When Superman, when helping Lexcorp, stops a crashing vessel hitting the atmosphere he is surprised to find that it is transmitting a Kryptonian message. Superman follows the message back to its source and finds an isolated city floating in the depths of space with seemingly Kryptonian architecture. Unfortunately the city is in ruin and over-run with monstrous alien life forms that are able to adapt to any environment – Xenomorphs. Hidden away in this city is more than just monsters, there is also a survivor. A survivor named Kara.
There are a handful of stories that I’ve been excited to cover as part of Supergirl in the Multiverse since I started this series and always near the top of the list has been Superman vs. Aliens. The Alien franchise of movies is one of my favorite movie series and this Superman comic absolutely lives up to my expectations of the series and my love of Superman as a character. Kara, as she is presented in this story, mirrors the life of Newt from Aliens a bit. She is a young girl that has survived mostly on her own as the city around her is overrun with Xenomorphs. Instead of Kara being on the planetoid LV-426, she is on the floating city of Argo. She’s 16, but as she says, she had to “grow up real fast”. Kara plays a major part in this story and while Superman – Kal – thinks she’s from Krypton for the majority of the story, it is later revealed that she’s actually from a planet called Odiline. Odiline was visited generations ago by the Cleric and the planed adopted much of Kryptonian culture. Kara is overcome by the alien parasite and she feels all is lost, but at the end of the story Kal is able to use a transporter beam to split Kara away from the chest-bursted before she can perish but she was unable to return to earth with Kal and is left adrift in the stars, surviving but alone.
As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Kara is backed against a wall surrounded by Xenomorphs. The ruins of Argo can be seen behind her and she is keeping the aliens back with a flamethrower. There is a gray circle in the top right with a 426 in it.
The second collected edition of Sophie Campbell’s Supergirl comic came out a few weeks back with Supergirl: Hometown Horrors which collects issues 7-10 and the recently released Summer of Supergirl Special. While I really loved the first arc of this series, collected as Misadventures in Midvale, I’ve come to realize that it does suffer a bit from being tied so specifically to Supergirl’s silver age stories. This collection really feels like it’s where Sophie Campbell really gets to shine and start telling some really fun stories. This collection is mostly consisting of one off stories which pairs nicely with the Summer of Supergirl Special which itself is a trio of standalone tales. A surprising bit of consistency I noticed however, was that there is a bit of a connecting thread between most of these 7 stories with a theme of Kara as an orphan.
Sophie Campbell writes all the main issues and the first story in the summer special, with Gail Simone and Mark Waid as writers of the other stories. While Sophie was the main artist in the first collected edition (Misadventures in Midvale), this collection featured a wider array of artists which I’ll specify as we go through the stories. I wish it was a bit clearer in the collected editions who the creative teams were, possibly included in the covers before each issue or even just if they had the specific issues listed on the creator page. Instead we just have the creator credits reprinted as they were in the initial issues, which also includes creator credits for all the variant cover artists which aren’t shown until the end of the collection.
Issue 7, Unfortunate Souls, has art by Sophie Campbell, colors by Tamara Bonvillian, and letters by Becca Carey. This is the Thanksgiving issue which I talked about briefly last year in my post Thanksgiving Guests in Supergirl #7. We’ve got a couple storylines going in this issue, Supergirl is helping Princess Shark break her curse and getting a sea hag reunited with her leg/child, while Lesla is at home with the Danvers greeting all the guests as they come in for Thanksgiving. There’s a bit of a running gag going through this book where everyone seems to be dancing around the subject of genocide that the European colonialists brought when telling Lesla about Thanksgiving and then Lena just lays it all out. Lesla also gets the scene in this book about Kara’s orphan life when she lashes out at Superman about the subject and Superman explains how he might not have handled it in the best way, but he did it out of care for her.
Next up is Not a Creature was Stirring where we see that winter has come to Midvale with a blanket of snow falling over the town. Haining brings the art this time out, Alex Guimaraes colors, and Becca Carey letters. This issue focuses pretty heavily on Kara’s orphan life with depression setting in pretty heavily as she reminisces about her lost friends and family from Krypton. The story also focuses on Kara’s Linda robot that she often used when living at Midvale Orphanage but had forgotten about along the way. There’s some great Kara/Lesla interaction here as Lesla finds out more about earth life as well as learning more about her mentor, Supergirl. The story ends with Kara still having some sadness about the holiday in general, but finding some joy in the little moments like s-shield shaped cookies made by Lesla. I really liked Haining’s art on this story and felt she really nailed the wide array of emotions throughout the story.
