Showcase Presents: Supergirl, Vol. 1

Showcase Presents: Supergirl #1

by Jerry Siegel, Curt Swan, Jim Mooney (Illustrator)

Collected in this volume is the story that launched the Supergirl concept as well as the history and first appearance of Kara Zor-El, the teenager who would become Supergirl. From her escape from Argo, the city that was spared Kryton's doom, to her adoption of the secret identity of Linda Danvers, to her first meeting with Superman,these tales capture the magic of the Silver Age!

Discover the sense of wonder in these stories written by such comics legends as Jerry Siegel and Otto Binder and with art by Jim Mooney and Al Plastino, among others, as the Girl of Steel goes from being "Superman's Secret Weapon" to one of history's greatest female heroes!

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Fiction, Dc Comics, Science Fiction

528 pages, Paperback

First published November 28, 2007

About the author

Jerome "Jerry" Siegel, who also used pseudonyms including Joe Carter, Jerry Ess, and Herbert S. Fine, was the American co-creator of Superman (along with Joe Shuster), the first of the great comic book superheroes and one of the most recognizable icons of the 20th century.
He and Shuster were inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1993.

Reviews

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great collection of these first Supergirl stories. Nice art and stories from the Silver age of Comics. Fun read. Recommended

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read enough Showcase Presents volumes to know what to expect with Silver Age DC comics. Usually good art with formula based stories that do get better as the series goes. That's pretty much what you get there. In these early stories Supergirl arrives from a section of Krypton that survived (before eventually being destroyed as well) and poses as orphan Linda Lee while she lives at an orphanage, keeping her very existence secret in order to serve as Superman's "secret weapon."

One thing I did notice about these stories is that Superman comes across as a total jerk. Linda wants to be adopted so she can have parents and a family, and Superman won't let her do it because he's afraid her secret identity will be discovered and she will no longer be effective as his "secret weapon." He tries to use the excuse that she needs to remain hidden until she learns how to use her powers, but that seemed like a cop out.

In any case, these stories are standard Silver Age DC fare, but that's not always a bad thing as you end up with fun stories with good art that are sometimes unintentionally hilarious. If you like Silver Age DC, there's no reason you wouldn't enjoy this one.

[Matej · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of first Supergirl comics, and some Superman, Action Comics and Jimmy Olsen Superman's pal comics that feature Supergirl, from the late 50s in black and white.
The stories are fun, at times unintentionally hilarious and mostly self cointained, but unfortunately they get pretty repetitive. Most of the stories are about Supergirl doing her best not to get adopted and saving people without revealing her existence to anyone which apparently translates to a lot of tunnel digging, so this collection features little to no violence and is for all ages.
The art is pretty standard for comics from that time, and the black and white reprints lose almost nothing in comparison to the colored originals, except for a few issues that take place underwater and look too dark.
Overall, a fun read for all ages, especially if you like comics about tunnel digging.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only superhero comic book little kids can read without dirtying up their minds is Silver Age "Supergirl". One of the most benign superhero creations ever, she's Superman's sweet, good natured cousin Linda Lee who wears a brunette wig and lives in an orphanage. In every episode she tries to avoid getting adopted!
In one story she gets hit by a time warp and turns into Superbaby. In another her cat "Streaky" becomes a wild-eyed super cat. Boy, that was nightmare material! Other stories show her auditioning for the lame Legion of Super-Heroes, building a Linda Lee robot while she's out saving the world, and falling in love with a mermaid boy. There's lots of fun and excitement for your kids with this book!

[Katie Brock · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can tell when reading this bind up of comics that it was definitely written in the 60s. It’s quite sexist in places but it was great to delve into the early Supergirl stories.

[Garrigan Stafford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of classic and ridiculous stories. Just real silly stuff. Highly recommend.

[Adam Graham · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book collects the first two and a half years of the print career of Kara Zor-el, the first and best known Supergirl starting in 1959 with Action Comics #252 where she quickly got her own back-up feature.

In the book, Superman discovers, after more than two decades in comics thinking he was the last survivor of Krypton (at least who wasn't shrunk by Brainiac), that another member of his species survived-his cousin Kara Zor-El, and he responded how any caring big-hearted hero would by thrusting his cousin into an orphanage where she would hide her powers and ensure that she lived a life of loneliness and isolation for fear that she might be adopted. And she must remain in this state so that Superman can use her as his secret weapon.

Oftentimes, in order to enjoy older comics, you have to take off modern blinders and enjoy the books for what they are and I've been able to do that with multiple books but not this one. Because Superman's treatment of Supergirl at this point in her career is the most unSupermanlike thing he does in the Silver Age. Stories often end with Supergirl sad or upset and almost always it's directly or indirectly caused by Superman making her hide in silence.

