Super Depressing And Super Inspiring

I won’t actually get to see “Man of Steel” until next week, but, as should be apparent from most of my posts, Superman has been on my mind a lot lately.
To be fair, that’s pretty much always the case anyway, it’s just that I’ve actually been blogging about him – and his “family” – a lot lately.
One of the things I feel like I should mention – though I did kind of talk about it a bit in my musings on Lois Lane – is that ultimately my affection for Superman isn’t necessarily tied to any particular interpretation of the character, whether that interpretation is in comics or any other media.
For what it’s worth, and surprising no one, I will say that it’s definitely not tied to the interpretation that’s been presented so far in any of the movies (from 1978 on – I’ve never seen any of the old serials).  With the exception of current movie, which, as mentioned, I haven’t actually seen yet, I basically completely reject the cinematic interpretations of the character.
There are a lot of reasons why that is, and I could easily expound on them in great, or even excruciating, detail, but that’s not what this post is about.
I only mention this to provide some context, as the point I’m trying to make is that I have a particular concept of Superman, a sort of meta-Superman, that doesn’t necessarily exist in any specific form on the printed page or television or movie screens, and that is the Superman that I love, and it’s why, despite my considerable affection for Superman, I can enjoy sites like superdickery.com.
Because seriously?  Even though I favor my meta-Superman over pretty much everything, there’s no getting around the fact that Superman is often a dick.
And there’s no greater evidence of that than in the stories collected in Showcase Presents: Supergirl Vol. 1.
Most of the classic examples of “Superman is a Dick” show him being a complete dick to his friends, such as his “pal” Jimmy Olsen.  And that’s fair – a good percentage of Jimmy’s stories focus on exactly that.
However, while it tends to follow some extremely byzantine logic, the fact remains that there usually is a reason why Superman is being a dick to Jimmy (or to Lois, or to Lana, or to Perry White, or…), and often it’s for Jimmy’s own good.
It may, for example, be some convoluted ploy to keep Jimmy from getting murdered by mobsters.
Even if it isn’t an effort to save Jimmy’s life, it might end up being a ploy to capture criminals, or to prevent some terrible act of crime.
With Supergirl, however…he’s just a dick for the sake of being a dick.
I’ve made references in the past to how Superman’s treatment of Supergirl caused his younger cousin some serious emotional and psychological damage, but honestly, having based this only on a relatively small sampling of old Supergirl stories, I have to say that I didn’t know the half of it until I started reading these stories.
It’s honestly pretty depressing, and it actually makes it difficult to hold onto my affection for meta-Superman, though I can ultimately find some sort of solace in the realization that it’s actually the writers and editors who were dicks.
The other consolation I can take comes from the fact that despite it all, young Kara Zor-El remains a positive and upbeat person, and despite her tragic death– made all the more tragic by the realization of just how awful so much of her life actually had been – she ultimately grew to be a strong, confident, capable young woman.
After all, I don’t think there was anyone else in the entirety of DC’s multiverse – man or woman – capable of delivering the epic beatdown of the Anti-Monitor that she provided before being struck down herself, and I have to believe that at least part of that was the result of the tragedies she had spent her life wading through.
Yeah, in case it isn’t obvious, I actually take this shit pretty seriously…though I do feel the need to point out that yes, I do realize I’m not talking about a real person, and that all of this was the result off multiple creators piecing together a crazy quilt of characterization and personal history over the course of decades, with no real guiding narrative concept, but, as with Superman, or any fictional character for that matter, there is a metatextual level on which the character can be examined and understood.
