Is it just me, or does Superwoman just scream "Mary Sue"?
This made me laugh when I read it because it's so totally true. A cute, charming and imaginative Mary Sue like Superwoman is still a Mary Sue. As much as I adore the Monica Rambeau Captain Marvel, she was, I am sorry to say, a self-indulgent writer fixation of Roger Stern's. I mean, jeez, she just showed up and a few years later became LEADER OF THE AVENGERS.
As for Kristen Wells...well, let's go down the Mary Sue checklist, shall we?
Demonstrates herself as more powerful and resourceful than the regular characters of the series? Check. (She beat Superman - who can outrace LIGHT - to Texas, and was the one that came up with every solution to the problems they faced; the only reason she didn't beat Kang - er, I mean, King Kosmos, is that she STOPPED herself "to make sure history goes the way it ought")
Has a romantic relationship or interest in the handsome/gorgeous male/female lead of the regular series? Check. (I mean jeez, look at her swooning over Superman)
A long lost relative of the main character or persona with a name so obvious it ought to have occurred to everybody (in this case, a long-lost "Superman Family" Member instead of the "G-6" in Gatchaman fanfic, or MY GOD, "Marissa Picard")
A situation emerges where "they are the only ones that can save the day?" Check. (That red lightning hitting the Batmobile and the JLA sattellite.)
Rememeber, even though Superwoman was still marooned in the 1980s she did not participate in the Crisis (her portals would have been quite useful against the walls of the Anti-Monitor's fortress), nor did we see any of these events that made her "quite possibly the greatest heroine of the 20th Century":
This is actually a pretty good point; why WAS Superwoman not involved in CRISIS?
Superwoman with the Green Lantern Corps? Accepting a medal from President Reagan? And who's that villain in the lower right corner?
None of these incidents were ever mentioned Post-Crisis. So one might assume Kristen's adventures in the 20th Century (and her "home" 29th Century) takes place on a Hypertime "Earth-1" that survived the Crisis, though perhaps both Supergirl and Wonder Woman still died, leaving the "greatest heroine" spot vacant for Superwoman. :cry:
By the way, note the internal contradiction in "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" -- how can Superwoman appear when her ancestor Jimmy Olsen is killed at the Fortress of Solitude? Did he and Lucy Lane have a secret love child beforehand? :shock:
If there is a hypertimeline where Earth-1 never ended, then it may be true that the future that Kristin Wells foretold, that Jimmy would become a successful business tycoon, DID come to pass come "What Happened..." All we know about Jimmy in that story is that he comes around to visit the Planet and still had his signal watch.
Perhaps he and his wife (presumably Lucy, though this may not be explicitly stated) were divorced, and Lucy has their children. There wouldn't be a reason to bring them out "on camera."
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