Superman Through the Ages! Forum

The world of Supergirl is sweetly sad.

Curent top five:

1. She lives in an orphanage
2. She thinks her parents are dead
3. One of her boyfriends is a horse, another is a merman, and another has green skin and lives in the future
4. She has a huge inferiority complex because her cousin is Superman
5. She keeps a robot double of herself in a tree

"Saddest things about Supergirl?" If there's any heroine that has it easy, it'd be Supergirl.

For one thing, her cousin's Superman. That's a head start; in the superheroic world that's like being a Vanderbilt or Hilton. This is not to say that Supergirl hasn't earned her seniority through great deeds and stories (unlike say, Aquaman or Wonder Woman), but when she came out and revealed herself there were parades. And she'd barely done anything yet! Also, it's unlikely anyone in the 30th Century she visits regularly DOESN'T know who she is and can't recognize her.

And heck...if that wasn't bad enough, not only does she get an adopted human family, her ORIGINAL biological parents turn up. I mean, when does that ever happen? If you're a superhero orphan, your parents stay dead. Imagine if Batman's parents turn up on extended vacation in Ibiza somewhere. The only other exception to this ironclad rule besides Supergirl I can think of off the top of my head, is Cyclops, whose Dad turned out to have been teleported away to become a space-pirate.

And she hasn't lived in the orphanage since the middle sixties. For a little perspective here: when Supergirl had left the orphanage, Led Zepplin hadn't formed yet.

And she moved way, way past that in years to come. She eventually left to get a real family, and then she later left and graduated college and had successful careers in politics and showbiz and school guidance counseloring.

Then again, unlike Superman, who left Krypton as a baby with gaps in his memory...Supergirl left as a teenager with her full memory. As Elliot S! Maggin wrote in SUPERMAN FAMILY, she has much more of a desire to be normal than Superman does, and in some ways she both loves and loathes her specialness. She is uncomfortable on earth in a way Superman (who grew up here and is very much an earthling) isn't.

Maybe the saddest thing about Supergirl is that after she left the orphanage, her adventures slowly became less interesting.  She may have grown as a character, but her endless job changes and run-ins with mediocre villains were uninspiring, to say the least.  By the time they decided to kill her off in the 1980s, the initial charm and sadness of the character had been largely replaced with a general malaise that was just "sad".

I agree that her coming out party and future fame with the Legion would give anyone a Super-sized ego, if not perfect happiness, but also-ran status, at least in terms of how she was shunted around by DC, certainly detracted from the idea of her as the second most powerful being on Earth and one of the planet's most beloved figures.  I mean, guidance counselor at some college in Florida?

There was a sort of soap opera quality to her 60s stories after a more "heroic" start.

I always wondered who bought the "girls" comics at that time, and later, by the time that Wonder Woman gave up her powers, Lois dropped out and got roommates and Supergirl had her costume altered sales had skidded into the ditch.

I respectfully disagree with your assessment about post-adolescent Supergirl. I've said on many occasions that one of the most interesting things about Supergirl is that her secret identity, Linda, had a prestige and a reality that Superman wouldn't allow the intentionally obscure and humble Clark Kent to have.

Kara "growing up" from a teenager is, like the Legion becoming adults and Dick Grayson becoming his own man, one of the long-term, gradual success stories that make superhero comics interesting.

Apart from all that, Kara being an adult was just plain fun. She was a cool and glamorous person; she was smart and mature and had a sense of identity. When she met Superman - as she did in a Cary Bates Galactic Golem story and when Amalak attacked - it wasn't hero/sidekick, it was a team-up of equals and thus had greater weight and importance, more like a JLA/JSA team-up than Batman and Robin fighting the Joker together. I'll say one thing about Paul Kupperberg's NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERGIRL series: it showed us a Supergirl that could play chess with Superman and win. How could the pigtailed nonentity of the early sixties compare to that?

And at least it made her very different from Superman. If she wore glasses and hid in an orphanarium as a wallflower, she'd be a Superman copy instead of her own unique person.

Was it popular? No - you're right about that, it wasn't, but that can't be held against the work itself. Did it lack focus? Well, yes, it lacked focus, if "focus" is given the somewhat unfair definition, "doing the same thing and being the same age for decades."