And at this point I’m realizing that this post is already longer than I had intended it to be, and I never actually got to the whole reason I started writing it, which was to point out some of the worst examples of psychological torture that Superman, and to a lesser extent, circumstance (in the form of the writers and editors), inflicted on her.
Looks like I’ve got an idea for a new series of posts…
Towards that end, as a set up for those theoretical posts, I’ll provide a little background on Supergirl for those who might not be familiar with her so that I can focus on the actual acts of terror inflicted on her in some of the stories that I want to highlight.
When the planet Krypton was destroyed Argo City, one of the doomed planet’s large population centers, was spared by some cosmic fluke* that caused the city and its underlying bedrock to be hurled into space relatively intact along with a pocket of atmosphere.
Among the city’s inhabitants was a man named Zor-El, brother to Jor-El, and uncle to Kal-El who is more commonly known as Superman.
Their miraculous survival, however, was soon imperiled by the chunk of Krypton they lived on slowly transforming into deadly kryptonite, a problem that was solved by lining the ground with lead shielding.
(Yes, I do take this shit seriously, but at the same time I also recognize how utterly ridiculous it is.  I don’t see any conflict between these two facts.)
In time, Zor-El and his wife Alura were blessed with a daughter, whom they named Kara.  Time passed, Kara grew into adolescence, and Argo City continued drifting through space.  Space, however, is not so empty as people like to think, and soon Argo City was suffering from collisions with meteors, which were damaging the kryptonite shielding.  It was only a matter of time before Krypton’s doom finally caught up with them.  As his brother had with his son, Zor-El sought to at least save the life of his beloved daughter, and so he quickly began constructing a rocket that would take her to a safe place, while Alura searched the heavens for a world that was suitable for Kara.  In the course of her search, Alura discovered Earth, though what really stood out about the place was a strangely-garbed flying man.  By monitoring the radio transmissions, Alura learned the languages of Earth, and soon discovered that, like the inhabitants of Argo City, this flying man – Superman – was a survivor of the planet Krypton, and that his amazing powers were the result of the reaction of his Kryptonian physiology to the Earth’s environment.
Deciding that this was the place to send Kara, Alura set to work stitching together an outfit for her daughter that was inspired by the costume Superman wore, and eventually Kara was loaded up into her rocket with a learning device that would teach her Earth languages, and sent her on her way.
Soon, she landed on Earth where she was immediately discovered by Superman.  After relating her story the two learned that they were actually cousins.
And here the dickishness began, as Superman decided that her existence had to remain a secret, and after having her choose an Earth name for herself – she coincidentally went with the standard LL initials by choosing the name Linda Lee – he put a wig on her and stuck her in an orphanage.
You know, like you do when you meet your only living relative who has been severely traumatized by the death of her parents and everyone she ever knew and who now has to adapt to life in a strange new place.
And so, Linda (Supergirl) Lee moved into the Midvale Orphanage, where she had to keep her very existence as a survivor of a lost alien civilization a secret – after all, Superman didn’t want her honing in on his “Last Son of Krypton” shtick by letting everyone know there was also a “Last Daughter.” 
In addition to disappointing the cousin whom she admired – if only because she desperately needed someone to look up to and rely on – betraying the secret of her existence would also mean being banished from Earth entirely.
Oh, sure, he said it was for her own good, to help give her time to acclimate to her new life and her new abilities – and then later so that she could be held in reserve as a “secret weapon” – but seriously, the guy’s just a dick.
As something of a final note, I wanted to mention that I think that Kara and I had something in common in that we both had an idea of Superman that inspired endless affection more than the actual man himself could, or at least more than the man himself deserved, as I think that was the Superman she charged in to save at the cost of her own life.

