1. Maybe the eighth or ninth comic I ever read in my entire life was
Crisis on Infinite Earths #7, featuring the death of Supergirl. I'd certainly never seen the character before that, but I knew that her heroic sacrifice was a big deal.
2. After that, once I discovered back issues, I read a few stories featuring Supergirl, and they weren't very good.
3. I rented the Helen Slater movie, and watched it on VHS. It, also, wasn't very good, but I had a giant crush on Helen Slater. Years later, as her career faded and she made coked-up late night television appearances, I became saddened.
4. John Byrne, I recall, brought Supergirl back -- sort of -- as a kind of Proty character, who had adopted the form of Supergirl, but wasn't really her. I did not follow the Superman titles for much longer after Byrne left, but I understand that the Supergirl of the 1990s was still that Proty thing, stuck in human (or superhuman) form. I could be completely wrong about that. I certainly never read an issue of her series in that decade, and I have no idea if it was any good or not.
5. I have since fallen in love with the Legion of Super-Heroes, and cherish her appearances in the 30th century and her sad, doomed relationship with Brainiac 5. Also, I own both volumes of the
Supergirl Archives, because I now understand why the Silver Age Superman family comics are so utterly brilliant.
6. I have a Supergirl action figure from the
Justice League Unlimited line, and my daughter loves to play with it. In fact, she insists on only using the girl figures. And Batman. She likes Batman.
7. When Jeph Loeb brought Kara Jor-El -- a new Kara -- into continuity in the pages of
Superman/Batman I was not very interested. I read the issues, I said, "hmmm," and I seemed to understand that she was some kind of evil, faux-Supergirl in the end. Apparently she wasn't. Or she was, but then she overcame her evil. Or she wasn't ever really evil. I am easily confused by this character.
8. Mark Waid and Barry Kitson presented a much better version of the character in their
Supergirl and the Legion of Super-Heroes comic. Kara brightened up that series so much that I tried a few issues of her solo comic, and I thought they were some of the worst comics on the stands. I have no idea what happened, but about a thousand creative teams came and went in the first twenty issues, and I remember Mark Sable coming on for an issue and then not getting credit for the rest of the arc and it just seemed like a total car wreck for a while.
9. Like Grant Morrison, I thought the Supergirl story from the
Bizarro hardcover was the best version of the character in a long, long time.
10.
Supergirl #34 is a huge step in the right direction. Sterling Gates is part of team Johns, and that's a good thing, because Supergirl seems to matter more now than she has in ages. And in this one issue, Gates quickly establishes Kara's character, offers an in-story critique of her recent behavior, returns Lana Lang to prominence, and makes me want to read another issue of the series for the first time ever. I'm still not a fan of the belly shirt, but I think this issue points the way for a meaningful, fun, engaging
Supergirl comic, and I'm looking forward to what Gates and artist Jamal Igle do next.
11. There is no number 11. Start reading
Supergirl now.
Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Supergirl #39, about which I write the following sentences: "Sterling Gates has done an excellent job on 'Supergirl' so far, bringing the character's all-over-the-map behavior into something resembling a clear focus and integrating Kara Zor-El into the Geoff Johns Superman saga with seamless efficiency, but what's really compelling about 'Supergirl' #39 is the mystery of Superwoman. What's her deal, and why is she so damn nasty?"
Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Supergirl #36, about which I write the following sentences: "Gates has shown that such a Supergirl can still work today, even if the age we live in is far from innocent. What he's done is to establish Kara Zor-El as a good-hearted teenager first, and a superhero second. That isn't to say that we get pages and pages of Supergirl in street clothes, though Gates has found a way to give her a civilian identity. But even when she's in her superhero garb, she's a young woman trying to figure out her place in the world. The question of identity is implicit in the character of Superman -- is he Clark Kent dressing up as a hero, or is he a Kryptonian pretending to be Clark Kent? -- but the question isn't central to the character. It is central to the character of Supergirl. And it should be, because we don't need a younger, female copy of Superman. Her character serves a different narrative purpose, and the exploration of identity is the core of that."
1. Maybe the eighth or ninth comic I ever read in my entire life was Crisis on Infinite Earths #7, featuring the death of Supergirl. I'd certainly never seen the character before that, but I knew that her heroic sacrifice was a big deal. 