Resolutions is of course the January issue and named so after New Year’s Resolutions. Joe Quinones handles all the artwork duties this time aside from Becca Carey’s letters. Quinones has since been a fairly common presence in the title, helping out with the recent Kingdom of Zod issues of Supergirl in the past couple months. Clarissa Giltedge is throwing a New Year’s party and Lena (who isn’t 21 yet) is upset that alcohol isn’t allowed. Lesla, curious about the effects of alcohol, helps Lena put together a concoction with a base of periwinkle Kryptonite so she could feel a similar effect. This goes poorly. Lesla shows off her powers, her and Supergirl fight, Lesla kisses Luna, Kara kisses an un-named pretty boy, and Kara and Lena get into a pretty nasty fight. We don’t get any orphanage content in this issue, but we do get the introduction of a new problem; Lesla is shrinking and apparently this is an issue that the Kandorian science council is well aware of and doesn’t care about. Lesla is back in Kandor, Lena and Kara aren’t talking, and it seems like Lesla is about to take on a new mentor in her cousin Black Flame.
Issue 10, the final standard issue of the collection, continues with Quinones art, but Dave Sharpe covers lettering this time out for the story “My Bloody Valentine”. This issue continues on from the previous with Lena trying to make up with Kara with Mac n Cheese sandwiches but she is surprised to find out that Kara is on a date with the long haired hottie from the New Year’s party. There’s quite a lot of Lena and Luna interaction here which is nice to see. We also get Pink Kryptonite in this story which is causing Kara to be in love with the pretty boy. The Pink-K is possessed by new Kryptonian Nela-Nar who is looking to find eternal love. Lena gives Kara an Anti-K suit, Nela-Nar is trapped in some good, and while Kara and Lena still aren’t on the best of terms, they are once again talking to one another.
Next up is what I personally think is a story that should’ve been included elsewhere or at the very least in a different way. Main Man’s Best Friend is Sophie Campbell’s story from the Summer of Supergirl Special, with Belen Ortega art, Triona Farrell colors, and Becca Carey letters. This is the continuation of Supergirl’s guest appearance in Lobo #4 from earlier this year and to me personally it doesn’t work as well without the context of the Lobo story. I feel this story should only be collected alongside the Lobo comic, otherwise you’re only getting half of a 2-part story. The story follows Kara taking in Lobo’s dog, Dawg, while Lobo is in a correctional facility for the havoc he caused in the Lobo issue. Lobo comes back a changed man, realizes Dawg feels abandoned by Lobo, Lobo and Supergirl tear up the town fighting each other, and then everyone finds happiness and togetherness though Midvale Munchies Mac-n-Cheese Sandwiches! It’s a really cute story and it’s got Princess Shark and Crush going on a date together so who can complain.
Next is my favorite story from the special, Lost Girls from Gail Simone (writer), Emma Kubert (penciller), Sandra Hope (inks), Trish Mulvihill (colors), and Ariana Maher (letters). This story tells of the first meeting between Supergirl and Mary Marvel who team up to fight an android named Unit. The real draw of this story however is when we get to see Mary Broomfield and Kara Danvers getting to hang out together. Kara and Mary bond over both being “the most powerful girls in the world” while still being “overshadowed by the ones who love us most” Kara with Superman and Mary with Captain Marvel. Their similarities don’t end there, they also bond over both being orphans. This is a particularly spectacular issue that I have some future plans to cover, but this is absolutely worth checking out.
The last story in this book is Mark Waid’s “Who is Supergirl?” With artist Cain Torrey, colorist Alex Guimaraes, and letterer Steve wands. I touched on this story a bit with my Supergirl Timeline post but in short, Superboy (Conner Kent) and Steel (Natasha Irons) are in the JLU watchtower trying to sort out Supergirl’s seemingly convoluted history. Superman (Jon Kent) comes in to help clear some things up and we get a bit more insight into why Kara was put into Midvale Orphanage and we find out that it was her idea, not Clark’s, so that she could be around kids her age and more easily integrate into Earth life. It’s a charming story but it’s rather short and doesn’t feature Supergirl aside from images.
The collection closes out with a variant cover gallery and 2 sketchbook pages, one from Joe Quinones and one from Belen Ortega. On a whole the collection feels particularly bare bones and more so is just 5 comics stapled together without much extra thought put in. This collection is not however without perks, the context of this collection centering around Kara’s life as an orphan was an exciting thing to see, and if you’re looking to pick this up new, it is a cheaper alternative. Retail price for the collection comes in at $17.99 and the books collected total to $21.95 and the Summer of Supergirl Special was less than 3 months old before the collection came out. Also the books collected total showcased 3 non-standard colors of Kryptonite with turquoise (turned Supergirl into a mermaid), periwinkle (cased similar effects to intoxication to Lesla and Kara), and pink (forcing Kara to fall in love with a boy).
