She’s A Super GIRL
August 15, 2007 by The Fortress Keeper
*Sigh*
Another week, another new creative team for Supergirl.
Incoming writer Kelley Puckett is an even trade for Tony Bedard, but The Keeper will truly miss Renato Guedes’ pencils. Although we usually dislike static, “photo-realistic” art in super-hero comics, Guedes’ style is truly distinctive.
(The work of Guedes’ replacement, Drew Johnson, has always struck us as a tad generic.)
Puckett - beloved by Cassandra Cain fans for a memorable run on the former Batgirl’s title - said he is influenced by the “old-school” Supergirl stories and views Kara Zor-El as a character of “hope and possibility.”
So far, so good.
Unfortunately, Puckett also subscribes to the view that led to Kara’s demise in the original Crisis: “What’s unique about Supergirl is that she’s not unique. She’s Superman. She’s a Superman in a world that already has a Superman, and that’s a problem for her (and me).”
The sentiment is identical to Marv Wolfman’s opinion of the Silver Age Supergirl, and it formed the basis of the creator’s (ultimately successful) campaign to kill Kara off.
Such statements starkly illustrate how the comic book industry changed since Supergirl first appeared in 1959. Back then, young girls (*gasp*) actually read mainstream comic books. Kara Zor-El was introduced to the Superman mythos as a way to court that audience.
Thanks to Otto Binder and Jim Mooney’s creativity, the Supergirl strip in Action Comics found its intended readers. As Dark Horse editor Diana Schultz wrote in The Supergirl Archives, Volume 1:
Powerless in the grown-up world of the early ’60s, a little girl could hardly be faulted for wishing that she were Superman’s cousin, for pretending to fly, for wanting to save the world, if only in secret.
Back in those days, after all, children - especially little girls - were taught to be seen and not heard. And our female fantasies weren’t necessarily even so grandiose. What little girl wouldn’t envy the Maid of Steel’s ability to super-clean her bedroom or to complete her homework in three seconds? Supergirl was everything we weren’t, and yet she was close enough in age to be everything we could aspire to.
And in an era of Nancys and Debbies and Cathys, she had the coolest name! Kara.
When a new generation of comics creators sought to make super-heroes more “sophisticated,” those little girls were left behind. Not coincidentally, Kara lost much of her appeal as a succession of writers and artists sought to “mature” the heroine.
However, the outlandish outfits, so-called hip careers and countless creative shifts never amounted to much. By the time Supergirl sacrificed everything to save her cousin, most comic-book fans couldn’t care less about the character.
After Jeph Loeb and Michael Turner reintroduced Kara as a sexualized, “kewl” anti-hero with a shadowy past, Supergirl once again lost popularity as DC propelled the character down ill-advised paths.
(We’ll never forget those stupid crystalline spikes, although the Keeper dearly wishes that he could erase that sight from his mind … )
At this point, this long-time fan would like nothing more than to see Supergirl turned over to a creator like Trina Robbins & Anne Timmons or Tania Del Rio. DC can keep Kara in the Teen Titans or Legion of Super-Heroes, but they should cancel the solo title and reintroduce it as part of the revitalized Johnny DC line.
Bring back Streaky, Comet and teen-age romance. Give Supergirl back to the little girls, and once again make her a character that represents everything a young one can aspire to.
Not every character has to be complex, brooding and kewl. Or are modern comics creators and readers too far gone to realize that fact?
Yeah but let’s not forget something: the crucial flaw in the SA SG’s makeup was her makes-no-sense origin with Argo City astride a rock in space. The main parameters were artful - Superman’s perky teenaged cousin from Krypton - but the details were a mess. I hate to say it but the BA Power Girl’s origin was more simple, elegant with potential for reasonable character-driven conflict between Kal and Kara.
i don’t know about canceling her current book even with all of DC’s incoherence about the character, I don’t wanna give up on my favorite. Besides, canceling the current book will only strengthen the calls to bring back PAD’s SG - which could only be done by snuffing the current character - and that I am dead set against.
The sad part is, DC did do Supergirl right. They imported her from the cartoons in Superman Adventures and the JLU book and she fairly flourished…bratty, sarcastic but also sweet and all of a heroine. Why they felt the need to get away from that characterization is a mystery to me. I attribute Kara’s current revival to Paul Dini’s use of the character back in 1994 in Superman: The Animated Series. Kara In Zee proved the SA style Supergirl worked very very well indeed sans fire-wings and fatuous pseudo theology.
So yeah, lets have a Johnny DC Supergirl…as long as they refrain from “Kara by way of Manga” artwork.
Well, applying logic to the Silver Age Super-Family isn’t going to garner much success.
Those stories, in my view, had a unique fairy tale quality that super-hero comics abandoned long ago. The element of the fantastic is what made Supergirl (and the Man of Steel, Superboy, etc….) one of the more notable characters of the era.
Comics bloggers - including yours truly, I must admit - mock that fairy tale element. We point to the odder aspects of the Weisinger era and call them “twisted” or “perverted.” (Not that we don’t love those stories, natch!)
But, to be honest, the Brothers Grimm would be equally fine fodder for the internet if there were fairy tale blogs out there equivalent to, say, the Absorbascon or postmodernbarney.
(Hey, for all I know there are!)
The only genre of comics that still taps into the same sources as fairy tales - aside from Fables, of course - is manga. Super-hero fans might scream and shout at a shojo Kara, but if well done it probably would attract female fans and sell a boatload.
The stories I like from that era are less revised fairy tales and more mood and character driven pieces. These are the ones written by the one and only Jerry Siegel who had a great uncelebrated talent for writing a realistic teenaged character.
Examples:
Kara dreams herself out of Midvale Orphanage and into Smallville as the adopted daughter of Jonathan and Martha Kent. As Supergirl she is celebrated and praised but as Linda Kent she is ostracized as a nerd at Smallville High and thus unable to land the jerk she dotes on.
Linda Lee get adopted by a police officer and his wife, she then spends most of her time getting her father out of deadly peril before being sent back to the orphanage on the grounds that their home is too dangerous for a teenaged girl.
The list goes on but you get the picture…character driven stuff heavy on emotional content.