From high atop my crackerbox palace, I see the wonders of all ages...and fewer things were wilder than the Silver Age of comics. DC comics at the time were seriously mental. Marvel may have had the pathos and cosmic drama, but did they have a tiny army of flying people?
For this time out, I'm cracking open Showcase Presents: Supergirl volume 2. Containing all Supergirl stories from Action Comics I#283 through 321 (1961-1965), we see how the character of Kara Zor-El developed.
Introduced proper in Action Comics I#252 (May 1959), Supergirl's early stories had a kind of left over feel to them. One could even think DC was simply rehashing some old Superboy stories. To wit, Supergirl has to fend off a pesky neighborhood boy who is convinced that that Linda Lee has superpowers and most of her adventures ended with no one being aware of who she was. She also fought against being adapted, as being with parents might expose her powers, but she was finally taken in by the Danvers.
For a while the stories followed a similar formula, but things started to change with Action Comics I#285. Superman decides it is time for the world to know of her existence, so he highjacks all the television signals in the world to announce he has a cousin.
One odd thing I noticed about the stories collected here is Kara herself. She changes. Superman always seemed to be a vaguely 30-ish, whereas Kara is introduced as a teen. She is adapted, graduates high school, and we see here her going to college. We also see the introduction of new supporting characters Lena Thorul, Lex Luthor's psychic sister, who adds a new dimension to the Super/Luthor dynamic. Kara also gets some new villains and in a rather surprising twist, her parents.
Yeah, it turns out her parents survived her home planet's destruction by putting themselves in a Phantom-Phantom Zone. From the stories collected here, it isn't made that big of a deal.
Not a bad read, and filled with plenty of Silver Age craziness to keep most readers guessing. There is enough material for one more volume, possibly, although this came out in 2008.
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