Lois and Clark who found Jonathan Ross, her blind date, and Kara realizes the person she had been talking to was not the ambush date at all. Kara tells Jonathan she’s not in the mood for a date and would rather spend time with her family. At this point we find out that the person Kara had been talking to was none other than Brainiac 5 from the Legion of Super-Heroes! This long time love interest of Supergirl is probably my number 1 pick for a boyfriend for Supergirl so I got really excited with this final panel reveal. On a whole, I didn’t really care for this story and this Supergirl didn’t particularly feel in line with the current era of Supergirl so it felt a bit disjointed and the only real enjoyment I got out of it was the inclusion of the future green boy.

“Something in the Water” was the Supergirl story from Kal-El-Fornia Love and it was written by George Mann, drawn by Travis Mercer, with colors by Andrew Dalhouse, and letters by Michael McCalister. Supergirl teaming up with Constantine was an absolutely bonkers concept that I was excited for from the time it got announced and I have to say that the team delivered on the story.

On the beach, Supergirl witnesses a sea monster attack which leads to a particularly stunning costume change sequence and then our hero promptly gets taken out by the sea monster. Supergirl, now beaten and tossed back onto the beach, is approached by everyone’s favorite smoking magician, John Constantine.

John introduces himself as a “sorcerer, nonsmoker, legendary lover of women. And only one of those things isn’t true” he of course says this while smoking so everyone can figure out the lie. Constantine at least has the decency to replace Supergirl’s ice cream that she dropped before letting her know she’s up against an extra dimensional demon monster that they have to take out together.

Even with a handful of British colloquialisms preventing Supergirl from having any idea of what her partner is saying, the pair are able to work together and save the beach and get the monster back to where it belongs. The pair go off to celebrate their win with hot dogs and finish off what is my favorite of these 3 stories. This story feels really well written that tells a fun and exciting tale while portraying both heroes quite successfully in my opinion. This is the most action packed of the 3 stories, but I don’t think that’s why I preferred it. I think most my enjoyment came from the absurd team-up and how the pair were handled throughout. There’s also a panel at the end of Supergirl eating a hot dog that really resonates with me.

Before giving my final thoughts, I did want to discuss these stories in continuity. The most recent of these stories, “A Dream of Different Stars”, takes place immediately after Linda “Supergirl” Danvers gets adopted and I can absolutely see this story existing as part of the current Supergirl ongoing title, the only thing that feels a bit off is the fact that Linda doesn’t mask her blonde hair at all. It does also fit in with the silver age stories where she didn’t openly use her powers at first since we only see Supergirl in costume as part of a flashback/dream sequence from Linda. The team up with John Constantine doesn’t mention any specific cities or co-stars that would interfere with current continuity and it seems to be Supergirl taking a day off to go to the beach which could easily work within continuity. “Holiday Woes” is truly the outlier here with the mention of National City. National City is of course the home base for the girl of steel in the CBS/CW television series, but in comics she only operated in the city for about a year and a half, so when stories or external media (like the card I mentioned in Supergirl Trading Cards Part 2) mention it as her base of operations I feel a bit disconnected. The characterization of Kara in that story also didn’t quite seem to fit more recent depictions of Supergirl and once again kind of felt more like the tv show as opposed to the comic. With all that, I can whole heartedly recommend both “Something in the Water” and “A Dream of Different Stars”, while “Holiday Woes” didn’t do much for me aside from the Brainiac 5 reveal and a much more successful story (in my opinion) about Supergirl not being particularly in the holiday spirit can be read in Sophie Campbell’s Supergirl #8 also from last month. Let me know your thoughts on these stories and if you want me to cover more of these anthology comics, there are a handful more where Supergirl shows up and I’d love to read them.

Long time readers may recall my original Supergirl Trading Cards post, and at the end of that post I mentioned that if I got enough new Supergirl trading cards I would do a part 2. Now with an additional 5 cards in my collection I figure now is a great time to show an updated look at my Supergirl card collection. Much like last time I’ll show the cards, talk about where I got them, and mention any other thoughts I have on each card.

Both this and the next card I’ll show are from the DC OverPower Card Game. While OverPower started in 1995, it would be 1996 before DC characters were added to the game. Much like the VS System I talked about last time, I’ve never played this card game and I have no idea how it works. What I do know however is that I found this card in a box full of a bunch of other superhero cards that were all 5 cents each so I can’t imagine they’re particularly popular. The card being called “Telekinetic Shield” is a good reminder that this Supergirl is not Kryptonian and instead a sort of psychic goo being. I don’t recognize the art from anything specific and I would guess it’s original. I don’t see the artist specifically called out but there do seem to be some signatures that read “SAI” and a second one that I’m unable to decipher.

