Super Girls Gone Wild!
December 31, 2006 by The Fortress Keeper
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!
I freely admit, I don’t mind the cheesecake elements of this story, but the fact that both heroines are depicted so far out of character is disheartening.
SA Wonder Woman had her flaws, but she’d never throw over Steve Trevor so lightly (BTW how d’ye suppose she explained her very public two week fling in Paris to the Flyboy?)
SA Supergirl was no great paragon of feminism, but she was usually depicted as loving her job…tossing it over to be a model is well…plainly weird.
I mean Supergirl is already a global Superstar-celeb and something of a sex symbol as well…becoming a model is a bit of coals to Newcastle IMHO.
Its a pity that DC never quite gave us good heroine team ups, there could’ve been some great stories extracted from pairing up Wonder Woman and Supergirl, Youth and Experience, Magic and Science, Blonde and Brunette.
Great Post and Research. I’m always amazed how you are able to peice a story together. I’ll bet your comic books are in shreds after these pieces!
And they say modern girls are too wild…
[...] Your When Fangirls Attack link of the day: It’s a Supergirl round-up! Quick: Spot the exploitive Supergirl drawing! Also, a short history of Supergirl’s abandonment of the superhero ethic. Finally, if there are so many licensed Supergirl products aimed at young girls available for sale, why exactly aren’t there any actual Supergirl comics suitable for the same age group? (Above: Party on, Supergirl! Panel ©2006 DC Comics.) [...]
The more things change, the more they stay the same…at least in comics!
Thanks for the comment on my blog. I’m afraid it got lost in a deluge of spam so I only just found it today.
Apart from the (adorable) art, this issue of Supergirl (#13) was no great shakes, but compared to the toxic waste dump that was #12, it’s comics GOLD. It also makes the sudden jump in behavior between #11 and #12 make a lot more sense, which makes me wonder why they published the “Sharks ‘n’ Lolipron” story *before* Super Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.
Er, that should read “this issue of Supergirl (#12) was no great shakes, but compared to the toxic waste dump that was #11, it’s comics GOLD. It also makes the sudden jump in behavior between #10 and #11″ etc.
[...] opinion on this issue can be summed up in a comment I made on Fortress of Fortitude: Apart from the (adorable) art, this issue of Supergirl (#12) was no great shakes, but compared to [...]
[...] Super Girls Gone Wild - The Keeper from Fortress of Fortitude parties like its 1999 with Supergirl and Wonder Woman (from Fortress of Fortitude) [...]
I’m pretty sure it WAS Bob Haney who wrote that little “gem”.