Loading ...Supergirl was an idea that seems obvious in retrospect, but at the time was revolutionary. With the introduction of Supergirl, Superman would no longer be the last son of Krypton (never mind the 7,000,000 Kryptonians living in the bottled city of Kandor – between that and the Phantom Zone, more people survived Krypton’s destruction than were killed by it), and for the first time, a super powered female version of a popular male Superhero would be asked to carry her own series. (If you don’t count Mary Marvel , who had already done that 17 years before). So you can see, there was a lot riding on her introduction.
Che has asked me to give a little history of Supergirl, so I gladly oblige! To begin, our Supergirl, the “real†Supergirl was not the first character to use that name. That honor belonged to a one shot blonde character. Debuting in 1958 (about the same time as Bizarro) this Supergirl was wished into existence via a magic totem used by Jimmy Olsen, and, like Bizarro she obligingly fades into oblivion at the end of the story. (Even before the totem-created Supergirl, Lois Lane had gained and lost superpowers more than once, but she was no one’s “Girl”. She usually referred to herself as “Superwoman.”
Yet there was something about this new blonde Supergirl that the public liked. The response to this character was enthusiastic enough that DC decided to just go for the gold and introduce Kara Zor-El, Superman’s cousin.
Look how confident this youngster was! “Look again Superman! I have all your powers.†So where did she come from? It seemed that (okay, this will take a while), not all of Krypton was destroyed in the chain reaction that ostensibly annihilated the planet. Apparently, Argo City survived intact and was thrown off into space during the explosion. Luckily, the inhabitants had the foresight to construct an airtight dome over the city while they were still living on Krypton. (I don’t know what that says about the air quality on Krypton that a large city would completely seal itself off in an airtight dome on the planet’s surface! But it conveniently prevented their air from leaking into space once they were blown free). Everyone was a bit bummed out by the destruction of Krypton, but loved their rocking new space city. Superman’s uncle Zor-El (brother of Superman’s father Jor-El) and Aunt Alura happened to live in Argo City. Years after Krypton exploded they gave birth to a daughter, Kara Zor-El. You see, her last name was her father’s full name. Because Krypton was sexist.
Unfortunately, all ground beneath the Argoans feet was not immune to the “strange nuclear reaction†which turned harmless old Kryptonian dirt into Kryptonite. At first they built lead shielding, but a meteorite storm destroyed that (yet somehow didn’t destroy the dome), and everyone died. Luckily, Zor-El happened to have a one-seater rocket sitting around (what is it with the Els and their inability to mass produce these life saving rockets? Or at least build one that held more than one person?) So he put Kara in the rocket and shot her off to Earth (they had been watching Superman’s adventures on Earth via their Super-Space telescope and Kara had, fortuitously, learned English watching these adventures – Um, I guess the sound traveled in the vacuum of space).
Sure, when Kara arrived on earth she was temporarily bummed out that her whole family and all her friends had just recently been killed in an extremely painful way (She had a tear in her eye for at least a panel, maybe two), but she was super-excited to have gained superpowers (they didn’t have any in Argo City – I guess because they were flying around a red sun. Interestingly, it was the introduction of Kara that caused Superman to become solar powered. Previously his powers were explained by Earth’s lighter gravity. But Argo, being just a city, had lighter gravity than earth, and no one there had superpowers. So suddenly, Kryptonians became solar batteries, but solar batteries that could only process the rays of a yellow sun. It was also at this point that Krypton’s sun became red.)
So what does Superman do when he discovers he has a long lost relative? Naturally, he dumps her in an orphanage. I mean, who wouldn’t? Lousy relatives honing in on the good thing he had going on in Metropolis. And it was an orphanage in a small nothing little town called “Midvale.†Supergirl, at random, picked the name “Linda Lee†to be her secret identity, thus extending the ludicrous LL naming scheme that always happens around Superman (Lois Lane, Lana Lang, Lex Luthor, Lori Lemaris, Lesla-Lar, Lucy Lane, Lena Luthor, Lyla Lerrol, Lightning Lad, Linda Lee. I’m surprised we didn’t have Limmy Lolsen and Larry Lhite working at the planet.) She also, being a girl, decided to wear a brunette wig (with pigtails no less) to hide her secret.
When he abandoned her, Superman also forbade her to let anyone see her powers (Superman is kind of a dick). She was to train (on her own) and be his “secret weapon.†In reality, the writers were shoehorning her off to the side in case the character didn’t catch on. Then she would have faded into oblivion (like the first, non-lesbian Batwoman. I prefer the lesbian one), never to be heard from again.