*I’ve read at least one account in which the survival of Argo City was by design.  Though no one else on Krypton could be convinced of the world’s imminent destruction, Zor-El had the good sense to heed his brother’s warnings.  As he was actually in charge of Argo City – sort of like a mayor, but with considerably more executive authority – he was able to put forth an effort to shore up Argo City by enclosing it in a dome and tunneling into the ground around it to effectively set it floating in place, no longer fully-connected to the rest of the planet.  In later years it was revealed that at the last minute the people of Argo City were saved from being killed by the kryptonite radiation.  As I recall, it involved shifting the population into another dimension, though I don’t remember the details and don’t feel like looking them up.

Some Pictures

I drew a picture of Supergirl flying through the Time Barrier to visit the Legion of Super-Heroes in the 30th Century, mostly in an attempt to experiment with a more traditionally comic style.  This is the result:

Meh.

Anatomy is off, perspective is off, and it’s just generally kind of disappointing given how much time I spent working on it.  But there it is.
I did this as the end result of just doodling with nothing in particular in mind:

Meh.

Looks kind of like the “Precogs” in the movie “Minority Report.”  it started out, as my random doodles usually do, with an eye.  I don’t know why eyes are my go-to doodle, but they are.  So…yeah.

I Am That Heartless Monster

In the most recent installment of the “Ask Chris?” segment, Comics Alliance writer Chris Sims tackles the question of Supergirl.
It’s an interesting piece – if you’re interested in that sort of thing – and I find that it expresses a lot of the same conflicted feelings I have about Kara Zor-El.
In fact, it aligns pretty well with my feelings about a lot of comic book characters, such as Dick Grayson and Tim Drake – though not Jason Todd, because seriously, fuck that guy – and sidekicks in general.
After all, as individual characters, I like both of Batman’s junior partners, and one of my favorite comic book series of all-time – New Teen Titans – wouldn’t have existed without Robin, or any of the other kid sidekicks whose existences, conceptually, I find objectionable.
I may – or may not – address some of those objections at some point in the future, but for now I want to get back to my conflicted feelings about Kara.
This excerpt from the piece by Sims kind of gets at the heart of why I find Kara problematic:

Even if it's just the two of them, Superman is no longer alone. He no longer has to carry that burden alone, which means it's no longer shaping his actions as strongly as it had before. It certainly doesn't take away Superman's desire to protect Earth and its people, but still, it affects that side of his personality, drawing the focus back to Krypton.

Of course, my objection is a little more straightforward – I simply prefer the idea of Superman being the only survivor, without even bothering to get any deeper into what that means for the character.
Kara takes that aspect away, and that bothers me.  (It gets even worse when you add in the citizens of Kandor, the rest of Argo City, the Phantom Zone villains…)
However, as mentioned, in some of her various incarnations, I like Kara herself, even if I don’t like the fact of her existence.
In fact, Kara is at the very center of one of the most heartbreaking scenes in comic book history, and it’s one that gets me every.  Damn.  Time.

From Threshold

But that’s the thing – Kara had her run, and it came to an end.  I don’t feel as much affection for any of the later incarnations of the character that I felt for the one who died in order to make sure that Superman, once again, survived.  Every appearance she made after that – except in the DC Animated Universe, where she wasn't really Kara Zor-El anyway – has taken a little bit away from that ultimate moment.
(I will say that I was entertained by a recent scene in the current Superman series in which Supergirl shows up unannounced at Clark’s door, and a visiting Lois jumps to the mistaken conclusion that Clark is dating some mixed-up young cosplayer.)
It’s worth noting that I have no such objections or mixed feelings about her alternate universe version, Kara Zor-L, AKA Power Girl, because alternate universe, duh.  (Also:  Boobs)
In closing, I want to include one other excerpt from the article by Sims, which provides the title of this post (emphasis mine):

[…](you show me someone who doesn't like Krypto and I will show you a heartless monster)[…]

Ladies of the Legion: The Villains

Satan Girl, seen below, appeared at a time when all of the female members of the Legion had become ill with a "Crimson Virus" and had to be sent off to Quarantime Planet for treatment.
She offered her services to the Legion as a replacement for the missing members, stating that her powers made her as valuable as all of the lady Legionnaires combined.
Of course, the boys were having none of it, as they were convinced that their absent members would be cured and would return to active duty soon.
Angry at being rejected, Satan Girl insisted that the girls would never recover, and she would know: she was the one who had infected them with the virus.
Satan Girl then headed off to Quarantine Planet to finish of the ladies. Fortunately, Supergirl, who was not affected by the virus, swooped in to fend her off. However, she wasn't able to defeat Satan Girl, whose powers were a match for her own.
It turned out that Satan Girl was actually an evil duplicate of Supergirl, the result of the Maid of Might being exposed to Red Kryptonite, a substance which has unpredictable effects on Kryptonians. However, the effects of exposure only last for 48 hours. Knowing this, Satan Girl realized that her time was short and, wanting to live her own life separate from Supergirl, found a way to extend her existence by transferring the Red Kryptonite radiation in her body into the ladies of the Legion.
(Part of the effect of the exposure to Red K had resulted in Supergirl losing all memory of the exposure.)
Unfortunately for her, the intervention - *sigh* - Legion of Super-Pets prevented Satan Girl from fully realizing her scheme (animals were not affected by the Red K radiation that she emitted to cause the "Crimson Virus"), and as her time ran out she was absorbed back into Supergirl and ceased to exist as a separate being.
I don't think it's really fair to call her an "evil" duplicate of Supergirl. Sure, she lacked Supergirl's self-sacrificing and heroic nature, but can you really blame her for just wanting to live?

