“A good idea is a good idea and Supergirl is a great idea,” Loeb enthuses. “As much as I admire Peter David’s work on Supergirl, the concept of a protoplasmic being from another Earth who bonded with an angel—ow—head hurt. By returning her to being Superman’s cousin from Krypton, it is simple, clean, and allows for new conflict and hopefully exciting stories.”
This does bring up one interesting point: Peter David SUUURE does love to make things more complicated, doesn't he?
I agree with you about PAD tending to complicate things to the point where it makes less sense in a monthly comic book and more sense for a novel. Aquaman was straightforward -- try understanding Genis-Vell.
But to be fair, the bit about Supergirl being a storied bit of protoplasm comes from Byrne and successors. At the time of Supergirl #1, I don't think anyone outside of Dorkin/Dyer for S:TAS was given freedom to just have Kara come back (and even S:TAS Kara couldn't be Kryptonian). Whoever was going to take on Supergirl needed to do something that involved Matrix Supergirl, second cousin to Martian Manhunter, a ball of clay with a past. Obviously, as a ball of unpopular clay, PAD decided to mold it into what he wanted to write about, which proved to be fine stuff apart from not being terribly entrenched in the Superman mythos, which at the time was engaged in disemboweling itself with Electric Bluperman.
PAD's admits he'd have done it differently if he had a clean slate. I think he wrote something about wanting to skew Supergirl younger, more like Ariella, more like the age of his kids when he was writing it, and have more of a Superboy "learning responsibility to be a super hero" flavor to things. But he just couldn't take Lex Luthor's former love slave in that direction.
The simplification of the Supergirl concept was a necessary one, though I am personally creeped out and more than a little disgusted that instead of having Kara's personality, they decided to play her up as a sex object. The first issue of Supergirl has her say "I reveal my midriff because it distracts bad guys from my fists." Real classy. Witness, for instance, the choice of Michael Turner, a "good girl" artist to draw her. The adolescence is ratcheted up a notch when somebody does a Power Girl breast joke. Wasn't that particular barrel of laughs emptied out decades ago?
Tara Reid's antics generally bug me when I am stuck watching them.
Thus, Supergirl being depicted as a Tara Reid lookalike bugs me.
The Powers That Be (well after Byrne) were still quite hung up on not having any other Kryptonian survivors besides Superman, for fear that it'd turn into the pre-Crisis. But some of Superman's best features are with the Kryptonians that survive him -- Supergirl, Krypto, General Zod and some Phantom Zone inmates, etc. It's only taken DC a couple decades to see the light... let's hope this Infinite Crisis stuff doesn't muck things up.
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