A Tale Of Two Supergirls
June 6, 2007 by The Fortress Keeper
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Joe Kelly’s Deadpool is one of our favorite comics.
Unfortunately, the one-time superstar writer does not understand Supergirl.
Supergirl #18 plays the evil-twin card to presumably settle the question - once and for all- whether the 21st century Kara is the “real” Maid of Might. Sadly, the issue just demonstrates how far the character has fallen since Jeph Loeb’s departure.
In a plot twist too convoluted too describe (Hint: it involves Monitors … ) Kara 2.0 finds herself battling Joe Kelly’s interpretation of the Silver-Age Supergirl - a stuck-up Barbie doll who revels in her “perfection.”
We’ll ignore the fact that Kelly’s vision is closer to Alan Moore’s Supergirl homage/parody, Suprema, than the actual Maid of Might. Your friendly neighborhood Keeper will even overlook how DC expects readers to shell out $3 so the beleaguered writer can bash his critics.
What is truly astounding to this humble blogger is the simple fact that Kelly - and for that matter, many modern creators and fans - eagerly brushes aside Kara’s greatest character trait, kindness, for the sake of modernity.
For whatever reason, it’s seemingly impossible for people to accept a teenage character who does the right thing simply because it’s the right thing to do. Joe Kelly’s Supergirl is “realistic” because she’s self-loathing, anti-social and battling a compulsion to destroy her famous cousin.
Riiiight.
Why is it so difficult to understand that longtime Kara fans don’t want a picture-perfect mannequin who looks down on the people she protects? We want the Supergirl who shared the insecurities of many teenagers but still put her own needs aside to help others.
(And if that sounds hopelessly quaint, read this week’s issue of Invincible …)
Combined with some truly amateurish art by Adam Archer (we can’t stand delays, but in this case they they should have waited for Ale Garza to finish the entire issue), this is ugly ugly stuff.
The new creative team can’t come too soon.
To paraphrase Bonaparte…”Supergirl, Supergirl, Supergirl…Why is it always Supergirl?”
I agree with you, this ish made exactly no sense whatsoever and the artwork was crude to the point of amateurishness…DC ought to be ashamed of itself over the way they’ve treated Kousin Kara.
Let me speak up on behalf of Suprema though, Moore created a nigh perfect homage to Kara Zor El, put her back into context and never doubted the character’s righteousness.
As far as I’m concerned, Suprema remains the Supergirl high water mark since the original’s death in the accursed CoIE.
Getting back to Supergirl, I only wish I could believe that a new creative team was the answer, frankly, I think there is very bad faith somewhere in DC when it comes to Supergirl.
If Jerry Ordway is to be believed - and there’s no reason to doubt the guy - DC’s powers-that-be have long harbored similar designs on Mary Marvel. Modern day fans and creators just want to drag virtuous characters through the mud.
To be totally honest, I don’t have a lot of faith in either Marvel or DC these days. It seems that comics I enjoy by the Big Two these days are exceptions to the rule.
(And things seemed so bright when OYL first launched. Heck, Marvel even put out interesting mini-series back then …
Oh, and I wasn’t dissing Suprema. I viewed the whole “Story of the Year” arc as a loving tribute/parody of those grand old days of when imagination (at times, to the points of ridiculousness) was the order of the day.
One of the things I love about Silver and Bronze age comics is that, for the most part, they don’t demand to be taken too seriously.
I gave up on this title some where around #5 or #6, but, just out of curiosity, how many times has she fought different versions of herself at this point? It’s only #18, so it seems kind of early to repeat the good Supergirl vs. bad Supergirl thing.
So far, Supergirl 2K has fought different versions of herself twice - four times if you include two slobberknockers with Power Girl. The original Maid of Might met her evil twin more than once (most memorably in stories featuring Lesla Lar and Satan Girl), but we all know that Silver Age doppelgangers kick the living @#$% out of their modern counterparts!
Supergirl 2K does nothing but fight versions of herself and then other heroes XD
*sighs*
And yus… srsly… why do teen characters ESP teen GIRL characters have to be so vapid and selfish all the time? :\ I wonder if it’s a high school issue involving the writer’s past?
Caleb it is good Supergirl vs bad Supergirl, but this time the bad Supergirl wins! XDD
It does seem to be that ppl like to see virtuous female characters turn ebil and stuff tho :\ Like, they’re just TOO perfect or something
I dunno :\
I just think that Kelly’s view on life that apparently a bad life = angst and no heroing, is silly. :\
Lots of ppl have bad lives and they are great ppl
Lots of ppl have great lives and they are bad ppl. 
“It’s only #18, so it seems kind of early to repeat the good Supergirl vs. bad Supergirl thing.”
Indeed, and it’s this constant self-referencing that keeps getting the current version into trouble, as it merely points out just how inferior she’s been developed as a character.
At this point, DC might as well fess up that they’re desperately seeking a media deal from Hollywood by proliferating this ‘Supergirl’ cipher they’ve created. It’s simply not about the comics anymore.
The plot device was also used in the Justice League Unlimited cartoon.
It is my secret hope that the popularity of Showcase Presents will allow characters to be rebooted / re-engineeing to “iconic” status.
Superhero comics as soap opera is dead to me.
I love what WIZARD said about the issue:
From their review of SUPERGIRL #18
Less a comic than a passive-aggressive 22-page rebuttal to the book’s critics, this issue of Supergirl sees two competing versions of the character duke it out to be the universe’s One True Supergirl. The false, evil Supergirl is a perma-grinning parody of the classic good-girl take on the character, prone to lecturing the regular version about how people don’t want a Supergirl who has the same real problems they do. This, of course, is a total straw-man argument. No one’s objecting to a Supergirl who isn’t cardboard-cutout perfection—rather, they’ve got a beef with presenting an underaged character who combines grim’n’gritty angst and violence with a hypersexualized look. As if to subtly acknowledge—and mock—the real objection, the evil Good Girl Supergirl is shown wearing a lot more clothes than the normal version, the implication being that three-dimensional characters with genuine emotions go hand-in-hand with belly shirts and panty shots. If you ask me, the wrong Supergirl wins this fight.
When even WIZARD thinks T&A is bad, you’ve got problems!
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[...] A Tale Of Two Supergirls [image] We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Joe Kelly’s Deadpool is one of our favorite […] [...]
“Sadly, the issue just demonstrates how far the character has fallen since Jeph Loeb’s departure.”
That was a joke, right? Loeb was the one who created the vapid would-be assassin in a belly shirt made for her by Ma Kent. Kelly may have given her an unlikeable personality, but Loeb had given her none at all.
Admittedly Kelly has seriously screwed around with the character up to and including retconning some of the stuff Loeb did (to no useful purpose), but it’s not significantly worse, just bad in a different way.
To be honest, I preferred the vapid Supergirl who should have dressed a bit more warmly in her rocket ship. At least Loeb left open the possibility that Dark Kara was a by-product of the trauma caused by seeing her planet destroyed.
Maybe he would have continued with the would-be assassin bit, but Loeb at least left behind a book that was no worse than a Gerry Conway-penned issue of Marvel Team-Up.
Not the highest bar to clear, true, but still better than what followed.
It’s hard to believe that the only reason that Kara is back at all is because Paul Dini and Bruce Timm worked 24-7 to bring her back in the SM-TAS and the JLU as a fun vibrant character…maybe not quite Superman’s Bronze Age Cousin from Krypton but damn close with a few improvements as well.
So DC takes the damn hint (after a lot of foot-dragging and hemming and hawing) and look what they deliver??!!!!!