Ladies Of The Legion Part 9

Our latest Lady of the Legion is Kara Zor-El of Krypton - or at least of a big chunk of what remained of Krypton after it exploded - more commonly known as Supergirl:



Kara's father, Zor-El - it was a Kryptonian custom for females to be identified by their first name and their father's full name - was the brother of Jor-El. Unlike the rest of the populace, when Jor-El predicted Krypton's destruction, Zor-El believed him, and undertook an effort to enclose his hometown of Argo City in an indestructible dome, which allowed Argo to survive the explosion of Krypton.
Adrift in space, the bedrock upon which Argo rested underwent the chain reaction that created Kryptonite, and so for the people of Argo it was out of the frying pan and into the fire, as they'd survived the destruction of their homeworld only to have the remnant on which they were living begin slowly killing them.
Much like his brother had managed to rocket his son, Kal-El - better known as Superman - to Earth, Zor-El and his wife Alura decided to save the life of their daughter, Kara, by sending her away to live with her cousin.
For years, Supergirl served as Superman's "secret weapon," keeping her existence hidden from the world.
(And, as I've mentioned before, making Kara incredibly neurotic in the process. He even made her live in an orphanage, and required that she sabotage any efforts by loving parents to adopt her, for fear that any adoptive parents might find out her secret. Yeah.)
During that period of secrecy, the Legion traveled back in time to give Supergirl the opportunity to try out for membership.
Kara passed with flying colors, and was on the fast track to membership, but in the course of her tryout she'd been exposed to Red Kryptonite, a variety of the irradiated remains of Krypton that has unpredictable - but temporary - affects on Kryptonians. In this case, it caused Supergirl to age several years, becoming a Superwoman.
Because the Legion bylaws stated that no member could be older than 19 Earth years old, and also because, as Chris Sims will tell you, the Legionnaires are often a bunch of dicks, she was rejected for membership.
Eventually, she did get into the Legion, serving with distinction.
In the 1981 mini-series Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes, which I just recently reacquired, it was "revealed" (read: retconned) that the Legion had actually approached Supergirl to offer her membership before they had recruited Superboy.
The reason? They were too intimidated by Superboy's legendary reputation, and wanted to make a practice run with his also-ran cousin.
Like I said, a bunch of dicks.
Still, it wasn't all bad. While in the Legion, Kara had something of a romance with one Querl Dox of Colu, a super-genius who went by the name Brainiac 5. The "descendant" of Brainiac, one of history's greatest villains and one of Superman's deadliest enemies, Brainiac 5 devoted his life in the Legion to trying to rehabilitate the name "Brainiac."
Given that he created a computer that ended up turning Triplicate Girl into Duo Damsel by killing one of her duplicates, and just generally having more brains than sense, I'd say he didn't do the greatest job of it...

There Must Be Something In My Eye...

Over at Comics Should Be Good! there's a series of daily posts called A Year of Cool Comic Moments, detailing, well, cool comic moments.
I was thirteen years old when the comic that provided this moment hit the stands.
It choked me up then, and it still chokes me up now.
Overwrought? Sure. Melodramatic? That too. Talky enough to fill up five or six entire issues of a modern comic? Absolutely. Corny? Okay.
It is, in fact, almost an archetype of everything that a modern reader could find fault with in comics of the past, a collection of every flaw, criticism and negative adjective you can imagine.
Even so, the Perez art is so, so, SO gorgeous, and Wolfman demonstrates very clearly that he is a master of the medium, and even looking at it through eyes jaundiced by more than two decades of cynicism and the incessant deconstructions - of varying quality - of the super-hero, it's still heartbreaking, and undeniably cool.
Beyond that, it's a fitting end - and tribute - to a character who had a long, slow arc of character development that culminated in this moment.
I have a lot more to say on the topic of Supergirl in particular - and comics in general - inspired by this Cool Moment, which I will try to form into a coherent thesis in a future post.

Not Entirely Safe For Work Picture

This not entirely safe for work picture features, from left to right, Huntress, Power Girl, and Supergirl in their skivvies, and took me forever to draw. I started on it on my birthday.
It probably still needs some touching up, but it's about as good as it's likely to get, so I figured I'd post it.

Long Live Douchebaggery!

