That site has more content that Digital Comic Museum and also claims that it is all public domain.
Thank you, too!
Oooooooo, whaddami gonna binge on first? Fawcett’s CAPTAIN MARVEL ADVENTURES, or St. John’s JACKIE GLEASON COMICS?
Supergirl was, like Superboy, a member of the Legion of Super-Heroes, and occasionally appeared as such in issues of Adventure Comics, which are the issues listed above. LSH Adventure did not have back-up features. Supergirl’s regular gig was the the back-up feature in Action Comics, which she shared with Superman.
At some point in the late 60s, Super-Editor Mort Weisinger decided to switch Supergirl and the LSH. Supergirl took over Adventure and the Legion was shunted into the backup slot in Action.
To heck with the hot pants. When did she go from being Linda Lee to Linda Danvers and when did she stop wearing the wig with pig-tails?
A-HA! I KNEW I’d seen her in ADVENTURE.
Damn if I know when she lost the wig. I’d quit reading DC by the time Kara got admitted to Stanhope College. Did Supes allow her to wear a less stupid looking brown wig?
I think Kryptonian Supergirl (Linda Lee) got killed off in Infinite Earths and instead of just resurrecting her like any other dead superhero, they replaced her with an entirely different person (Linda Danvers) who gets her powers from something that has nothing to do with Krypton or Superman. I hope I have that right.
You did get that right. It’s just not the case anymore. Since then there’ve been a number of other Crisis level events, and now the present day Supergirl is once again Kara, daughter of Zor-El, cousin of Superman. In the comics and on the TV series.
Iirc she was adopted by the Danvers family and took their name.
I think you’re talking about Peter David’s 1996 re-genesis of Supergirl.
It’s… well, a little dark, a LOT ground-breaking… let’s just say this ain’t Supey’s cousin.
From an excellent article that recommends “Binge This”:
Supergirl is a hero with special powers. Linda Danvers is a Satanist who never got her life together. It’s hard to imagine two people who could be more different. One night, Linda’s boyfriend Buzz decides to make her the latest sacrifice for their cult, and Supergirl flies in for the rescue. As Supergirl saves Linda something miraculous happens, and the two become one… This creates some complications, as this new Supergirl struggles to come to terms with Linda’s dark past.
Here’s a digital version from Comixology (first 9 issues, 1st Annual and two other ‘prequel’ issues for $9).
Sorry if I was imprecise. I meant that her separate adventures did not occur concurrently with the Legion’s. She did appear as a member, but in the Legion stories only. Those that were not book length, had Superboy reprints as back-ups.
Pre-Crisis Supergirl was also Linda Danvers. As Linda Lee, she was eventually adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Danvers, finally getting out to that crummy orphanage, and took their name. Just not sure when this happened.
She lost the wig sometime during her '80s series, The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl. I don’t remember the issue, but she replaced it with some kind of Super-comb that would change her hair color from brunette to blonde, and also lengthen her hair when she was Supergirl. Science!
Despite that bit of silliness, the '80s series was quite entertaining, and is criminally under-rated. Pity it happened right before they killed her off in Crisis, so nothing that happened in it really had any long-term effect.
I don’t recall just when it was, but she was adopted by a couple named Danvers,
For a while, she aged, unlike most comic-book characters, and she eventually became old enough that the pig-tails looked dumb. It always has to be excused, now, but when she first appeared as a character, she was called supergirl for the obvious reason that she was still a kid.
Supergirl stories could be a bit goofy. I remember one in which her adoptive parents were deliberately making her cry, so they could collect her supertears and save them in a bottle. I don’t remember what they intended to do with them. They might have been under the control of the transparent Phantom Zone guys- they were always floating around, up to no good.
Yep.
I love the goofiness of Silver Age DC and it wasn’t just confined to the pages of Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen.
The late 1960s/ early 1970s was when DC revamped it’s titles, after the Comics Code loosened up enough to allow comics to be less juvenile. This was the era when:
- Wonder Woman temporarily was depowered and became a sort of Emma Peel expy.
- The Legion of Super Heroes moved out their “clubhouse” into a proper headquarters and eventually adopted new costumes.
- They experimented with powering down Superman so for awhile he was no longer “juggles neutron stars for fun” powerful.
- Clark Kent went from being a newspaper reporter to a television news broadcaster.
And Supergirl was now college-aged and went through a crisis of her own. A villainess’s plot resulted in Supergirl suffering from episodes where her powers would unexpectedly cut out for intervals. She coped by adopting several alternate costumes that covered a superpowered exoskeleton she got from Kandor and which also served as body armor. Flight provided by her Legion membership ring.
I had long given up superhero comics by the time that happened, I thought it was the dumbest thing they ever did to the character. At least as a reporter he could be gone for days at a time as long as he brought back a story. It’s a fact: Superman was insane. What else would explain his need to maintain his shitty jobs, when he’s the most powerful being on Earth? He could always set himself up with a secret identity with a little more dignity.
IIRC, he specifically chose to become a reporter because, as a reporter for the major local newspaper, that would keep him closely in touch with the goings-on around Metropolis, so he would always be quick to know if there was some emergency that required his super-presence.
Newspaper guy, ok. But stuck in a studio just doesn’t work.
Right. Becoming a TV reporter didn’t make a whole lot of sense.