As for Supergirl's villains being uninspired...that's unfair. They didn't catch on, but some were really cool. The Aztec Princess that she battled in Florida in that one Elliot S! Maggin story? Starfire had a striking appearance, with the eyepatch. Matrix-Prime was a robot that shot from his chest other robots.

And even these were a step up, a darn sight better than the dubious enemies she faced during even her so-called most popular period, like Black Flame.

Though I will agree there was a hint of desperation about the villains in the Kupperberg series, as if they were making new enemies for the sake of it...which, in a "busy" universe like DC's, isn't good enough of a reason.

There's the damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't paradox about creating new characters. On one hand, unless you introduce them really spectacularly (difficult at best) fans say, "hey, your new guy's a real joke that's jumping in an overcrowded niche and saying 'hey, me too!' Why didn't you use say, Doc Doom?" And they'd be absolutely right to say that. Why read about some dubious writer-obsession like Grant Morrison's Evil Sun, when I can get a return of a classic like Namor or Gorilla Grodd?

On the other hand, good villains are a sign of a unique identity of a comic. You read Flash not just for him, but for his distinctive enemies too.

I've said this before, but at this point, I don't think it's necessary or even really at all desirable to create "new" characters in the overcrowded Marvel and DC universes. It isn't just the idea of Doctor Doom (for instance), but the character's history with the MU, and the gravitas thus derived. A new character just wouldn't have that, so why use him?

Hiding the fact that she's a natural blonde -- sad.

Wow. You can work your anti-Morrison crusade into any discussion can't you? :P

I thought the wig made her look much better... 8)

Actually, I don't think Supergirl even made it through the 60s in that good of a shape, she was fun as a secret weapon, and she had a lot of good adventures where she either made mistakes or was critical to the defeat of the enemy (defeating the Infinite Monster, wiping out the "Super" Perry White when Superman failed).

There started to be a bit too much lying on the bed and sobbing by the time her adoption came along and then there were the impossible romances and the college years that were just not exiting in a super hero way for me. And I'm not sure how many female readers she ever had.

I always thought the fact that she was able to hide her "super-ness" from her adoptive parents for a pretty long while was pretty dubious. Surely her new mother realized that her daughter was just wearing a bad black wig...
Also, it always seemed bizarre to me that Superman finally finds another Kryptonian survivor, and the last remaining member of his family, and promptly packs her off to go live in an orphanage.

I always thought it was strange that he packed her off to the orphanage instead of taking her to the fortress and showing her the the bottled city where they had a few distant cousins living, or at least joining her more often to see how her training was coming (did Kal do this with anyone else that showed up with super powers?) or getting her to tell him mor about krypton and it history, maybe he was afraid she end up telling him, not Kal that's not the design for a warp space engine, it the family reciepe for sour mash, by the way you do know your dad was the family drunk?.

I have always felt that the Supergirl stories before she was adopted by the Danvers are some of the lamest (and most juvenile) of all DC superhero comics of the late 1950s/early 1960s, although I must admit she has some pretty stiff competition from most of the contemporary Wonder Woman comics, and some of the more outlandish Batman stories.

Supervillains - or indeed any villains - are usually noticeable by their absence in this period, and stories revolving around Supergirl/Linda helping other orphans to get adopted, or solving their insignificant problems make for mind-numbing, boring reading - at least to this reader.

I prefer the Superman Family period of Supergirl most of all, when she left college and started working, particularly the Elliott S. Maggin and Jack C. Harris stories, even allowing for the fact that most featured the horrible inks of Vince Colletta.

In his encyclopedia, Michael Fleisher applied some amateur psychoanalysis to Superman's relationship with the women in his life, but he didn't really attempt to analyze the relationship with Supergirl. No doubt if he had, he would have theorized that the reason Superman often seemed to treat Supergirl so shabbily during the orphanage years was strong subconscious resentment on his part.

Her spending most of her formative years on Krypton(a Kryptonian city, anyway)... her having two sets of living parents when BOTH his were dead... her ability to keep a secret identity without having to act meek and cowardly like Clark Kent... he had to be at least a LITTLE envious at times, but strangely I don't recall the writers ever exploring this.

While there is a lot of truth to the observations on the orphan years, I really think that Supergirl writers wanted to show a girl overcoming obstacles of a personal nature...its really not a lot different than "Tess of the D'ubervilles" or "Cinderella"...you can even see it in the extended "revealed to the world" story...the girl with the heart of gold finally gets her due...

