Super Girls Gone Wild!

It’s New Year’s Eve and you just know Supergirl is going to party like its 1999.

Yet, Kara 2.0 is not the first Supergirl to prefer fun and frivolity over super heroics.

The original Kara Zor-El - yes, sweet, kind Kara - once chucked it all away for a life of glitz and glamor. She even took Wonder Woman, the greatest super-heroine of all, along for the ride!

Holy Thelma and Louise!!

The sordid tale takes place in Brave and the Bold #63, although no character involved in this issue exhibits much bravery or boldness. But hey, it’s a Supergirl/Wonder Woman team-up and long-suffering Kara fans like yours truly have to take whatever we can get.

Our story begins with Kara saving the Silver Age version of TomKat from certain death, only to be roundly ignored by the surrounding crowd.

Now Supergirl knows how Haylie Duff feels …

Rather than take her frustration out on the crowd (hint: Never ignore a woman who can incinerate you in the blink of an eye), Kara blames herself for being a “way-out character” and decides to abandon the super life.

Guess Superman didn’t do that great a job when it came to bolstering Kara’s self-esteem.

Of course, Superdick Superman tries to talk his cousin out of quitting. But when she turns the table on Kal-El, the legendary hero suddenly finds himself defending his Manhood of Steel.

Unable to keep Kara under his super thumb, Kal-El asks Wonder Woman to talk some sense into his younger cousin.

In the blink of an eye (remember, the term “decompression” only held significance for deep-sea divers in the Silver Age) Diana finds Supergirl in Paris, where the Maid of Might is wowing ‘em on the catwalk.

The Amazing Amazon bursts into Kara’s dressing room to give the former heroine a good talking to, but finds herself distracted by … Supergirl’s pretty clothes.

OK, William Moulton Marston may have been a weirdo but he never - to the Keeper’s knowledge at least - portrayed the heroine as a flighty clothes horse. Was this story written by Bob Haney?

At any rate, things only get worse when a smoothie kisses Wonder Woman and - with little else than his manly magnetism - persuades her to abandon her mission to Man’s World and become a free-wheeling socialite.

And so is born an entire sub-genre of Internet fan-fiction.

Of course there’s more to the story. There’s the remote Ile D’Amour that just happens to be the secret headquarters of a Z-rate villain known as Multi-Face and … well, let’s just say everything works out fine in the end.

So anyway, as our heroines wink their way out of another predicament the Keeper would like to wish everyone a safe and happy New Year.

Don’t do anything out there that Kara and Diana wouldn’t do!

Ray Of Light

Modern comics have not been kind to The Ray.

Back in the day, “Happy” Terrill was simply a good-hearted guy who attained crazy powers in a ballooning accident.

(’Cuz that happened a lot back then … )

The Gleaming Gladiator had his day in the sun and faded along with many other four-color heroes after World War II. He and five other Quality Comics characters briefly returned in the 1970s as part of the original Freedom Fighters.

Little more was heard of the Ray until the 1990s, when it turned out that Happy did not receive his powers by accident. Instead, a secret government agency staged the incident as part of a greater plan to contact a mysterious “light entity.”

Happy, as you might expect, was pretty cranky after he discovered the truth and abandoned his heroic identity.

The one-time Ray settled down to a quiet suburban life until the birth of his newborn son - an infant who literally “glowed.”

Happy then devised an elaborate conspiracy of his own, literally putting his son Ray through a living hell. Although he’d never win an award for parenting skills, the Golden Age Ray’s harebrained scheme somehow worked out and his son became an honorable hero in his own right.

The second Ray joined the Justice League and even had a brief dalliance with Black Canary. (Dude!)

Although Quality characters fared poorly in Infinite Crisis (R.I.P. Human Bomb, Black Condor II, Phantom Lady II), Ray managed to survive the bloody mega-crossover and even made a cameo appearance in 52 #1.

Then Ray II disappeared from the face of the Earth - unless he’s the mysterious Supernova. Hmmmm.

In Ray’s absence, a new Ray popped up in Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters. Sadly, he didn’t exactly honor the Terrills’ heroic legacy.

Frankly, the whole bit seems a bit complicated for a guy who used to fly around and fight giant, robotic rats.

In the simpler world of the Fortress, Happy Terrill is still a good hearted guy who received crazy powers in a ballooning accident. Many years later, Ray II followed in his father’s footsteps minus all the kewl konspiracy kliches.

And the new, villainous Ray? Just a flash in the pan.

Stephen Strange, Playa Supreme

Friendly Neighborhood Whipping Boy

From Sensational Spider-Man #14:

From Iron Man #14:

From Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #15:

Gee, remember when Spider-Man used to be … you know … competent?

The FIRST Civil War

The great Avengers-Defenders War was the first comic “event” to blow the young Fortress Keeper’s mind. (The second was Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, but that’s a story for another day … )

Long before Marvel heroes publicly murdered each other in the name of political discourse, the company’s greatest characters clashed for a very simple reason - they weren’t all that smart.

What else can you say about characters who were fooled by Loki and Dormammu to fight one another over an artifact known as the “Evil Eye.”

Dr. Strange, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Thor, Silver Surfer, The Vision - each were convinced the other had turned rogue and nobody thought to ask the other what the heck was going on.

Well, Captain America did … eventually. But that was after a lot of spandex-covered butts were kicked around the world.

As great as it was to see Hawkeye take down Iron Man, though, our favorite battle took place in the pages of Defenders #10.

It was the first time our disbelieving eyes had ever seen Thor take on The Incredible Hulk!

(Yeah, yeah … the Keeper later discovered earlier battles. Unfortunately, back issues were harder to come by back then. The DC and Marvel “giants” offered tantalizing glimpses into the past, but the selection was very scatter-shot.)

Anyway, this was clearly the greatest comic-book battle your humble host had ever experienced. In fact, it still gives us a bit of chill to this day …

The Keeper loves the scene where two kids root for their favorites. Of course, nobody seemed all that concerned that their city was being torn apart.

And this was before the violence really escalated …

In the end, it all led up to one of the most memorable scenes in our, uh, memory as two of Marvel’s mightiest held each other at bay for hours!

Hulk and Thor would probably be stuck in that position to this very day if the fight hadn’t been broken apart by a united team of Avengers and Defenders who finally figured out that something was amiss.

If that seems like an anti-climactic resolution to you, don’t worry.

Our heroes soon had a bigger problem on their hands.

The Avengers-Defenders War remains one of our favorite super-hero crossovers. It was exciting, imaginative and the stakes were truly world-shattering.

Marvel zombies disenchanted with the company’s current state of affairs would do well to find the trade paperback reprinting the saga, or pick up a copy of Defenders Essentials vol. 1 for the black-and-white version.

The story is a potent reminder of what made Marvel Comics great.

P.S. Don’t worry Fortress Fans. Everything worked out OK for our heroes in Avengers 118. Back in the ’70s, super-humans didn’t sit around and cry in their beer. If demons invaded our dimension, heroes and villains alike stepped up to the plate and … well, see for yourself.

Oh yeah, and the Watcher stopped by after the action concluded to offer one of his trademark soliloquies. Guess the guy really likes talking to himself.