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I've been putting this one together over a period of almost three months. It's not going to be my biggest column, but it's probably one of the most "thought out". In a previous column, or two, I think I've mentioned that I've been a Supergirl fan since I started collecting comics. I hated it when she finally got her own comic series and it turned out to be concentrated fecal matter on the printed page. I think I read all of two whole issues before I gave up in disgust. I was never a big fan of Carmine Infantino and his interpretation of the Maid of Might left almost everything to be desired. I absolutely hated the 80s costume, with the trendy head band and I hated that she died in that horrible outfit.
When Superman was rebooted in the 80s, thanks to John Byrne's "Man of Steel" series, there seemed to be no hope for Supergirl, since he had declared there would be only one surviving Kryptonian. Still, the powers that be at DC decreed that there had to be a Supergirl of some description, in order to maintain the trademark on the name, or somesuch reason. I can't say I was all that enamored of Byrne's Supergirl, with Lana Lang as her alter ego and her powers straight out of the Martian Manhunter catalog, but the costume was tolerable and there was hope. Supergirl knocked around the DCU for a number of years and no one seemed to be able to get a handle on her. The main problem seemed to be those pesky shapeshifting powers, everyone seemed determined to changed her into their idea of a Supergirl.
Then, along came Peter David, who took a marginal character and made her awesome. He gave her depth and strength, as well as vulnerability. He gave us Linda Danvers back and he made it all work within the original framework of her being a blob of genetically engineered protoplasm from a parallel Earth. Then, of course, someone at DC decided to take her away and foist one replacement after another upon the readership until they introduced the "real" Supergirl back into the continuity.
Now, we're back to having a Kryptonian Supergirl who, like Byrne's Supergirl, is a good idea for a character. It remains to be seen whether or not she can be adapted into a character worthy of the name. Oh, and I don't like her hoochie-cheerleader costume. There's a place for naked flesh on a superhero, it's just doesn't suit Supergirl.
So, where does all this lead? Well, I was inspired by Superman Returns to imagine a Supergirl from the same design elements. Well, similar boots and belt and shield, anyway.The costume is simple, the belt has already been a part of her costume since the Byrne days, minus the S-shield buckle, of course. I would prefer a less rubbery-looking cape on Supergirl.
The costume is only a small part of a story, however. You need an origin and a good villain. Unfortunately, Supergirl had not really good villains of her own, so I figure we'd borrow one from her cousin. At the same time, since I'm ignoring the 80s Supergirl movie (except for Helen Slater in the Supergirl costume, it was totally awful, anyway), I thought I'd write a new-ish version of Kara Zor-El's origin story. Originally, she was from Argo City, a Kryptonian city that was blasted off the face of Krypton when it was exploded. A whole city, thrown into space! No, no, no, we can't have that!!! For one thing, it's just dumb.
In the Superman animated series, they introduced Supergirl as Kara In-Ze, not a blood cousin of Superman, but close enough. She was an inhabitant of the planet Argo, a neighbor and colony of Krypton. When Krypton did the big firework, Argo was thrown out of its orbit, moving further and further from their sun. Argo became an ice age hell, killing most of the inhabitants and forcing Kara and her family to retreat into suspended animation. Only Kara survived.
One other element from the animated series that works for me is the idea of Brainiac being a Kryptonian artificial intelligence that escaped the destruction of Krypton.
So, here's the idea I had. Instead of being a city that was improbably blasted, in one piece, off the planet, or another planet with a planet full of people to worry about, I see argo City as an orbiting research station based on a large asteroid. In the movie version, it was Krypton's sun, not Krypton itself (or, at least, not Krypton alone) which exploded. Let's say that Argo City is operated by an artificial intelligence called Brainiac, that manages to protect the inhabitants of the station when the sun explodes by rotating the asteroid to shield the station.
But, what Brainiac couldn't anticipate was that the radiation from the nova would produce radioactive isotopes in the rock, turning it to kryptonite. Within months, the radiation is becoming lethal, but there is one hope. Instruments detected a small space craft leaving Krypton just before the blast. Brainiac is able to duplicate the drive mechanism for the craft and construction begins on escape ships. What Brainiac does not share is that there is only enough power to fuel one escape ship, which Brainiac intends to use for itself.
Brainiac began his career in 1958, in Action Comics #242. He was fairly typical of the aliens of the period, human-looking, but with green skin and strange headpiece, on the cover, anyway. Inside, he just had a misshapen head and different costume. He had all the trappings of the later Brainiac, the impentrable force shield, the disc-shaped starship and he liked to shrink cities (who doesn't?). The one thing that was not established in his first appearance was that he was an android. It wasn't until 1964 that Brainiac was revealed to be a "living computer", constructed as a spy by the computer tyrants of Colu. One story says that this was introduced as part of a settlement of legal issues over a toy computer of the same name.
Brainiac suffered from, possibly, the worst fashion sense in the DC universe, however. Here's a villain, hated and feared across the galaxy and he wears pink and white! I guess we're lucky he steals cities and shrinks them, rather than redecorating them.
In the animated series, we got an updated look at Brainiac that I have always enjoyed. Purple goes so well with green, ask any Hulk you happen to see!
Now, of course, we need a new Brainiac for the Supergirl movie and my idea is that he/it gets his android body from an alien planet, giving it a humanoid, but distinctly alien look.
Brainiac launches the only working escape craft with Kara on board. She manages to extract Brainiac's storage matrix and cut it loose in hyperspace. She goes into suspended animation and Brainiac drifts until it can latch onto another ship passing through hyperspace. Kara's ship crashes on Earth and is discovered by Superman, the rest is history.
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