In 1993, after feeling that minority groups were underrepresented in mainstream comics, a group of black creators would set out to to give some much needed love to these minority groups. Milestone Comics, distributed under the wider DC Comics umbrella, would launch in 1993 with a handful of titles including Blood Syndicate, Icon, Hardware, and probably it’s most well know, Static. The imprint would run for a few years before most the comics ended or were canceled and Milestone would instead focus on the Static Shock animated series that had recently launched. The universe mostly focused on the city of Dakota after an event called the Big Bang. The Big Bang was a the result of a massive gang conflict on the Paris Island section of Dakota. The police would interfere with this conflict and would launch tear gas at the gangs. This tear gas was abnormal and laced with chemicals initially meant to be used to later track anyone exposed but would actually have much more drastic effects. Many of those exposed to the gas died, and those who didn’t gained a variety of super human powers. Most of the superpowered characters in Earth-93 got their powers from this quantum juice laced gas, but not all of them.
One of the title characters of the Milestone line was a clear Superman analogue called Icon. Icon too was an alien that escaped certain doom and crashed to earth, but instead of landing on a farm in Kansas, he landed in 1839 on a plantation. He would take the form of a black man and would live for the next century and a half seldom using his powers until meeting a young Raquel Ervin. Raquel, after seeing Augustus Freeman IV fly, came up with the idea that he needed to be a hero, an Icon for the community. She designed a costume for Icon as well as one for a girl sidekick named Rocket. Rocket was of course supposed to be Raquel, and after a few days of thinking it over, Icon and Rocket began their heroic journey. Icon, being an alien, had powers all his own but the 15 year-old Raquel needed a bit of extra gear. Icon gave her a belt that allowed her to store and release kinetic energy which she would use to great effect, mostly blocking attacks and shooting blasts of energy back. While she started only able to leap great distances with the belt, she would later find a way to use the belt to fly properly. Rocket could of course fit as an analogue to a few different characters, her gung ho attitude and figuring out Augustus Freeman’s powers and urging him to become a hero mirrors Tim Drake as Robin, and she seemed to be paired up with Superboy during Worlds Collide, but Icon being so clearly based on Superman does easily place her as the Supergirl of this world.
As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Rocket is floating high above Dakota with her kinetic belt. She is also her belt to deflect bullets coming in from the right. The Paris Island section of Dakota as well as the broken bridge leading into Paris Island. The top right corner has a motif of a blue circle with a 93 on top of it.
In line with the continuing year of Supergirl that 2026 has become, we were introduced to a brand new Supergirl graphic novel aimed at a young audience called Supergirl’s Zoo-Per Heroes. The sort of cliffhanger at end as well as the subtitle “Krypto’s Big Break” makes it seem like this is a new series of graphic novels focusing on Supergirl and a variation of the Super-Pets. The story and art are by Rob Justus and the lettering is provided by Wes Abbott. Krypto’s Big Break came out just a couple weeks ago, as of this writing, on February 3rd. The book seems to be cashing in on the movie hype, with Supergirl and Krypto on the cover, while clearly targeting a much younger audience.
The Super-Pets are a concept that go back as far as the 60s and would be a semi regular feature in Superman and related titles throughout the Silver Age of comics often with Krypto leading the charge. More recently, in 2022, a film called DC League of Super-Pets also featured Krypto working alongside a group of animals that suddenly got super powers, which leads us nicely into the subject of today’s blog post. This will be a full synopsis so if you want the spoiler free section of my thoughts, skip down to the bottom 3 sections of this post, or pick up and read the story before you read this!
Chapter 1 opens with Krypto and Supergirl on the Justice League watchtower and we get a great idea bout who these characters are. Krypto is rowdy and unruly and often gets up to no good, and Supergirl loves him regardless and always expects the best of him. After at least 4 incidents, the League has put in a strict No-Krypto rule and a Krypto specific alarm for whenever he acts up which of course he does after smelling the dirty laundry of the Justice League. Supergirl tracks down the super pup and in trying to wrangle him the airlock is released shooting all the League’s dirty laundry out into space.
After telling Krypto to stay put, Supergirl rushes off into chapter 2 following the super-laundry as it falls to Earth. Against all odds, plot causes the costumes to pass through cosmic rays, solar winds, atmospheric radiation, lightning, an Eclipso’s magic which infuses the costumes with the DNA and super-powers of their respective super heroes. Supergirl is well on the trail when suddenly Krypto enters the scene. Krypto has it in his mind that if he successfully rounds up all the costumes before they fall into the wrong hands Supergirl will stop being mad at him and take him to the cosmic dog park so he wraps up Supergirl in her cape and rushes to catch up to the costumes.