I find it separate from Superman himself, though how he "should" have treated her is an interesting subject for speculation.

Reading through comics history, I'd say Supergirl was a bald attempt by DC to cash in on the  popular Marvel Family.  Beyond that, not much development--which is a real shame.  Fawcett always seemed a bit better tapped into the "wish-fulfillment" appeal of superhero comics than DC.  I mean, a goofy little kid could say a catch-phrase and become "Earth's Mightiest Mortal."

I always found Supergirl an enormously appealing character, more so even than Superman at the gut-level: A teen-aged girl who could break open the head of the toughest DC bad guy, but also with a genuinely sweet personality who would burst into tears if a boy gave her flowers.  Awkwardness with superpowers coupled with raging teen emotions and angst might have made some GREAT stories in the hands of different writers.  But they never let her cut loose much in either direction.  The writers seemed to know enough about "what little girls are made of" to give her a kitty-cat and a pony to play with, but that's about it.  No attempt to build around her the secondary characters that give the main hero something to play off.

It would have been great to send her on a couple of dates with a Reggie type.... "If looks could kill...."

DC could have done a lot with Kara, but chose to keep her in the background as a subsidiary and adjunct to the "marketable property."  They eventually won their war with Fawcett and what need then to retain and develop the "Superman Family?"  Rather than finding something to do with SG that had dignity DC eventually just "erased her" as if she had never existed.  I see Crisis as DC's attempt to throw out the trash before sifting through it for gems.

I thought a much better end for Kara would have been to exile her to the Legion's 30th Century to continue her adventures there.  Timetrapper?  She always seemed to belong there a lot more than Superboy did (with a lot fewer continuity problems).

I second and agree with everything you just said. Those SUPERMAN FAMILY backups were terrific. A special shout-out should be given also to Marty Pasko's Supergirl stories, like "The Girl with the See-Thru Mind."


Supergirl is an emotional person, but I can't see her for a second crying because a boy gave her flowers. That girl is a very, very tough person.

It's only retroactively, by guys that don't understand the character like Alan Moore, did she become "Gidget."


Also another characteristic someone as competent as Supergirl does not have.


There are many characters I can see as dating jerks. Pre-Englehart Scarlet Witch, for instance, comes to mind, because she was impressionable and not a very assertive person (which changed when she got the courage to admit she loved an artificial man).

Supergirl is very, very low on that list as well. Like I said, she's tough.

cough...

"Physically, she's the mightiest female of all time!  But at heart, she's as gentle and sweet and is as quick to tears as any ordinary girl!  I guess that's why everyone who meets her loves her!"
 - Action Comics No. 285, February 1962

Supergirl is quite emotional through the decade of the 60s, people should read the books before commenting...  ;D

You know, the orphanage thing has always bothered me. It's not the response that we expect from Superman, and if a single continuity had been kept, Supergirl's arrival could have been the one event that softened the hard-edged Golden Age Superman to his Silver-Age counterpart. Instead, he completely neglected parenting and dumped her into an orphanage.

Maybe he thought that was good parenting...after all, his parents sent him elsewhere to be adopted. However, when the Kents put him in an orphanage, they did come back to get him later... so the analogy is bad.

Superman has only vague memories of Krypton exploding. Supergirl, on the other hand, was much older when everyone started to die of radiation poisoning. She might have rejected the idea of new parents altogether, and she probably would have jumped out of that rocket sobbing, not saying "Superman! I'm your cousin Supergirl! Tada!" Overall, I like the Loeb idea of her being a little rebellious at first and her training and counseling with the Amazons instead of immediate dumping into Midvale.

The other sad, tragic thing about Supergirl is that we've never seen her grow up. What would she be like in old age? Crisis prevented us from knowing that.

http://superman.nu/tales3/greatest/?page=72
 (http://superman.nu/tales3/greatest/?page=72)


I did not mean SG would not "own" such a jackass.  Would not give him a few scorching looks of reproach with her volcanic blue eyes.  Would not take his hand playfully in hers and lightly grind a few bones.  Plant a girlish coma-inducing superkiss at evening's end.  I meant only that I would have liked to have seen it.  Dick Malverne was dullsville.