Here we have another OverPower card this one being “Levitation”. If I recall correctly, this may also be a not to the Matrix Supergirl who uses her psychic power to levitate as opposed to flying but I could be remembering that incorrectly. The effect of this card reads “No Universe cards may be played against Supergirl for the remainder of battle.” This got me curious as to what that means. Universe cards sound like they mean business so being immune for the rest of the battle seems pretty good. After looking into it, it does seem like Universe cards are pretty powerful and it seems like both of these cards are Special cards that can be used with their respective hero cards in what I can only assume is this games version of attacking. Once again this card has the same 2 signatures but no specific artist names listed.

Moving from one dead card game to another, we now get what I’m pretty sure is Cir-El’s only official piece of merchandise. Cir-El was the main universe Supergirl for about a year in 2003 which was perfect timing for her to get a card in the Team Superman set of VS System. Comparing this card to the Kara Zor-El Supergirl covered last time, Cir-El seems to come in a bit under in regards to power level which lines up with her being only half Kryptonian as opposed to full blooded. “Daughter of Tomorrow” is a really good moniker for Supergirl that I don’t know if I’ve seen outside of this card but I might start implementing it some in my writing. “The product of an alternate timeline created by the Futuresmiths, Cir-El is the daughter of Superman and Lois Lane.” Really is the best way to describe this version of Supergirl and in such a brief sentence too. The illustrator is listed here as Richard Friend who I’m not familiar with but they did a good job with the card.

This next item maybe doesn’t exactly count as a card, but it fits here better than anywhere else and I’m not sure when else to talk about it. This was included as part of a collection of artworks from a sort of book called “DC Comics: The New 52: The Poster Collection” this little book came with “40 removable posters” which I grabbed both the Supergirl and Nightwing “posters” from. These are sized more like postcards than posters and are on a sort of cardstock. Unlike the other cards covered today, this art is repurposed from the cover to Supergirl (vol. 6) #1 by Mahmud Asrar and Dave McCaig. I talked more about it in my Supergirl in the Multiverse Earth-52 post, but I’ve really grown on the New 52 costume and I think this poster is a great piece for my collection.

Last but not least, although it is the smallest card I have, this little card that came with a Wendy’s toy! I mentioned it in my Action Figure post, but what I didn’t mention was that I actually had this card already when I wrote up my first trading card post. Getting this card actually somewhat inspired me to make the first trading card blog entry, but somehow I forgot to include it. Nevertheless we’re here now and we can talk about this weird relic of specifically National City era Supergirl. If this card didn’t say it was from 2023 I would’ve guessed 2016 or 2017 because that was really the only time in comics where Supergirl operated in National City, although her story in I Saw Ma Hunkle Kissing Santa Claus also mentioned the city. Aside from the somewhat odd inclusion of National City (which is probably the best know home base for the girl of steel thanks to a certain 6 season show) the rest of the information presented here is standard Supergirl information. I do quite like the art (which is also a very 2017 costume for Supergirl) it’s got a nice cartoony pop but it doesn’t say who the artist is.

If you haven’t already, definitely check out my first Trading Card post, that entry had a lot more cards that came with figures as opposed to this more card game heavy entry. Also if you know who the artists are on the OverPower or Wendy’s cards please let me know so I can credit them properly. Finding out that the OverPower cards I have aren’t even the main character card definitely means I have more cards to track down. I also learned about HeroClix recently which is somewhere between trading cards and figures and I know Supergirl has at least a few of those. With all that being said, there is a very strong possibility of a part 3 coming at some point in the future so be on the lookout!

You can probably guess at this point that I’m a pretty big fan of Supergirl, what you might not be aware of is that I’m equally into Nightwing. Nightwing, the Dick Grayson one, first appeared as Nightwing in Tales of the Teen Titans #44 in 1984 and by 2005 he had met and interacted with 4 separate variations of the maid of might. A single Nightwing meeting 4 different Supergirls in a mess of continuity resets and revisions while Nightwing’s history remained relatively unchanged is what I want to discuss here. The 4 Supergirls are; Pre-Crisis Kara Zor-El, Matrix Supergirl, Cir-El, and Post-Crisis Supergirl. The Pre-Crisis interaction and the interaction with Cir-El are rather brief so I’ll only cover them briefly, and I’ll mostly focus on The Batman Chronicles #20 and Supergirl (Vol. 5) #3.

I’ve had this thought in my mind for a while and its partly because I was positive Nightwing would have been included in the group shot of all the heroes shown in Supergirl (Vol. 2) #20. It even proclaims on the cover that the New Teen Titans are in the book! I was just as surprised as anyone else to find out Nightwing does not show up and it’s because Supergirl #20 released the month before Tales of the Teen Titans #44. I worried briefly that maybe the Pre-Crisis Supergirl never met Nightwing before her untimely demise, but both heroes do show up in Crisis and even stand near one another on the Monitor’s satellite so it’s reasonable that they could’ve had some conversation.