A while back I got a bill for my home insurance, which struck me as odd, as I’d thought that my insurance payments were paid via my mortgage’s escrow account.
I meant to call my insurance agent about it, but kept forgetting, and then the payment date kept getting closer, so, figuring that I’d be better safe than sorry, I just paid it, with the intention of calling my agent and finding out what the deal was.
Then the forgetfulness kicked back in.
In any case, yesterday I got a refund check from my insurance company that answered the question (which, in the back of my mind – in the area where things like “Remember to call your insurance agent” end up – is kind of what I figured would happen).
So today I ventured out into the world to deposit the check and to pick up the things I forgot to get when I went shopping yesterday.
So that was exciting.
Well, the money part was, at least.
I believe that the toilets in my house are original to the house, and, as such, are older than I am. As a result, they have a tendency to build up rust and lime scale and they do so rather quickly. Within a couple of days of being cleaned they end up looking rather like I imagine the toilet Jeff Daniels used in that scene in Dumb and Dumber did after he was through with it.
So far I haven’t been able to find any product that’s up to the task of keeping them clean, or that can even get them clean without a lot of scrubbing.
There was this Easy Off Bam stuff that I tried that worked like magic. It got them spotless without any scrubbing, and they tended to stay that way for a long time afterwards. Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to find the stuff again since I ran out.
Yesterday I tried this powder that’s supposed to foam up all the way to the rim and clean the bowl without scrubbing. It wasn’t anywhere near as foamy as claimed, creating maybe a half inch layer of foam atop the water, and it failed to even clean the areas that it actually did reach.
Yeah, I know; this blog is always a source of so many glamorous subjects and imagery.
Anyway, does anyone out there have any suggestions for toilet bowl cleaners? Bear in mind that the crud spreads like some sort of monstrous alien, managing to somehow creep up out of the bowl and form a beachhead on the rim itself, and it’s tenacious.
Alternatively, does anyone know where I can get the Bam toilet bowl cleaner? I see other Bam products at Target, Wal-Mart, and etc., but not the toilet bowl stuff.
And for the record, none of the in-tank stuff (2000 Flushes, etc.) has made a bit of difference.
Moving on to non-toilet bowl-related topics, I mentioned the other day that I might be doing some entries devoted to the Silver Age insanity of the Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane comics I’ve read in Showcase Presents: Superman Family, and I still intend to do so, but I just started reading Showcase Presents: Legion of Super-Heroes, and there are a couple of things in there that I want to mention.
A while back, in discussing my exploding head syndrome, I referred to the first appearance of the Legion, and how they proved to be a bunch of douchebags in their treatment of Superboy.
I’d forgotten that they were even worse in their second appearance, in which, show up in Smallville and start stepping in on Superboy’s territory, foiling crimes and disasters before the Boy of Steel can step in and do his thing, then totally dissing him.
I think my favorite example comes from Saturn Girl, whom Superboy compliments after she stops a criminal from shooting a cop. Superboy says, “Nice going, Saturn Girl!” In response, she says, “Who asked you? Kindly keep your unwanted opinion to yourself!”
When the residents of Smallville start expressing their belief that these new super-teens are preferable to their hometown hero – best expressed by a kid in a sailor suit who sticks his tongue out at Superboy, complete with the whole thumbs in the ears hand gesture, and says, “Ya-ya! You ain’t so hot!” – the young hero turns to his adoptive parents for sympathy, only to have Pa Kent say, “So you’re slipping, eh? That’s no excuse to whine!”
The Douchebags of the Future even turn Superboy’s dog against him.
Eventually, feeling unwanted, Superboy flies off into space, where he finds a herd of super-powered beings flying off towards a distant planet. Exercising his newfound “super-lemming” powers, he follows the crowd and finds himself on a planet-sized Superboy museum honoring his many super-deeds, and promptly finds himself getting locked up in a Kryptonite jail cell by the Legion, who explain that using their “future-scope,” they saw Superboy committing a bunch of super-evil deeds five years in his future, and they set up the whole Smallville snubbing him to lure him to this planet, which had originally been constructed in his honor, but which will now be his prison.
(Note that Saturn Girl used her “super-thought-casting powers” to compel the residents of Smallville – and his dog – to turn against Superboy.)
After having failed to give him the benefit of the doubt in the first place, they decide that now is the time to see if he has an explanation for doing the things that he hasn’t actually done yet. Superboy remains mute on the subject, and his silence is used as evidence of his guilt, and he’s locked away forever.
