Elseworld's Finest: Supergirl & Batgirl

Elseworlds

by Barbara Randall Kesel, Matt Haley (Illustrator), Tom Simmons (Illustrator)

In a world in which Bruce Wayne was never Batman, and the infant Kal-El did not survive long enough to become Superman. The orphaned Barbara Gordon becomes Gotham's near-dictatorial protector, and Kara Zor-El as the Girl of Steel teams with Lex Luthor and the Justice Society.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Dc Comics, Superheroes, Batman, Comic Book, Action

66 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 1998

About the author

Barbara Randall Kesel is an American writer and editor of comic books; her bibliography includes work for DC Comics, Marvel Comics, CrossGen, Image Comics and Dark Horse Comics. Kesel is a very outspoken opponent of sexism in the comic book industry. She is known for her strong female characters, influencing her then husband Karl's work on Lois Lane in the Superman titles and creating Grace, the ruler of the Golden City location in Comics' Greatest World.

Kesel initially came into the comics world after writing a 10-page letter to editor Dick Giordano regarding the portrayal of female comic book characters. At Dark Horse, Kesel was part of Team CGW, responsible for most of the design and creation of the setting and characters in the Golden City location. She is currently part of book packaging company The Pack, alongside Lee Nordling, Brian Augustyn, Gordon Kent and Dave Olbrich.

Kesel has been nominated for the 1991 "Best Editor" Eisner Award for Badlands, Aliens: Genocide and Star Wars. In 1995, she was nominated for "Best Anthology" and "Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Material" Harvey Awards for, respectively, Instant Piano and Hellboy: Seed of Destruction. She won the 1996 "Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work" Harvey Award, for Hellboy: The Wolves of St. August.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Elseworlds puts a fun little spin on the Superman and Batman origins. What if Jim Gordon stepped in front of the bullet meant for the Waynes? And what if Kal-El never grew up to be Superman? Now Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) and Supergirl are the two main heroes in the DC universe. Matt Haley's art is great. It's got some Adam Hughes influences in there.

[Adam Graham · Rating 1 out of 5]

The best of DC's Elseworld stories imagine how our favorite DC heroes would exist if circumstances were different. What if Batman had fought crime during the Victorian era? What if Superman went away while a group of harsher more brutal metahumans became a terror to the population? What if Wonder Woman was an old West Sheriff?

The worst of DC's Elseworld's tales imagine a world where our heroes are unlikable twits. Unfortunately, Elseworld's Finest falls into the latter category.

In this world, Barbara Gordon's parents rather than Bruce Wayne's are killed by Joe Cool while trying to save Wayne's parents. Barbara becomes Batgirl with the help of the Wayne millions and the assistance of her childhood friend and millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne. After becoming Batgirl, she puts the city under lockdown and bars all superhumans including the Wonder Woman-led Justice Society and she does this because...

Actually, that's never explained. The Justice Society than confront her and then she defeats the entire Justice Society (because she's Batgirl.) The one potentially good idea was tying her use of computers in this Elseworld tale to her identity in the main DC universe as Oracle.

At any rate, Supergirl in this tale is the last survivor of Krypton and has been adopted by Wonder Woman after crashing on Earth as a teenager. She's been helped out by Lex Luthor and is intensely loyal to him. When Luthor is kidnapped, Batgirl wants to keep the Gotham City investigation herself but Supergirl insists on getting in.

Overall, there's not a lot good to say about this book. The art is rarely bad but it's nothing really good either. The plot is confusing and everyone seems to be improvising. None of the characters are likable or that interesting. One potential exception is the Joker, who in this Elseworld, commits crimes to gain the attention of Batgirl, and also has taken a dose of venom to give him the muscles of Bane, but even that character became a one note.

The same can be said of all the characters. Batgirl isn't really her own character but just acting like Batman. The only exception is that she writes crime novels. Given that she's the autocratic dictator of Gotham City while also maintaining a double life, that's unintentionally silly. Supergirl is just a volatile teenager who screams and throws tantrums.

There's no one to like or care about, so despite the title, this is far from Elseworld's Finest.