The Nightwing story in Batman Chronicles #20 is just one of 3 stories from the issue and is titled “The Rage of Angels”. Written by Ian Edginton, penciled by Mshindo Kuumba, inked by Bob Almond, with colors by Noelle Giddings and letters by Ken Lopez. This, of all the comics I’m covering in this post, is the most interaction we have between Supergirl and Nightwing. While just 10 pages, this is a very clear cut Nightwing and Supergirl team-up and doesn’t have the ensemble cast that most the other stories I’m covering have.

We open in Blüdhaven where Nightwing is staking out a shipment coming in that is transporting illegal substances into his city. His plan was to take it slow until a certain red cape entered the scene. Apparently this shipment also had a stop in Leesburg which is the home to the Linda Danvers/Matrix Supergirl. Supergirl has a much more aggressive approach than Nightwing’s stealth plan, but together they are able to successfully apprehend the Russians that are smuggling in guns, drugs, and refugees.

The police and FBI show up and the captain of the ship seems like he is planning on pulling his diplomatic immunity when Supergirl, as Nightwing says, “puts the fear of god” into him. The pair finish off with a farewell and agreement that they made a pretty good team together. This story does a good job of fitting nicely in both Nightwing and Supergirl’s worlds at the time of it’s release in early 2000 with Supergirl having the flame wings that were present near the end of her time bonded to the Matrix, and Nightwing being the hero to Blüdhaven while not being very well respected as such. I also wanted to note that Nightwing pretty immediately calls out this Supergirl as “not a Kryptonian. She’s something else” which is possibly just to get Batman readers up to speed if they hadn’t been keeping track of the goings on of the S side of the universe.

Cir-El barely has a dozen appearances so it’s really impressive that she not only shares an appearance with Nightwing, but also they’re both on the cover to Superman/Batman #5. This is the penultimate issue of the first arc of the Superman/Batman title and features the sidekicks of the titular heroes breaking into the White House after President Lex Luthor reported to the world that he had captured Superman and Batman. Dick Grayson and Cir-El don’t directly interact here but it seems the “S-Team” (Superboy, Supergirl, and Steel) and the “B-Team” (Nightwing, Robin, Batgirl, and Huntress) would’ve had to planned an operation like this beforehand and are in radio communication the whole time.

Supergirl (Vol. 5) #3 is part of the Post-Crisis Kara Zor-El’s exploration through the DC Universe as she tries to find a place for herself. This issue has her meeting up with and trying out for the Outsiders, currently led by Nightwing, in a story titled “The Girl of Steel Chapter 3: Outsiders”. Jeph Loeb writes, Ian Churchill pencils, and Norm Rapmund inks with letterer Richard Starkings and colorist David Moran. We open the story with Grace, Lightning, and Supergirl fighting in what can be assumed is a training exercise. Supergirl also has some internal monologuing during this time and the reader gets some insight to how Supergirl feels about the other Outsiders, including her confusion about why Grace doesn’t have a hero name and why Thunder’s name really doesn’t make sense.

This all changes when Nightwing shows up. Here we find out that our girl of steel has a teenage crush on Nightwing (and who can blame her). We get about 4 pages of Supergirl looking dreamily at Nightwing and not hearing a single word he says. Supergirl then kisses Nightwing and then runs off to take on Lex Luthor by herself. The back half of this issue doesn’t feature Nightwing since Supergirl fried the controls to the Pequod (the Outsider’s main mode of transportation).

I’ll probably wait to cover the rest of the story at some other time, possibly as part of Supergirl Surprise sometime down the line. I do want to mention however that some of the art in this issue is really great especially Supergirl breaking out of the chains and the whole of the Supergirl/Grace fight.

I didn’t really have a goal in mind with this post other than having an excuse to talk about my 2 favorite super heroes. I’ve been reading through my Nightwing comics recently and I liked the variety of stories here and enjoyed reading some Nightwing stories that are a bit adjacent to his normal series that I didn’t read as part of my Nightwing reading. This was by no means every iteration of Supergirl and Nightwing together but I feel it represents the somewhat irregular timeline that DC has. Dick Grayson from before the first Crisis, around New Teen Titans, up to Flashpoint really had a pretty uninterrupted continuity while Supergirl in that timeframe seemed to have a pretty irregular stability and it seemed they kept trying to reinvent her. Let me know if you have a favorite Supergirl Nightwing team up or if you have any other heroes that team up with Supergirl that you’d like to know more about!