But Supergirl did catch on. People loved her! She loved boys named Dick! Or who were mermen! Or Green! She got freaky with Jimmy Olsen! She rode a superhorse named Comet (who was really a man – so I guess he was a werehorse)! She repeatedly traveled back in time to meet Superboy who always forgot about her existence so that he would still be surprised when she showed up in his future. She traveled forward in time to join the Legion of Super-Heroes, a team which had as a fellow member Superboy who always forgot about her after she left so he would still be surprised when she showed up in his future! She stayed in her own time and engaged in weird quasi-incestuous pairings with Superman! She teamed up with Mojo’s favorite member of the Superman Family, Streaky the Super-Puss! She cavorted with Satan (going so far as to disguise herself as “Satan Girl†in the Legion.
And she was smart too. She invented a serum that created the X-Kryptonite that gave ordinary earth cat Streaky his superpowers! All of this meant that finally, Superman was confident enough in her abilities to reveal her existence to the world! She was so excited, she
forgot her cape! And the public went wild! Or at least some of them did.
But Supergirl, though Super, was still a girl. So she spent years changing her clothes. I mean years. And years. I mean, she just couldn’t get enough of that clothes changing . For better. And for worse.
But being a girl, DC didn’t know what to do with her. She got adopted by the Danvers, met President Kennedy, attended college, became anchorwoman for KSF-TV in San Francisco, worked on a soap Opera (Secret Hearts!), went to graduate school in drama, became a Counselor for the New Athens college in Florida, found out her Kryptonian parents were still alive, and took to wearing a headband.
In 1986, twenty-seven years after she was introduced, DC decided that they were going to have the Crisis to revamp their multiple Earths into one coherent Earths. This meant big changes for all of their titles. One of the biggest changes was their deciding to have Superman go back to being the last son of Krypton. No more bottled city. No more Krypto. No more anything Kryptonian except Superman.
And that included Supergirl. She sacrificed herself in Crisis on Infinite Earths 7. That cover (which itself was paying homage to other similar covers that had gone before) became one of the most recognizable in comics’ history.
Supergirl was dead.
But you can’t keep a good woman down. After the Crisis, she came back, more powerful, more interesting, more angelic, and sluttier than ever.
I’ll post about that in the next post.
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This entry was posted on Saturday, September 29th, 2007 at 3:42 pm and is filed under fanatical. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
A character that I assume to be supergirl has shown up on smallville. Still no story behind it. She flew in and saved lex luther (bet she’ll be sorry for that’n) then flew away. Lex mistook her for an angel and converted to goodness. For around five minutes.
Anyway, I of course wanted to know the comic-book history of supergirl. I tellya what - Superman really is a dick. Its no wonder those female legionaires rebelled.
And I just love streaky the cat. Bea’s secret identity is Fatty the Cat. Cleto’s secret identity is El Chupacabra.
Still - all those pictures beg for about a billion comments, and raise about a billion questions. And good lord - some of those outfits.
(I will say this - lesbian Bat-woman is pretty stacked)
If that Supergirl on Smallville was wearing a midriff baring shirt, then she probably is a Supergirl, but a post Crisis Supergirl. I’ll get to her in the next post.
And I do love the Legion. Especially rebellious female Legionnaires.
And please, feel free to ask as many questions — or gape in as much disbelief — as you want.
Yes, I like the new Batwoman — lesbian adventurer. She even has a girlfriend, the Question, who was formerly Detective Renee Montoya of the Gotham PD.
She is quite stacked. Renee Montoya was in the comic “Gotham Central” a book about the Gotham police department.
It was fantastic. Clever, gripping, filled with diverse characters.
So of course it was canceled.
Renee quit the Gotham PD, became a super-hero (of sorts, more like an adventurer detective with a face mask), started dating Batwoman, and soon will be starring in another series called “Crime Bible.” It will deal with the adventures of Batwoman and the Question in the DC universe.
By the way, the best thing about the current lesbian Batwoman is that the original Batwoman (the one with the utility PURSE in the photo above) was invented because a Congressional Committee in the 1950s heard testimony that Batman and Robin were gay. DC responded by inventing Batwoman and Bat-girl to be their love interests.
(But Robin usually tried to avoid Bat-Girl and was jealous of the amount of time Batman and Batwoman spent together).
The characters were a bit ludicrous and faded into oblivion. In the 1960s, Barbara Gordon, daughter of police Commissioner Jim Gordon, became the unhyphenated Batgirl that most people are familiar with (the one featured in the Batman TV show in the 60s).
And the modern interpretation of Batwoman is a lesbian. A far cry from the “Beard” that she was presented to be in the 50s!
I’m pretty sure those rumours about batman and robin were true.
But I’m glad batwoman is out of the closet. Sort of. Though she still wears a mask.