[Pablo Rodriguez Perez · Rating 4 out of 5]

A diferencia de otros Elseworlds, este no nos plantea de entrada la realidad en la que nos movemos. Los personajes se ven envueltos directamente en una situación que no sabemos si transcurre en el presente, pasado o futuro; asi como el papel de otros personajes que van apareciendo en un posible alter ego. Esto provoca que el lector se sienta un poco perdido al principio de la lectura, pero a medida que la trama avanza, se van descubriendo las reglas de este mundo y que rol juega cada personaje en el.
En este mundo básicamente no existen ni Batman ni Superman, y sus roles son llevados por Barbara Gordon Batgirl y Kara Zor-El Supergirl. Un Lex Luthor humanitario parece ser la figura mas benevolente del mundo y la JSA se compone de unos cuantos miembros que no parecen llevarse del todo bien con Batgirl. Pero todo se enreda cuando Luthor es secuestrado por el Joker, que mas allá de ser malo, parece que su motivación es ser amado por Batgirl (?). Hasta acá es la premisa, pero un par de revelaciones y descubrimientos en la trama, le dan el giro realmente interesante a esta historia de 60 paginas. de la mitad en adelante no se puede dejar de leer hasta terminarlo.

[Maurice Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an interesting world.

Here, Barbara Gordon is Batgirl for different reasons. She and her parents went to the movies with Thomas and Martha Wayne and their son Bruce on that fateful night. When Joe Chill stepped from the shadows to kill the Waynes, James Gordon stepped in. He and his wife were killed instead of the Waynes. Thomas and Martha took Barbara in, and she vowed to wage war on criminals like Joe Chill.

Barbara is now a famous true crime novelist, but in her secret identity as Batgirl she keeps Gotham isolated from the rest of the country via her Oracle technology (financed by her friend Bruce Wayne and the Wayne Foundation). Nobody gets in or out without her knowledge and permission, even the mighty Justice Society, including Supergirl, last daughter of Krypton and her friend/mentor/sponsor, businessman Lex Luthor.

I enjoyed seeing this world where Bruce Wayne truly is a playboy socialite and Barbara is the feared Dark Knight. Her interaction with Supergirl was refreshing and interesting, as were their encounters with Luthor and the Joker.

[Kat (kvcatnip) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was good. Cheeky in some places, but overall it was a good story.

[Alec · Rating 3 out of 5]

the actual plot underlying this issue is ok. supergirl and batgirl, this elseworld's version of superman and batman, team up to save lex luthor from the joker before revelations in the later section of the story change their course. i really don't feel the need to comment on anything there. i feel like the story doesn't explore batgirl(barbara gordon, going extra goth) well enough though, as she's portrayed as being FAR more fascistic and brutal than the typical batman(gotham city is locked off from the rest of the world, and the justice society fought to change that: and lost. in addition, she's willing to kick people with metal spikes projecting from her boots.) but doesn't really explore why or how she got there. especially when the story explains that she went through the classic batman origin story: am i just supposed to think that barbara is that much more fascistic or controlling than bruce wayne? i don't hate the idea, but the execution is a bit lacking. and beyond that, it makes her and supergirl's chummy attitude at the end and everything a little weaker. i also feel like the art oversexualizes both babs and kara. why is barbara shown stripping down to her underwear before the batgirl suit can robot onto her body? why is she driving the batmobile in her underwear????? supergirl feels like she simply could not escape the authorial urge to power-girl-ify her design even if they didn't fully copy power girl's design. i simply have to dislike the choices and shrug on that one. headscratchers.

now here's where it gets JUICY. probably because they only changed the genders of this versions world's finest(i will truly not get over the name elseworld's finest, it's SO good whenever it's used), they decided to have the primary antagonists FLIRT with their respective heroes. lex flirts with supergirl, the joker explicitly states his motivation as wanting batgirl to notice him. it makes the comic SO interesting metatextually, because it basically repaints their obsessive dynamics in the mainline comics as potential heterosexual interest in this comic. and maybe that just means we've got a basket of fruit on our hands in the standard dc universe... because this story also keeps all these characters base characterizations, even if it takes a bit to get there. does this mean that the writers think lex would have tried to keep superman around as a boytoy if he had thought he could have? that the joker wouldn't beat around the bush if society had approved? obviously there aren't set answers to these questions, but i think they're very interesting recolors of classic dynamics. definitely the part i got the most out of.

