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When she was first introduced, in 1959, Supergirl was treated more
like Superman's kid sister, than his cousin. In her origin, she lands on
Earth, already wearing her first costume, which looks like she borrowed
Superman's night shirt, more than anything else. From the beginning, she was
bright and cheerful and bursting with enthusiasm. This is somewhat strange,
considering she had just escaped certain death by Kryptonite radiation,
leaving the only home she knew and parents she knew and loved.
By contrast, Superman's origin is far less traumatic, for him, than
was Supergirl's. Superman was sent to Earth as a baby, before he had any
awareness about his parents, beyond the most basic. As soon as he lands, he
has a set of surrogate parents who pick up right where Jor-El and Lara left
off. Supergirl was in her early teens, when she was rocketed to safety, the
only survivor of Argo City, a domed city from Krypton that mysteriously
survived the destruction of the planet by being ejected on one huge slab of
rock (as implausible as that sounds...). Somehow, the people and buildings
survived the massive acceleration of the explosion and were able to lay down
sheets of lead to protect them as the rock beneath their feet was converted
into Kryptonite by the blast. The people of Argo City managed to survive for
some years, before the radiation began seeping past their protective layer
of lead. It was then that the brother of Jor-El, Zor-El decided to send his
daughter, Kara, away to Earth, where her cousin had already established
himself as Superman.
It seems that, while the Kryptonians were woefully inept at
developing space travel, they built unbelievably powerful telescopes. So
powerful that they could "see" faster than light. This is how Kara as able
to create her costume, learn English (and, presumably, other Earth
languages) and generaly prepare herself for the massive culture shock of
coming to Earth as a teenager. Considering how traumatic it is for kids to
move to a different school, leaving all their friends and social ties
behind, it would have to be worse, by an order of magnitude, to move to a
different planet!
For years, Superman kept his young cousin hidden from the world.
Training her to be his "secret weapon", she was placed into Midvale
Orphanage under the name Linda Lee. Supergirl would sometimes sneak out and
get into a little trouble, but like Superboy, before her, never anything too
serious. She stayed out of sight, most of the time, and learned subtlety in
the use of her powers. Eventually, she was adopted by the Danvers' and
escaped the curse of Superman's (or, rather, Superman's writers') lack of
imagination, when it comes to names. After awhile, all those LL names tended
to run together.
Throughout most of the 60s, Supergirl wore her original costume, but
late in the decade, she went through a period of constant change, some more
bizarre than others. During this period, some of her costumes came from
readers' designs (people doing exactly what I do here, every month), this is
one example.
It was during this period of change that they finally settled on the
costume that she'd wear throughout the 70s, and into the 80s. This is my
favorite, possibly because it made Supergirl seem "softer" than many of the
other heroes of the period, more playful. Originally, it had her wearing
little slippers, but those soon gave way to the traditional Superman boots,
and eventually the cape attachment changed from the choker to attach at the
neckline of the blouse. Attaching a cape to a choker seems monumentally
stupid, to me, even if you're invulnerable, but that's how it was for the
longest time.
In the 80s, Supergirl actually had a short-lived series, starting
off with the overly-hyperbolic title, "The Daring New Adventures of
Supergirl", which had her moving to Chicago and changing her costume, yet
again. Apparently, it was decided that, as long as she was going to be
living in the "Windy City" she must have a short skirt for the wind to blow
up and show her panties. Which I must say, I do not completely disapprove
of, but I never really liked this design. It just didn't strike me as a
costume for Supergirl. Also, I hated that headband. I couldn't even bring
myself to draw it, except to give her something that the ending of the
Crisis on Infinite Earths denied her.
You see, this is the costume she died wearing. Crisis on Infinite
Earths #7, I remember it like it was yesterday. I was working at Lone Star
Comics, in Mesquite, Texas (with fellow CT writer Jeff Valentine) and we had
black armbands made with the "S" shield airbrushed on them. We rented
Supergirl on video, yeah, it was that kind of day. Crisis ended with
Supergirl never having existed, forgotten by all but those heroes who stood
at the dawn of time, when the universe was recreated and soon forgotten,
even by them. Within a year or so, Superman got his remake courtesy of John
Byrne and, as part of it, Kara Zor-El, the last daughter of Krypton was
excised from DC continuity.
Unlike Barry Allen, the Flash (2), no memorial survived the events
of the Crisis. So here's a stainless steel monument to the Girl of Steel,
the Maid of Might, Supergirl.
Byrne's objective, when he took over Superman, was to remove the
"excess baggage" from the Superman mythos. Part of what he considered
"baggage", was Supergirl. However, it wasn't too long before the
powers-that-be at DC decided that in order to keep the Supergirl property
alive, the character needed to be revived.