The Metropolis Zoo is the main set for chapter 3 and it’s where we meet the rest of the cast of this book. Zookeeper Cass begrudgingly watches over the 4 nameless animals in the zoo; Lion, Rhino, Seal, and Sloth. The zookeeper steps in some poo and angrily walks off for the night as a storm rolls in. This storm brings lightning as well as DNA infused costumes. The costumes land on and clothe the 4 zoo animals turning them from mild mannered zoo animals into the powerful, justice driven Super-Lion, Bat-Rhino, Wonder Seal, and the Fastest Sloth Alive. With their newfound powers, the animals break out of the zoo and out into the streets of Metropolis.
Breaking out of the zoo and into chapter 4, we get to the real meat of the story as Krypto meets up with the new Zoo-Per heroes and Supergirl meets up with Zookeeper Cass. All the animals have a bit of a tussle before they eventually bond over their love of eating garbage. Supergirl shows up with Zookeeper Cass and try to get the zoo animals back to the zoo. Supergirl is just trying to make everything right but the Zookeeper has more nefarious plans of exploiting the animals to make more profit.
Zatanna’s costume, along with her powers, fall into chapter 5 onto the Zookeeper giving her magical powers which she immediately puts to use trapping not only her zoo animals but also Supergirl and Krypto too! While Supergirl is initially pleased to be labeled as a “Goddess from Krypton”, she wants no part in being part of the Zookeeper’s attractions. No matter what she tries however, be it laser eyes, ice breath, or bad breath, nothing is helping her break free of Cass’s magic clutches. Working together with Krypto, the pair are eventually able to figure out a plan and Krypto barfs up all the garbage onto the fiend which breaks her concentration and lets everyone free. Sloth helps out Bat-Rhino and the Batarang Blaster is deployed knocking off Zatanna’s hat and making Cass vulnerable now.
The Zookeeper is now behind bars and in chapter 6, and Supergirl is ready to round up the rest of the animals and get them back in their cages, but they begin to protest. Krypto and Supergirl have an almost conversation and come to the compromise that the rest of the Zoo-Per crew can stay together with their super suits at least until the rest of the Justice League costumes are back to safety. And thus the story ends with a promise of more Zoo-Per stories yet to come.
It was not my intention to talk about this story so soon after its release because I generally like to let things sit for a bit before I go too deep into my thoughts on the subject. That being said, it’s a really great story and I want more people to get their hands on this book, especially younger kids. I am a huge supporter of kids getting into comics and comics having options for kids to read and this story is a really solid one that would be great for young audiences. This holds up more than just for kids though, there’s some fun humor in it and it’s a fairly exciting story with great art and some solid action sequences. I’m also particularly fond of the running gag of Supergirl trying to talk in dog and Krypto understanding it as just absolute gibberish.
On the other hand, I do have a couple minor issues with this story. First is perhaps just my own personal gripe, Streaky isn’t in the story! Streaky seems to often get the short end of the straw when it comes to more recent Super Pets related stories and it bothers me! In a broader sense though, none of the characters seem to really be defined at all. All the animals seem pretty simple and don’t even have names which felt like a weird choice. The most defining trait of any of the animals is that they love eating garbage and don’t want to be caged up in the zoo. Rhino gets a bit of character to him as he begins to take on the properties of Batman, but it’s mostly just played for laughs. Even Supergirl herself is mostly just portrayed as a superhero and doesn’t have much nuance. It’s really just Zookeeper Cass that has a clearly defined character with clear goals and motivation. I’m also not super into this book setting itself up for a sequel, stuff like that always makes me nervous because it’s always up in the air whether or not the sequel will actually come out. Rob Justus does seem to be a fairly competent story teller and he’s already got 2 Superman Good Guy Gang books out so I reckon a sequel is on the horizon.
Most of my issues with the book are fairly inconsequential in the grand scheme of things and I do think this story is worth checking out no matter what your age is. There are a handful of other Supergirl stories coming out in the coming months and Superman Day this year has been taken over by the maid of might so there’s plenty to look forward to for fans of Supergirl in 2026 and I hope you stick around and keep up with my coverage of Supergirl!