[Scratch · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up because someone in a Facebook group said that the minor character, Interceptor, was an alternate reality Linda Danvers. I have no way of knowing whether that's true. She was never given the name of Linda Danvers anywhere in this story that I saw. At the time this issue came out, Linda was the one true Supergirl. Yet, weirdly, a version of the Kryptonian Kara Zor-El is the Supergirl of this book. Back in the 90s, the mainstream DC universe believed that Kara was dead and going to stay dead forever, effectively have never existed, due to the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths.

If a modern young comic book fan picked this up now, they would just see an alternate reality where Supergirl and Batgirl are the ONLY Super and Bat characters, because there was no Superman or Batman. They would appreciate this as a cute little story, shrug, and move on. But, at the time this came out, it must have been more jarring. The only active Supergirl at the time was Linda Danvers, the human woman who bonded with a shapeshifting purple protoplasmic lifeform with telekinetic powers, in the process becoming a composite being and an earth-born angel of fire.

... God, I miss Linda.

[Joel Jenkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maybe Kesel tries to pack a little too much into this alternate world where Gotham is a Justice League no-fly zone and Batgirl patrols the streets with the backing of her patron, Bruce Wayne. When Lex Luthor comes to town to promote a business effort he is kidnapped by a jacked Joker, who is desperately trying to get the attention of Batgirl with whom he has a deadly infatuation.

I highly enjoyed the Elseworld outing. The Haley and Simmons art is reminiscent of Bart Sears and that's a good thing in my estimation.

[Komuniststar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Evo vam nasi superheroji pa radite s njima ca ocete. JEEEE! Aca cemo? Nek budu zenske! Uuu dobra ideja, i onda? I onda sve isto ka obican batman-superman strip. Znaci samo umisto mišićavih crtamo sisate? Da. Uuuu jeeee -povikase glasom 12godišnjih djećaćića i evo nam stripa.
A dvi zvjezdice jer uvik negdi u meni zivi 12 godišnjak.

[Michael Dunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty interesting alternate universe where Bruce Wayne never becomes Batman but helps Batgirl in her war on crime and where Supergirl is the last daughter of Krypton with no sign of Superman. Add in a different interpretation of The Joker and a seemingly noble Lex Luthor and you got a short but overall nice story.

[Marcus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Elseworld is an interesting approach as it changes many of the dynamics between superheroes. I loved the idea of the human superheroes being suspicious and overcautious with the alien superheroes. The context is great. The rest is pretty bland and the art is not remarkable.

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a bad idea, but it takes itself so seriously, and tries to force the title characters into having the personalities of their male counterparts and it just ends up being blah.

Elseworlds wants to be Marvel's What if, but aside from the historical ones, just turned out endless serious, not terrible fun takes on Batman and Superman.

[Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting Elseworlds premise, I especially liked the subtle details changing the characters in the background in terms of JLA/JSA members, etc.

[Rick Hunter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like Marvel's What If? line of comics and the few things from DC's Elseworlds that I've read so far. I like the quick little stories that show what would have happened if one little thing had changed. It's kind of like one of those books you'd read as a kid and get to a certain page and you'd have to choose either A or B. If you chose A, you'd just turn the next page. If you took B, you'd have to skip a few a pages before resuming the story. The normal comics are path A. These Elseworlds books are the less travels road B. I've wanted to read this book for a long time because Batgirl and Supergirl are 2 of my all time favorite comics characters and definitely among my favorites from DC.

Baabara Kesel, Matt Haley and Tom Simmons all worked together on the plot of the story and Kesel put the finishing touches on the story and wrote the script. In this world Kara Zor-El is still Supergirl, Barbara Gordon is still Batgirl, there is a version of the Justice League, Lex Luthor and a Joker, but nothing else about this world is anywhere close to the same. The nuances of Elseworlds are what I like. The same people are still there, but things are a little different. This world never had a Superman or Batman so the females are the elite heroes of the story. This cool little story was definitely enjoyable. The writing gets 4 stars.