JLA: Act of God was a surprisingly good read that told a story about how the DC Earth would react if suddenly all the super-powers suddenly stopped working. A black light overtook the world for a moment on May 23rd (which is how we get our number for Earth-523) which briefly shut off all electronics and more permanently stripped all the heroes and villains and anyone else with any sort of super-human powers. The story by Doug Moench explores some facinating scenarios and touches on how many of the Earth’s heroes would react in such a situation. We get to follow heroes that are taking the change poorly, heroes that never had powers stepping up to lead the next era of heroes, and we see a group of heroes that formerly had powers train and become a new heroic team called the Phoenix Group.
The Phoenix Group consists of former heroes; Arthur Curry, J’onn J’onzz, Wally West, and Linda Danvers. The Linda Danvers as we all know is Supergirl, and in this story she is specifically the Fallen Angel, merged with the Matrix Supergirl. Of course, during the black light event she lost all her super-powers. Linda still wanted to help save lives and initially took after her dad and started a career as a police officer. Still feeling unfulfilled, she instead goes to Batman, along with the other former heroes mentioned above, to train how to be a super hero without powers. This new team debuts to save Rex Mason, Ted Kord, and Mike Carter who had been captured by a group of super-villains. Their heroic debut is a rousing success and promised a great future for the world with new heroes like Red Devil (Wally West), The Green Man (J’onn J’onnz), The Hand (Arthur Curry), and Justice (Linda Danvers).
As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Justice is crashing through a skylight with glass all around. The night sky is seen through the skylight and Justice’s right boot is coming toward the viewer. The Phoenix Group logo is in the top right corner with a 523 on it.
We’re travelling back decades to the 60s for this month’s entry in Supergirl Surprise. From 1969, we have Adventure Comics #388 with 2 stories featuring the maid of might; “The Kindergarten Criminal!” and “The Romance Machine!”. This is fairly early in Supergirl’s solo magazine so we’re still firmly in the Stanhope College era of her life, although the first story could very easily be part of any part of her early super-heroic career. This first story, by Leo Dorfman (writer), Win Mortimer (penciller), Jack Abel (inker), and Milt Snapinn (letterer) is a continuation from the previous issue (#387) featuring Lena Thorul’s son Val Colby working with the villain Lex Luthor (secretly Lena’s brother).
We open this issue with Supergirl talking with Lena and she has an ESP vision that her son is on a question mark shaped island. If you have no idea who Lena Thorul is or what her ESP powers are, check out my post on her here. This odd shaped island is of course where Luthor’s current hideout lies and it is where Lex has been training his nephew to hone his own psychic powers to commit crimes.
There’s a weird bit here where Lex has the thought that since Supergirl has such great powers but is vulnerable to Kryptonite, Val too would be susceptible to the mineral. I don’t understand Lex’s reasoning here, surely he knows Kryptonians are weak to Kryptonite and that it’s harmless to everyone else. It just feels like an unnecessary plot point to have Lex show off his Kryptonite safe that doesn’t make any sense. This is where we are first shown Lex’s safe full of synthetic Kryptonite blocks which Val quickly takes a liking to and uses them as toys.
Supergirl has flown over to the island by this point and hasn’t noticed anything suspicious – that is because Lex’s layer is lead lined and unable to be seen with x-ray vision. Luck is somehow on Supergirl’s side however, since this is when Val decides to bring his blocks out to play with them. The exposure to Kryptonite brings Supergirl crashing down to the island and she quickly comes up with a cover story as Linda Danvers a castaway stranded on this isolated island. Val immediately takes a liking to Linda and this allows Linda to stay on the island and investigate.
Linda and Val continue to get along and one day when Lex is away Linda heads into the secret lair and convinces Val to use an Imago-Helmet to imagine monstrous beasts that start trashing the secret lair. Lex comes back to Val and a dozen beasts and is thankful for Supergirl who coincidentally comes to his aide. Lex agrees to get taken to prison if she saves him. Once back to safety, Lex of course refuses to go with Supergirl and states that he’s in international waters and thus the laws don’t affect him.
Supergirl solves this by pushing the whole ass island back into jurisdiction and the coast guard soon comes to take him away. In his final act, Lex tells Val he’s not really his uncle to help protect both Val and his sister, Lena. Supergirl thinks of this as Lex’s “one decent act in a lifetime of crime!” while flying away with Val. Also it seems this adventure burnt out Val’s powers which is rather convenient.