I would have also have liked to have seen that teeny little girl put Mongul in a hammerlock and make him cry....

I found Supergirl to have much more depth and sensitivity than either shrews Lana or Lois during the Silver Age. 

Her portrait by her "Boswell" Jim Mooney still flies high above my desk to this very day.

I agree, I LIKED the fact that she had to struggle for a family and an identity...it was something different and I still think a story that appealed to young girls of the time.

You're right, even though she was not an adult like Lois or Lana, her heart was always in the right place and she was often emotionally disturbed by aspects of her adventures.  L and L tended to have 2 or 3 pat emotional responses.

This is my fave new Supergirl image:

http://chodrawings.blogspot.com/2007/05/supergirl.html

This is my favorite image of Kara - a version colored by Nightwing appears in her Supermanica entry. Mr.  Mooney recreated it for me.  :) It's the Supergirl I first fell in love with.

http://www.heroesink.com/images/Mooney/Supergirl%20standing%20on%20planet.jpg (http://www.heroesink.com/images/Mooney/Supergirl%20standing%20on%20planet.jpg)

We should remind ourselves that Jim Mooney is still alive and kicking!  He worked for Marvel on ons of stuff including Spidey, Stan Lee's Pussycat, and Gerber's Omega.

 

AND he' occassionally sells on e-Bay and does commissions! He's got a Spidey up now.

http://cgi.ebay.com/SPIDERMAN-JIM-MOONEY-ORIGINAL-ART_W0QQitemZ200149058138QQihZ010QQcategoryZ972QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting (http://cgi.ebay.com/SPIDERMAN-JIM-MOONEY-ORIGINAL-ART_W0QQitemZ200149058138QQihZ010QQcategoryZ972QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting)

JM's contact info is there for comissions.

It would be kind of neat to get a Supergirl robot in the tree.

Its also quite a reare event when Klar falls in love with a 1960s comic book super heroine...  ;D

Is this website suddenly called "Superman Through One Age?"

That trait evaporated so early on, it's like claiming the Fantastic Four are from Midway City (they were in good old NYC by issue 2). It's worth noting that SuperBOY passed the Super-Teacher's tests, but that robot, in his return appearance, was quite able to convince SuperGIRL to kill.

That's what I always liked about Supergirl in the SUPERMAN FAMILY: she was a very proud, emotional, volatile person. Superboy/man had absolute iron control over himself, but under the right set of circumstances...if you tick off Supergirl or threaten someone she loves...she will rip arms off. The Loeb characterization is nothing new.

There are many occasions where Supergirl cried: that Cary Bates story where the Parasite stole the Galactic Golem's powers and she believed Superman died. In the Jim Shooter story where she was forced to leave the 30th Century forever by a cloud of Kryptonite. But all that is big, understandable stuff, and underneath it all, Supergirl is a girl.

But flowers from a boy? Nah.


Heh heh heh! Nice!


I think one of the absolute best things about Supergirl is that we DID get to see her grow up and become independent.

Did you read the stories where she became a soap opera actress, a model, a social worker, and a congresswoman? Or the Paul Kupperberg stuff where she fought white supremacists?


Hmmm, now that you say it, this is true: she had a lot of emotional range, and was pretty competent. She never tried to trick anybody.

Shhh...don't tell Saturn Girl.  Better yet -- don't even THINK it! :o

No, but I did see her independently get whacked in the head by some kind of pillar in Crisis. It was kind of traumatizing.

We've seen her grow up enough to wear that crazy headband and become boring before, but what I meant was that we've never seen her grow old]/i]. We've seen what Superman is like when he's older, because we've had Kal-L, the Kingdom Come Superman, and tons of future stories. We've never had this with Supergirl, and I think it would be interesting to see a story about her when she's say, 60.

I wonder, if she moved to the Legion's future where it seems almost everyone has superpowers, would she return to her role of guidance counsellor, politician, or actress?   Or would she be venerated as a legend?

A modern team-up I'd like to see: Superwoman and an older Supergirl.

been looking at this thread and i found this to be interesting

.

Hey, Telle..if i made a fanfic of a Superwoman/Supergirl team up..would you read it?...plus which Superwoman are you talking about..the 60's version,80's version..or the Peter David version that was recently cancelled?