Earth-72 is the first of the universes that I’ve covered that is sort of a universe I’ve already explored. If you’ve been keeping up you may remember my Earth-47 entry. As I mentioned in that entry, that universe is also known as Earth-72 and Earth-Prez. Now that we’re taking a look at Earth-72 it gives me a chance to take a look at one of my scrapped ideas from season 1. Earth-72 is pretty strictly relegated to just Prez and his various appearances since his initial series from 1972, and Earth-47 is more of an updated look at the universe that also includes psychadelic and groovy versions of some of the Justice League. Heroes like Sunshine Superman, Speed Freak, and Magic Lantern who form a team called the Love Syndicate of Dreamworld. They all showed up for the first time in Animal Man #23 and while it was more than a cameo appearance, they didn’t do too much and mostly just served to be part of the ensemble to represent the sort of multiverse that existed when DC was trying to not have a multiverse called Hypertime.
Earth-72 being strictly the Prez universe probably means Prez Beth Ross should have been the representative for 72, while Sunshine Supergirl should instead represent the more expanded universe of 47 along with the Love Syndicate. That being said, I feel like if there wasn’t the restriction of a number under 51, Earth-47 would’ve been designated as Earth-72 from it’s inception. Part of me wants to believe 47 was picked because it was the last universe with a 7 in it left because it is clearly meant to be a universe with the aesthetics of the 1970s. Sunshine Supergirl is not a canonical character, but as I mentioned above, Sunshine Superman does exist. His full origin, or even his real name, isn’t known but he does seem to have similar powers and abilities to his Earth-0 counterpart so it’s likely his origin is similar and the universe itself is just a bit more funky. A Superman existing always gives the possibility of a Supergirl existing and I have presented just that. Due to the 1970s aesthetic of the universe I have also brought in the most used, and my personal favorite, Supergirl costume featured in comics in the 70s.
As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Sunshine Supergirl is striking a pose with her right arm behind her head and her left arm outstretched. Her cape is out to the left. The background is the text “SUPERGIRL” repeated several times, and one of these “SUPERGIRL”s is in front of the hero. The top right has a motif of Sunshine Supergirl’s S symbol with a 72 on top of it. The entire artwork has a distressed look to it to give the look of an old vinyl record sleeve.
This month’s endeavor into my boxes of comics lead me to an issue in Supergirl’s 40ish issue run in Adventure Comics, specifically issue 398. I can’t remember entirely how long it was, but for a portion of Supergirl’s Adventure run each issue would reprint a previous Supergirl story as well as a brand new story and issue 398 is one of those. The reprint issue for this issue is a 14 page story from Action Comics #306, and the new story is comprised of 6 pages. There is a nice parity between these 2 stories as they both feature an unknow alien antagonist that Supergirl has to overcome, but are otherwise quite unrelated. This issue was released with a cover date of October 1970 and the Action Comic story is from 1963.
Coming in first is “The Maid of Doom” from writer Leo Dorfman, artist Jim Mooney, and letterer Milt Snapinn. This story is both the reprint story and also the cover story. Initially it feels odd, to me at least, for the reprint story to be the feature on the cover, but further reflection it makes a lot of sense. Supergirl in Action Comics was always the backup feature and hardly ever got the cover spotlight, so when reprinting the stories it makes a lot of sense for this story to show up on the cover. This cover is particularly striking, from Dick Giordano, showing the Super Pets lying dead around Supergirl as Superman is banishing her to the phantom zone.
The story opens with Linda on a movie date with everyone’s favorite non-super boyfriend, Dick Malverne, before Supergirl remembers she has a peace keeping mission to do out in space. Supergirl goes to 3 distant planets; Mutor with it’s shape changing inhabitants, The Mole World with it’s metal eating moles, and finally Erg who’s lifeforms all emit a bluish radioactive glow about them. Remember these planets and their life forms for later.
After landing back on earth near her secret entrance to the Danvers’ home, she is met by her trusty Super-Cat Streaky. Unfortunately for Streaky, it seems Supergirl has brought back a deadly virus back to earth which has tragically ended the life of the unsuspecting cat. Krypto, also nearby, comes over to see what’s going on and meets the same fate. Both of the super-pets had a bluish glow about them as they passed leading Supergirl to believe the root of the deadly virus came from the planet Erg. Thankfully the virus only seems to affect super-beings which is revealed when Supergirl tells her adoptive mother, Edna, what happened. This is not the end of tragedy though as Mr. Mxyzptlk and Comet both fall to the Maid of Doom before Superman shows up and tells her the only safe place for her is the Phantom Zone.