The solution was to introduce a Supergirl whose existence would not
dilute Superman's unique status as the sole survivor of the destruction of
Krypton. Earlier, in a story contrived to tie up some of the loose ends left
over by the sudden removal, from Superman's career, of time as Superboy (a
deletion with far-reaching effects, as it tampered with the origin of the
Legion of Super-Heroes), Superman had met the Superboy from a parallel
Earth. As it turned out, this was a parallel universe created by the Time
Trapper, to protect his intended version of history.
In a later story, Superman was confronted by a slim, blonde girl
calling herself Supergirl and posessing powers hauntingly similar to J'onn
J'onnz, the Manhunter from Mars. She revealed that she could vanish, fly,
posessed a variety of super-strength and invulnerability, could change her
shape and packed a considerable telekintetic punch. Supergirl was an
artificial life-form created by the Lex Luthor of Superboy's alternate
Earth, implanted with the memories of that world's Lana Lang and sent to
bring Superman back with her.
In this story, it is revealed that Superboy has been missing for
some time. In an uncharacteristic bout of bad judgement, the Lex Luthor of
that Earth had released three Kryptonian criminals who promised to act as
heroes, if released on Earth. Of course, they lied. In the ensuing battle,
most of the world's population was destroyed when the criminals from Krypton
stripped away Earth's atmosphere. Only a small protected enclave survived,
in a domed and shielded area around Smallville (I'm working from memory,
here, it might have been Metropolis, but I don't think so). Superman
travelled to this alternate Earth and fought alongside the survivors, some
with names you'd recognize, Hal Jordan, Ollie Queen and others. In the end,
they were all doomed, the Kryptonians in this alternate universe possessed
powers a hundred, no, a thousand times those of Byrne's version of Superman.
They needed neither air, water, nor food, under Earth's yellow sun and their
strength, speed and invulnerabilty were almost too much for Superman. Only
his quick thinking saved him, when he exposed the criminals to Gold
Kryptonite, which removed their powers, permanently. Then, as the last
survivor of the battle, Superman exposed them to that universe's version of
Green Kryptonite, until they were dead.
During the battle, Supergirl was badly injured, but her artificial
body had already begun to regenerate. Superman rescued her and took her home
with him. As she healed, she was nurtured by Jonothan and Martha Kent, going
by the name Matrix, or Mae, for short. At times, she mimicked Superman's
form, but eventually settled back into her Supergirl identity.
For awhile, Supergirl would occasionally morph into different
shapes, costumes, etc, but in 1995, she got a series of her own. This time,
with Peter David writing and Gary Frank penciling, Supergirl would come into
her own. This series embodies all of the potential the character always had,
but never realized. First, they "locked" her shape-shifting powers, by
merging Matrix/Supergirl with a young, rebellious Linda Danvers. Linda was
more than merely a rebellious teen, she was well on the road to pure evil
when an angel came into her life, in the form of Supergirl. Over the last
six years, Supergirl has been to hell and back, met someone who may, or may
not, be God and discovered and lost her connection to an angelic force which
empowered her. The series has been funny and touching and downright
thought-provoking. I highly recommend it.
Lately, Linda/Supergirl has been in a slump, power-wise. Having lost
her earth-angel aspect, she has powers similar to those Superman had in his
very first appearance, in Action Comics #1. She can't fly and she's not as
strong, nor as nearly invulnerable as before. She also can't grow 4 inches
and two cup sizes and become Supergirl, anymore. Now she has to wear her
costume under her clothes like everyone else. How she fits that miniskirt
into her jeans, I don't even want to speculate. She now wears a costume
pieced together from a souvenier t-shirt and other odds and ends, including
a blonde wig. The design comes from the version of Supergirl introduced in
the Superman animated series, a version which incorporates all the best
elements of Kara Zor-El and a few new elements which work extremely well.
For my version, I wanted to keep some of the elements from previous
Supergirl costumes. In a tribute to the costume Supergirl died in, during
the Crisis, I extended the "S" shield over the shoulders, but attached the
cape under the edge, I kept the belt similar to recent versions, forming a
sort of "V", but added the diamond-shaped buckle, because I like belts that
buckle, not just magically site there, and I hate velcro. My original design
used swimsuit-style bottoms, but I like the tight mini-skirt of the current
and "animated" versions, so I changed to a red mini. Of course, I couldn't
lose the Superman boots, those are essential. Another element brought over
from the current version is the white gloves, I just like them.
Anyone who knows me could tell you that Supergirl is, and always has
been, one of my favorite comic characters. I hated to see her die in Crisis,
no matter how good the story was, and it was damn good. Gor a long time, I
didn't like Byrne's remake, I didn't like her shape-shifting, I didn't like
that she virtually duplicated the Martian Manhunter's powers (if you don't
believe me, check out J'onn J'onnz's entry in Who's Who in the DC
Universe-the first edition-before his vision powers were retconned into
"heat vision" in JLA: Year One), I just didn't like her. Peter David and the
artists he works with on Supergirl have done justice to the character, more
than that, they've made her a character who could stand on her own.
Happy New Year, everyone!
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