Believe me, I did plenty of gaping in disbelief. I mean, that were-horse for instance. Could he… um… change just one body part at a time into a horse part? I can see why supergirl rode him.
Mmmmm! Can you roast weenies!
Waiting with bated breath for the new super powerful super slutty supergirl! I hope she changes her outfit in every single issue!!!
I’m also quite concerned about the city in a bottle. Were they able to sweep up all those corpses after it was broken? How did they deal with all those little tiny bloodstains? And the little tiny spires from the little tiny buildings - you gotta get’em all up or they stick in the feet.
Oh, and Che and I were on the same page with werehorse boy. Once I saw that he could change just his head, I wondered if he could change other parts at will. But Che beat me to it. No pun intended.
I imagine ol’ superhorse would have little time for crime fighting given how popular he’d be on the dating scene.
Good point, Che. I bet they had to get professional cleaners in to make sure all those tiny bones didn’t become a carpet of tiny needles for all us normal-sized humans. That could prove painful! I bet the carpet cleaners chastised the supers for their careless treatment of a tiny cities!
Comet’s WHOLE body could change. Not just his head. He could become all man — or all horse.
When I first found out about Comet, I was much older than when I first started reading comics. He was pretty much gone by the 70s when I first started reading comics.
And I thought the same thing. No wonder she rode him!
new t-shirt:
“i wanna get freaky with jimmy olsen”, graphics in classic, polka-dotty, comic-book-camp style.
Rest assured, Supergirl didn’t actually drop Kandor. But having a city of 7,000,000 people in a bottle does open up a ton of questions. Superman, Supergirl, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen — all of them could easily shrink and grow at will to enter the bottled city, but those Kandorians couldn’t grow at all, and were always trapped.
Except when they could grow so that they could get out and menace Superman. They even had a Superman Emergency Squad that could grow a little and get out of the bottle.
http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=16220&zoom=4
Who doesn’t wanna get freaky with Jimmy Olsen.
One of my favorite comic book panels. Superman was exposed to pink Kryptonite and then in the next panel, he was leaning over Jimmy’s desk saying “That’s a nice bow tie you’re wearing, Jimmy.”
Done as a joke by Peter David, but I loved it!
Ha ha Mojo!
It is a new feature in the Supergirl comics “Roasting Weenies with Dick”
Thought bubble “There was a time I could have roasted dick’s weenie with my super-powers!”
And while I’m at it. My favorite reactions to Supergirl’s “Coming Out” party, so to speak, was all the worry that criminals (and weightlifters) were going to get shown up by a GIRL!
Comet also briefly dated Lois Lane (She’d date anyone, remember).
And he joined the Legion of Super-Pets!
Post Crisis, Comet was a lesbian stand up comic named Andrea Martinez who could shape shift into a man with Super-powers. That Comet was the Angel of Love!
But being post crisis, I guess the lesbian (and sometimes male) comet should be reserved for that post.
by the way, Richard, the Fangirls lurve ya!
And I love them.
And I have to admit a fondness for Supergirl. I always liked Supergirl more than Superman. I was so happy when she showed up in the Justice League, and kept hoping they’d let her join.
But I liked Hawkgirl better than Hawkman.
Batgirl better than Batman.
And my favorite Justice Leaguer was Black Canary, followed by Zatanna (Wonder Woman was in a class by herself).
And my favorite Legionnaires were Shrinking Violet, Saturn Girl, Sensor Girl, and Dawnstar.
My favorite Titan was Raven.
I guess I liked the lady heroes better than the gentlmen heroes growing up.
Sir, those were no gentlemen
I can’t say that I was quite the female hero-phile that Richard was as a kid, though I quite liked WW and Dark Phoenix (aka Jean Grey when she wasn’t being written as a whiner).
I remember liking Black Canary too but I wasn’t familiar with most of the others you mentioned, R. I must admit to liking Dazzler back in the 70s, but am rather embarrassed by it now. Partly I liked her cuz I like music and sparkly things. Looking back… well, suffice it to say she doesn’t stand the test of time.
There were some boys I liked, Hawkman being among them as well as Spider Man, Iceman, Green Lantern, Superman (when he wasn’t being a super-dick), and Namor. Seems I was partial to the hotter boys, so perhaps I should have noted that
. I know R probably hates that I’m not a publisher loyalist (DC vs Marvel), but I didn’t even notice publishers or artists when I was a kid. Bring me the fun and leave off turf wars!
As an adult, I rather like the character of Death in the Sandman series. I hope someone like her comes to me when it’s my time and not the hooded, be-scythed Skeletor dude.
People say “How did your life change when you met Mojo?”