Sometime later, randomly, because why not, everything on the planet transmutes into some element that’s as harmful to his jailers as Kryptonite is to Superboy, and thus Superboy, who is invulnerable to this new element, is free to leave. However, proving that he really is the hero that the Legion used to believe he was before they watched him commit crimes in his future, Superboy lets out a super-yell (For the record, he yells “Yaah!” instead of “Fuck you, you jizz gobbling Future Douchebags,” which is probably what I would have yelled), the vibrations of which transmute everything back into their original state.
Then Saturn Girl receives a mental broadcast from the President (I believe it would have been Eisenhower at this point) asking her to tell Superboy that he is relieving him of his oath of silence.
It turns out that the Legion’s “future-scope” was broken, and rather than showing future events had shown events from the present, and the seemingly evil deeds Superboy had performed had been done at the President’s request in the interests of national security, and that they weren’t evil at all, everybody apologizes to Superboy, and his former prison is restored to its original purpose.
It’s worth pointing out that this story was written long before a 14 year-old Jim Shooter took over the writing chores for Legion stories, which means this story was actually written by an adult.
I want to take a minute to talk about the “future-scope.” It needs to be pointed out that the Legion is from 1,000 years in the future. The records of Superboy’s exploits five years into his future were “lost in a fire,” so the Legion traveled back in time, “future-scope” in tow, so that they could use the “future-scope” to witness events five years in the future.
Take a second to consider that reasoning. Rather than simply traveling back to the period which had been lost to history and observing the events directly, they travel farther back and use an obviously glitchy bit of technology to then look forward into the future so that they can observe them remotely. And apparently while in the 30th century it’s possible to create a device that can look forward in time, it’s not possible to create one that can look backwards.
So, yeah.
Of course, douchebaggery isn’t the sole purview of the Legion. Another Legion story collected in this volume involves the Future Douchebags traveling back in time to offer Supergirl membership in their group just as they had with her cousin when he was her age.
What is of primary interest to me here is not what happened with that Legion adventure (for the record, she passed their initiation, but in the process was exposed to Red Kryptonite, which temporarily transformed her into an adult, making her ineligible for membership in the teens-only club, even though she was, mentally, still a teenager...so, yeah), but with Supergirl’s plight in general.
When Krypton exploded, a substantial chunk was thrown into space intact. Located on this chunk was Argo City, home of Zor-El, Superman’s uncle.
The citizens of Argo acted quickly, paving the ground, which had been transformed into Kryptonite, with lead, and sealing the remaining atmosphere in with a dome. However, somewhere along the line meteorites crashed through the dome and the lead-lined streets, slowly bringing about the deaths of the city’s residents. Just as his brother had, Zor-El builds a rocket to send his child – Kara Zor-El – to Earth to ensure her survival.
While on Argo, using super-telescopes, the El family had observed the exploits of their relative on Earth, so Kara’s mother fashioned a feminine version of his costume for Kara to wear, and they shipped her off to safety.
Upon arrival, Kara introduced herself to her cousin, and, being young and eager, and idolizing her heroic relative, she wanted to go out into the world and do good, just like her idol.
Of course, Superman wasn’t having it. Having another Kryptonian on Earth – especially a relative – would cramp his super-style, so he made her promise not to reveal her existence “yet,” so that he could keep her in reserve as a “secret weapon,” should the need arise.
Then he dumped her off in an orphanage.
No kindly Mid-Western adoptive parents for you, Kara!
The worst part of it all was that, with his constant admonitions about not going public until “the time was right,” Superman made his younger cousin incredibly neurotic, as she lived in constant fear that she might somehow screw up and reveal her existence to the world. Seriously, damn near every Silver Age Supergirl story revolved around her obsession with keeping her very existence a secret and not letting down her overbearing, attention whore of a cousin*.
Is it any wonder that she eventually morphed into the current version of Supergirl, a rebellious, anorexic, Emo, secret cutter?
Superdickery is right: Superman is a dick.
Anyway, I guess that’s more than enough Silver Age spelunking, though I should mention that this year marked the 50th anniversary of the Legion’s first appearance, a milestone that DC Comics celebrated by cancelling the Legion’s comic. Long Live the Legion! Or, you know, not.
If I do write up the Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen entries, I’ll try also go the extra foot or so and include some scans.

