Random Back Issues #4 - Supergirl #78

I have a feeling Deadman uses that one on the Phantom Stranger a lot. Or maybe Guy uses it on Hal a lot. . .

This is within the last few months of Peter David's run on Supergirl (the book ends at #80), the one focused on the combination of Linda Danvers and that post-Crisis, weird goo, "Matrix" Supergirl, which turned into an Earth Angel. Yeah, I'd need to reread a lot more issues to explain it better than that. Leonard Kirk moved on as artist after issue #74, and Ed Benes replaced him, which, yeah. Supergirl started getting drawn as a lot older, with more sex appeal emphasis. The skirt got a bit shorter, and half the time is drawn as so form fitting it might as well be bike shorts. I know, shocking to hear.

By this point, I think the "angel" aspect has been resolved, but now we have two Supergirls running around. One, the Linda version, in the outfit Supergirl had gotten when she showed up in the Timmverse Superman cartoon. The other, Silver Age Kara Zor-El Supergirl, rocket to Earth has been shunted into the wrong universe and time by some guy called the Fatalist.

(That's not the guy mouthing off to Hal up above, by the way. Skyrim Cosplayer up there is called Xenon, and has been trapped in some place by a Supergirl, and has been busy trying to lure Supergirls there to kill them until he gets the right one and can escape. Hal is doing a good job as Spectre by impotently telling him to stop, or else.)

The first part of the issue is Kara letting the half-metal bad guy pummel her, because she thinks her X-ray vision made an elderly woman's pacemaker fail, so she deserves to get beat up. By the time Linda is able to rush to help, Kara's started fighting again because Rebel has explained it was probably the self-diagnostic he ran that caused the pacemaker to fail. I assume he's being serious, but it's possible he's lying just to get her to stop being a sad sack and fight back. Which, considering this is a Silver Age Kryptonian, is a spectacularly stupid idea, but there's no reason he'd know that.

Once Spectre and the Fatalist show up, we learn Kara has to go to her proper universe to die fighting the Anti-Monitor, which she understandably doesn't take well. Also that the Fatalist arranged for Rebel to show up test their might, I mean test their spirit. That old lady with the bum pacemaker will no doubt be ecstatic to know that, you tattooed, three-eyed dumbshit.

Linda promises to talk the Spectre out of making Kara, then goes in her place. That doesn't end up working, either. Still, Linda ends up in Silver Age DC, and eventually marries Superman. She's not his cousin and he knows it, it's OK!

Kara's written as kind and innocent, suggesting to Linda they can restore her secret identity through some sort of scheme, probably involving Batman. I feel like Silver Age Supergirl wasn't quite this naive, but I'm no expert. It helps emphasize the differences between her and Linda, who has been through some shit by this point, and is probably somewhere in her 20s, while I'm pretty sure Kara's supposed to be a teenager.

[11th longbox, 60th comic. Supergirl (vol. 3) #78, by Peter David (writer), Ed Benes (penciler), Alex Lei (inker), Digital Chameleon (colorist), Comicraft (letterer)]