We then hop into Cary Bates story “The Romance Machine!” with art by Kurt Schaffenberger and letters by Joe Letterese. This story has Stanhope as a set, a romantic partner for Linda, and Brainiac, what more can you ask for? Brainiac is tired of always losing to Superman so he decides to instead target the girl of steel thinking she’ll be an easier foil. His plan involves picking up a handsome alien felon named Kimbor and using him and lifelike android duplicate to fall in love with Supergirl.
Kimor is discarded by Brainiac after he’s gotten all he needs from him – his chick magnet personality – and dumps him on a “barbaric planet”. The robotic version of Kimor, Kim-puter, is now tasked to go to earth and work his way into Stanhope College. Kim-puter takes on the name Kim O’Ryan and easily gets enrolled into the college and finds his way to the Supergirl Fanclub. Linda has just recently been appointed temporary head of the club and meets Kim who wants to learn all he can about Supergirl.
Kim soon cuts to the chase and asks Linda out on a date which to everyone’s surprise (even Linda) she readily agrees to the date. While Kim was a real catch when asking Linda on a date, once she gets to the date she realizes just how bad Kim actually is. Kim stiffs the bill on their dinner making Linda pay, uses her as a human shield so a puddle wouldn’t splash him, and then when Linda approaches Kim as Supergirl he refuses to date her! The issue ends there with a promise for more answers to come in the next issue.
When I was reading through the whole of Supergirl’s Adventure run I noticed this structuring a lot. Most of the stories would be the standard 24 page tale, but would be split between 2 issues with the B story in one issue being finished as the A story in the next issue. It’s an interesting practice and it’s why we got a part 2 in the front half of the issue and a part 1 in the back half. It seems like an easy way to generate cliffhangers without having to write stories that last more than 24 pages, but I think I would rather have 2 standalone stories or one continuing narrative and one standalone backup story, but the book came out nearly 60 years ago so maybe it was just the style at the time.
My copy of this issue is rather banged up with various rips in the cover (and one of my cats stepped on it as I was writing this up), but in addition to that we also get a couple pages where the book’s previous owner wrote their name in pink pen on a couple pages. Kevin Zarempa, if you ever wondered what happened to your old Supergirl comic, it ended up in my collection. There weren’t any particularly notable ads from what I saw, but the letters page (Super Fe-Mail) there were a few interesting ones. A lot of these letters were people fact checking small details of an earlier issue, but the letter from Renata Riveras was particularly interesting. The letter writer mentions Wonder Girl recently getting a new costume and thinks Supergirl should follow suit. The editor comes back and mentions that fans should send in their new Supergirl costume ideas and that DC will use their favorite for Supergirl’s new look. This will of course result in Supergirl’s various new costumes in the next few years of her comic and the iconic cover to Adventure Comics #397. I do like that the editor mentions a couple specifics about what they’d like for Supergirl’s costume to maintain, notably the blue color and the signature S symbol.
Against all odds, the tie-in comic for the Imaginext toy line has an official universe designation of Earth-508. Named as such for the month the comic series started (May 2008). I always try my hardest to be as thorough in my research as possible, but as hard as I tried I could only get my hands on 3 issues of the 29 issue run to read but it did seem to give me a pretty good vibe of the series. The series follows the Super Friends of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, and the Flash as they get up to do-gooding in a way that appeals primarily to younger audiences. This comic series is based on the Imaginext line of toys that has been partnering with DC Comics since around 2008 when the comic started and continues to put out figures and play sets to this day.
Supergirl herself doesn’t appear in any of the main comic series, but she does appear in at least one of the children’s books and she has a few figures that were released. Instead of leaning into the comics, I instead focused more on the toy line here. Not only did I base the Supergirl figure off the Imaginext toy, I also looked at the Imaginext Fortress of Solitude playset. This Fortress playset is interesting, it seems to be based on the scene in Superman 2 when Superman tricks Zod into loosing his powers with the containment chamber shown. This may be somewhat speculation on my part but it does seem likely. The odd part of the set however is the visual look of it, it seems like the colors have some influence from the Snyderverse movies but the shape and abstract shapes almost feels like how Argo was depicted in the Supergirl (1984) movie.
As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. The Fortress of Solitude (based on the Imaginext playset) is shown with Supergirl (based on the Imaginext toy) is flying in the foreground. There is a S symbol in the top right with a 508 on top of it.