*Besides being kept hidden in an orphanage, she got stuck with the cheesy secret identity of “Linda Lee,” and her only prospects for romance were a dork named Dick Malverne, some dorky merman named Jerro, and her horse. Eventually things did start to look up for Silver Age Supergirl, though, as she was adopted by a nice family named Danvers, she finally got to reveal her existence to the world, became a successful soap opera actress in her civilian identity, and it turned out that her dad was a little trigger-happy when it came to the whole rocket launch thing, as the residents of Argo City managed to survive somehow. I think they put themselves into the Phantom Zone or something, but my memory is fuzzy and I’m too lazy to verify that. Of course, eventually she ended up getting killed in an effort to – surprise! – save her cousin’s life. Also, she got a really, really shitty movie made about her. So, I guess you could say that it ended up being a wash.

The Comic Book That Made Me Who I Am Today Or Wow, That's A Depressing Thought

While I was sitting at my desk this afternoon my boss came by to ask if I had a minute.
I’m always wary when I hear this question; on too many occasions it’s led to a conversation that resulted in me no longer having a job.
Such wasn’t the case today, though the point of the conversation was that after the next few weeks I will no longer be working…for him.
There’s been a reorganization, the end result of which for me is that I will soon be reporting to a different boss.
My current boss isn’t going anywhere, it’s just that some of his responsibilities (the ones under which I fall) are being handed over to someone else.
From the perspective of what I do, nothing is actually changing, I’m just going to be giving status updates to and receiving project assignments from someone else.
I’m pretty well used to this sort of thing, so it’s no big deal. In 5 years in the NOC at AOL I had 6 different bosses. In 6 years total at AOL, I had, I think, 10 different bosses.
*Shrug*
Over at Polite Dissent the good doctor posted an example of bad medicine in comics from a story in Superman Family #171.
From an objective viewpoint, there’s nothing special about this particular comic. It’s just another collection of Silver Age silliness that is no different from any other comic of the time.
For me, however, it has a great deal of significance.
Why? Because, when it comes to the comic book reading habit, this comic was my “gateway drug.”
When I was a kid my parents would occasionally buy comics for us kids to read on camping trips, rainy days, and whatnot, and this particular comic happened to be one of them. When I was probably around 4 years old – before I’d started school or learned to read, in any event – I stumbled across the family’s tattered copy.
I distinctly recall being utterly baffled by what was going on in its pages, and while I attempted to create my own interpretation of the events depicted, it was clear that pictures alone weren’t enough to convey what was happening, and I resolved to learn to read ASAP so that I could find out what was being said in the word balloons.
In particular, I was baffled by this page:



I knew, in the vaguest of terms, who Superman was, but having no idea who Supergirl was before seeing this comic, I assumed that she was Superman’s girlfriend or something. Why, then, was he helping to toss his girlfriend off of a bridge?
I’m not sure why it never occurred to me to ask anyone to read it to me, but I decided that when the day came that I could read it on my own, I would do so.
That day didn’t come until over 30 years later, as the comic in question disappeared before a newly-literate Jon could get his hands on it.
Still, the comic was the catalyst that sparked my lifelong love for the medium, and it’s because of that crappy comic that, as Scott put it, we have the Jon that we know today.
Throughout the years I would periodically think back on that comic, wondering what issue of what title it could have been. Somewhere along the line I figured out that it must have been Superman Family, which I by then knew that from the early 70s to the early 80s was the only place in which Supergirl stories appeared. Then one day a couple of years ago someone posted a bunch of Superman Family comics to a comics newsgroup and I skimmed through them all to find that scene – Supergirl being tossed off a bridge – that had been haunting my consciousness for decades.
Once I found the comic, I downloaded it, and with some trepidation finally read the story behind that image.
And it was utter garbage.
Still, that’s precisely what I expected, and the sub-par quality of the story didn’t diminish my enthusiasm, or my appreciation for just how pivotal a role this comic played in my development, and today, when I saw the Polite Dissent post, I couldn’t help but be a little pleased to see some sort of recognition – even if not the most positive recognition – for such an important relic of the History of Jon.
(While I have a digital copy of the comic, I don’t have an actual physical copy of it, and I would like to actually own it. Not to drop any not-so subtle hints or anything, but Milehigh Comics does have a copy in Very Fine condition available for sale – cheap! – and I do have a birthday coming up soon…)