Matt Haley and Tom Simmons , that helped with they plotting on the story, are the art team on the book. The former being the illustrator and the latter is the inker. Haley has some pretty good looking characters, but they're a little over-muscled to my taste. They are almost muscled to the point of Ed McGuiness' art in Superman/Batman, Vol. 1: Public Enemies. The faces of most of the characters including Kara, Bruce Wayne and Lex all look good, but not fantastic. Barbara Gordon/Batgirl is easily the best looking character in the book. She is consistent in her appearance. The others have moments where they don't look quite as good as other time. It is still better art than a bunch of the New 52 DC series. Art gets 3.5 stars.

The 4 star writing score & the 3.5 star art score give us a 3.75 star overall book. I rounded that up to 4 because of this site. This is a quick fun read that my sis picked up at a used book store. She told me after she read it that it was the best $2 she had spent in a long time. I agree. If you can this online or at a brick and mortar store for a reasonable price, pick it up. If you like these characters, you won't be disappointed.

[David Caldwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no Batman or Superman. Instead Batgirl controls Gotham City with an iron fist. No super powered individual, either hero or villain, is allowed within the walled city without Batgirl's consent. When Lex Luthor gets kidnapped by a lovesick (for Batgirl) Joker, Supergirl forms an uneasy truce with Batgirl to save him. But everything may not be as straightforward as it seems.

I enjoyed the peek into this alternate world. This type of story has a common weakness. The authors have to keep the world close enough to be recognized while making it different enough to make a story. So this causes some areas to be glossed over since the author can say the reader is already familiar with this or that. This seems especially true with comics because of their short length and need to tell a good portion of the story with its visuals.

While you get a full story, you also realize that you are only getting to see a small dose of this alternate world. I would love to explore more in it, especially some of the other characters in the Justice Society.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Forgive me if this review is short and choppy but I am yet again typing this out on my cell. :/
I found this at a used bookstore for $2 and I just couldn't pass it up. I have a couple of Elseworld figures, one being this badass looking Batgirl.
I really like the art. Matt Haley's pencils are really detailed and Tom Simmons' colors are perfect, popping when needed, dark when fitting to the story. I like the 90s look when the women were long-limbed, top-heavy and looked dangerously sexy. Clean lines and some detailing in the background really made me love this. A few faces in some panels could have been made sharper but nothing that ruined the art for me.
Barbara Kesel's story worked for me. I could have used some more details and back story but I never felt confused or lost while reading. This was a super quick, fun read for me. A definite keeper for future rereads.

[Jane Emery · Rating 5 out of 5]

What can I say that it doesn't say above? Superwoman and Batwoman well Supergirl and Batgirl but here is no "Man" after bat and super. Nope not in elseworld, it where you can play with the real stuff in a way that don't effect the on going storylines. How else could you have it that Kel-El never survived the crash or Bruce Wayne is still alive but not Batman. You get other things like a buffed out Joker and other recognizable heroes that are not so recognizable. Flash looks different and so does Captain Marvel and Green Lantern, but that is the fun of elseworld. You can read this one comic and its over, unless they happen to have a second.

[Donna · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love elseworlds normally. I love the fact that they would take Batman and make him fight mysteries in the Victorian era. or What if Superman landed in Russia instead of Kansas.....but this....this...er...I'm afraid if I am too honest I"d get banned from the site. I mean it's not "I'd rather read 50 shades" bad but damn.

[Lexxi Kitty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Somewhat insane little story. It probably would have been better if I didn't keep getting distracted by how much I disliked the artwork.

Vaguely interesting. Though only after the fact. The hero-worship of Lex Luther was almost too much to get through.

[Emily · Rating 1 out of 5]

An alternate version of Gotham that I would have been ok never having read about. Not well thought through.

[Earl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not too impressed with this. I need to be more convinced with the other Elseworlds series. Remember that Red Son is a wonderful read.

[Agustin Guerrero · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some interesting ideas that never fully come together.

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very good alternate universe Batman and Superman story. Recommended

[Miguel Poveda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Siguiendo la estela de la colección de historias de DC en la que se preguntan cómo serían sus personajes en universos paralelos, en este caso tenemos una historia que involucra a Batgirl y Supergirl en vez de a sus homólogos masculinos. La trama entretiene y sólo se echa en falta mayor duración, porque se queda francamente corto.