After our hero is subjected to the same fate as Mon-El, we get a surprising image of Superman turning into a fish before diving under a lake. From here we find out that wasn’t Superman at all but one of the Plasmos from the planet Mutor! We find out from Sklor, the Plasmo, that he had just successfully executed a plan to rid Earth of it’s heroes Supergirl and Superman so that the rest of their race can take over the planet. Sklor retells the story from his point of view and we find out that Supergirl is not the deadly menace we were led to believe and all the deceased super-beings were actually Sklor shape changing and acting. He was also able to convince Superman and the Super-Pets to go to the future as to not disturb his plans.
All looks pretty dire for the girl of steel when suddenly she shows up again in the Plasmo’s lair! Supergirl, through some rather convoluted reasoning, was able to thwart Sklor. After realizing the best plan they ever could’ve thought of ended in failure, the planet Mutor decides to sign a treaty with Earth and also to not conquer any other planet. The UN celebrates by raising a Supergirl flag and everyone is happy aside from probably Sklor who probably doesn’t have many friends left on Mutor.
Before we get to the 1970 story, we get a full page of Supergirl letting you know the story you just read was old and she doesn’t dress like that anymore. This is a nice transition between the A and B stories and also serves to highlight the fan costume designs for the maid of might which were featured in the issues around this time.
“Catcher in the Sky”, by Mike Sekowsky with inks by Dick Giordano and letters by John Costanza is a brief little 6 page story with some really exceptional imagery of Supergirl. Linda is sat bored at home watching reruns on TV when she hears of a mysterious tragedy as the US Carrier Whitney has vanished into thin air. Supergirl suits up and rushes to the scene.
While the story doesn’t have a lot of real estate in regards to page count, that hasn’t stopped the art from producing some great sweeping images of Supergirl in action. Although she looked good doing so, she too was met with the same fate as the Whitney as she suddenly vanishes. Supergirl has now found the Whitney along with everyone and everything else that vanished and soon gets on the case to find out what happened and how to fix it.
It seems like the son of a scientist from an alien alternate dimension has been messing around with his dad’s equipment and has snatched stuff from our world into his. This alien race is much larger than any earth being so it takes all of Supergirl’s strength to get their attention to get her and the people of earth back home.
Thankfully the alien dad is much more accommodating to the earthlings and sends everyone back where they belong. The story then ends with the alien dad spanking the alien son. There is also a 1 page tease for the next issue which features Johnny Dee-Bum which seems to be a big deal but I don’t think he’s nearly as important as he’s made out to be.
While I didn’t see any letters that really stood out to me, I have to note that “Super Fe-Mail” is a particularly bonkers choice for a letters page. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this and it definitely won’t be the last but I needed everyone else to know about it. I also found this really cute ad for some animal figures and the cow at the top just looks really goofy. Neither of these stories are astounding by any means, but they’re goofy 60s-ish super hero alien stories and I always have a fun time with those. And between the cover and the interior art it’s a rather stunning issue visually.
This is not the first Supergirl I’ve covered from Earth-0 as part of Supergirl in the Multiverse, that was Kara Zor-El covered as the first entry in the series. Earth-0 is the “main” universe and has produced many such heroes that can fall under the role of Supergirl, or in this case Power Girl. I did consider labeling Power Girl II as Earth-2 due to her ties to Karen Starr, or potentially Earth-52 because of her introduction in a New 52 series, but at the end of the day, being a part of the mainstream universe (Earth-0) was the best fit.
First appearing in Huntress/Power Girl: World’s Finest #23, Tanya Spears is a fellow scientist working with Karen Starr (Power Girl) at Starr Industries. Tanya is young, but already a well renowned scientist in her own right with 2 PhDs by the age of 17. As such, Starr has taken her under her wing as a protege, and when Power Girl returned to her home of Earth-2 she had Spears take up after her in more than one way. Tanya soon finds out that she has gained some of Power Girl’s powers, namely strength and invulnerability. With her newfound powers, she seeks to make a name for herself as a superhero. Taking up the hero name her mentor left her, Power Girl would go on to join the Teen Titans, then later the Elite (where Manchester Black drugged her giving her the power to grow in size), and when last seen she was part of Deathstroke’s super hero team Defiance. Spears has not really had a great place to shine since her introduction and generally seems to make some poor choices in regards to super hero teams, but with further guidance from her mentor I feel like she could really make a name for herself.
As with all my Supergirl in the Multiverse posts, this is my own artwork. Tanya Spears, Power Girl II, is towering over a city. Surrounded by skyscrapers, Power Girl II stands as a skyscraper herself and she is supporting a toppling skyscraper from falling. A motif in the top right has a gold oval with a 0 on top of it.
The Daring New Blog of Supergirl 