Well, they don’t really, but if they did, I would answer “I started reading Marvel Comics.”
Yes, as a kid, I loved DC. I didn’t like Marvel. I tried to. I bought an issue of the Avengers. But it had Jack Kirby’s artwork in it and I thought he made people fat and blocky (as an adult I understand the admiration for his talent but as a kid, who wanted fat super-heroes?) I bought an issue of the Marvel Team Up with Spider-Man and Ghost Rider, mainly because Ghost Rider looked really cool. I bought the Thor Mego Doll, but spent most of my time playing with his hair.
And I hated where they placed their ads in the comic. Disrupted the story too much.
But as an adult, I found out Mojo read mainly Marvel as a kid, and I thought “Well, if someone as smart as Mojo liked it, it has to have some merit.”
And I started reading Marvel.
I bet he wishes I never started. Our comic book bill would be cut by half.
And I liked some of the men Super-heroes too.
Loved Robin. As long as we’re in the Titans, Speedy could be kind of sexy. And I also thought Changeling/Beast Boy was really cute, but reading him as an adult, he was damned annoying.
Loved Red Tornado. Other Leagures? Phantom Stranger was THE BEST. But he only appeared like 3 times. Liked Green Lantern’s power ring (he once disguised his ring as a pair of sunglasses and I was always trying to hold my sunglasses in that position so that it would turn into a power ring. I also liked the idea of Firestorm, even though I hated his puffy sleeves.
Legionnaires? Loved Braniac 5. Liked Mon-el (even with his puffy sleeves — I think it was his hair that did it for me. I know, weird.). Ultra Boy was Razzle. Element Lad was so spiritual and “girly”so I loved him. And even though he had no face, I really liked Wildfire.
And though I didn’t “love” him, there was something about Superman. I certainly bought more of his comics than Batman, who I just didn’t get at the time. I liked Batman better when he was with someone else, and not just by himself.
And let’s not forget Captain Marvel, Jr. and Jimmy Olsen.
Well, that was more than I thought it would be.
Well Mojo, when I go I’m gonna get one pissed off Death. All these times I’ve cheated him, he’s gonna open up a big can o’whoopass on me.
Yes, well, I should have kept my mouth shut about Marvel
I thought Ghost Rider looked cool too, but I thought motorcycles were a bit silly and still do. I also quite liked Iron Fist cuz martial arts are cool and that dude was HAWT! I thought the do-rag with the ’scarf’ bit attached was dead stupid, but I’m no artist. I think it was there to show action, just as capes were used for the same effect.
Don’t remember much of the Legion cuz I wasn’t a fanboy of any particular mag or character. I like variety, then and now, and have the attention span of a distracted fly. That said, I remember liking Element Lad too, and also Starfire and Cyborg (that guy is a ROBOT, dad, can I please get it?!?). I thought Beast Boy had cool powers, but found him annoying.
I could go on, but I’m just too tired this morning…
I’m tired this morning too. Awakened by werewolves before sunrise.
Bastards.
D’OH! Well, I was awakened by “Richard” at 3 AM. I say it in quotes because I was dreaming that we were working out (we’ve been doing that lately) and I was lifting some weights on a machine and then suddenly all the power around us was cut and it went utterly black in the room. I called out to Dream Richard but he did not answer. I became worried, so I wanted to go find him in the room.
I didn’t want to move for fear I’d trip on the machine parts, so I started to put a toe out gingerly, feeling the ground. At that moment something seized me about the neck and lifted me off my feet, holding me by the neck. I could not breathe; I could not see; and I felt an enormous pressure in my head and around my neck. I tried calling Richard’s name, but he didn’t reply… Just as I started to kick at the ‘thing’ and panic, I awoke with a start, wide awake.
Needless to say, I did not sleep well after that! I think that was the first time something like that has happened to me that I remember. D’OH!
FYI, Richard, no fault of yours cuz you weren’t there. I guess you were removed from that reality at that moment. WEIRDNESS.
What is going on today?!?
us girls are contagious, maybe?
speaking of weird: this cracktastic piece of whoa just goes here.
I cannot be held responsible for the dream version of me may or may not do.
OMG Stefficus. I had stopped reading Doom Patrol by then. Looks like I missed out on something.
What, exactly, I couldn’t say.
[...] I have slowly been answering a question for Che on the Shattered Prayer. She asked me to talk about Supergirl. But Supergirl’s history is not as straightforward as you might think. So I talked about the original Supergirl, and about the first post-Crisis Supergirl, and even about Earth-2’s huge-breasted Supergirl, Power Girl. But that still doesn’t bring us up to date on DC’s current version of Supergirl. So here it goes. Supergirl of the New Earth. [...]
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