And because of being unable to reveal herself, Supergirl gets to do very little actual crimefighting, mostly swooping in to stop a natural disaster secretly or travelling somewhere where she can actually be seen (either in time or on another planet.) I think that probably the editors got feedback from kids wondering why Superman was being so mean to Supergirl because there was actually an issue that showed Superman was rooting for her and planned to give her her own fleet of Super robots. You would have never known Superman was rooting for her reading the book before that point as he came off as very mean. We're also treated to a few stories that seek to redo Superboy/Superman stories with Supergirl including her getting a merman boyfriend and other such rip offs.

That's not to say every story is bad. The book not only features Supergirl in Action comics but also some of her guest appearances and the ones in Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen were actually fairly good. We also do get to meet Streaky Supercat. Supergirl's Cat who sometimes has superpowers and then loses them until they randomly return. Also, in the initial book, in her orphan identity as Linda Lee, Supergirl wore pigtails but by the end of the book, had a new hairdo that was actually voted on by fans and you can actually see the original ad.

The book does have one really good storyline that a five part story over sixty pages which was very unusual for 1961, and for the Supergirl strip. In it, Superman has finally decided to reveal her to the world, but then she loses her superpowers because of an evil scheme of a female Kryptonian scientist who figures out how to escape from the bottled city of Kandor. She manages to replace Supergirl and pretend to be repowered and hatches an evil scheme to use Luthor to kill Superman and then kill Luthor in order to avoid detection. It's an amazingly good plot for 1961 DC Comics.

It also managed to change the status quo for Supergirl as she finally can stop avoiding adoption. The whole plot does get resolved with a bit of a deus ex machina by a well known Superman guest star popping out of nowhere, still it's a very good story. You just have to go through a lot of so so material to get to it at the back of the book.

[Stephen Theaker · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable book but not really a remarkable one. Some elements quickly became very repetitive (the robot who fills in as Linda Lee while Supergirl is on adventures, the would-be adoptive parents who must be put off, and so on), but the stories improved as they went on.

A few things struck me as interesting...

For one, it seems strange that Supergirl wears a black wig all day long, then takes it off when in costume, even though no one ever sees her (during this period Superman insists on her acting secretly, so that he can keep her in reserve as a secret weapon). For that matter, why does she even wear a bright costume if she doesn't want to be seen?

The silliest example of wig-wearing is in the imaginary story "Ma and Pa Kent Adopt Supergirl", in which the Kents make the poor girl wear a black wig from the age of five (or so), just to lay the groundwork for an adult secret identity!

Maybe wigs don't bother Supergirl: her head is invulnerable, so perhaps it doesn't get all hot and itchy. But then that would imply that she can't feel any sensations of hot or cold at all, and I'm pretty sure that she can.

Another story of interest was "Supergirl's Busiest Day", in which, just to protect her secret identity, she sucks all the air out of a room to render her fellow orphans unconscious. She exits at super-speed, thinking to herself, "I opened and shut the door so quickly, more oxygen didn't have time to enter the room! I'll be back in a flash!" Good job she didn't get delayed... It's just another example of the way that rules are above all the most important things in Super-stories of this period.

"Supergirl in Smallville" raised some interesting questions. She travels back to the Smallville of Superman's youth, in a bid to show him that she could successfully conceal her secret identity while living with a family. So she stays with the Kents, introducing herself to the teenage Clark as an out-of-town cousin. But she is still wearing her Supergirl costume under her clothes...

So the whole plot depends upon Clark not using his x-ray vision to look under girl's clothes. Now I'm not casting aspersions upon Clark's morality; I'm sure he doesn't; if there's one teenage boy in the world who wouldn't, I suppose it's him (though he checked out Lois's underwear in the first movie). But it's sort of funny for the whole story to rely on it.

But how many of the writers of these stories would have expected anyone to still be reading them and picking them apart forty years later?

[Jason Luna · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's more bland and boring adventures from Superman, now with Supergirl. The only thing that prevents this from getting a lower score is Supergirl's effect on the storytelling. Even though sometimes the reasons for her to be chastised and not be presented to the Earth as a real superhero are kind of dumb, there is a clear and strong emotional pathos of Supergirl having the world pick on her for being well meaning and stuff.

The Jimmy Olsen storylines weren't as crazy as some Jimmy Olsen storylines, but they were diverting enough, and the one Lois Lane issue was good.

It gets pretty tiresome for all of those other issues where Supergirl's like "look a benign obstacle", and then she's pouring dirt into a hole, or gathering a lot of tropical fruit. For some reason, Otto Binder, Jerry Siegel and the like hate giving people supervillains. In the last 4 or so issues of Action Comics from here give Supergirl an evil Supergirl from the bottled city of Kandor. There were clear flaws in the story, but at least there was a clear antagonist. It's like story writing 101.

The crossovers with the Legion of Superheroes was good, but that was also always much better than old school Superman stories, so duh.

A pity 4/5

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unlike the Archives, this book includes stories from books other than Action Comics, although it leaves out, for some reason, Superman's Best Friend, Jimmy Olsen #44, which is referenced in the story from #46 that's included here. There's stories from Superman, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and Adventure included here. Showcase Presents: Supergirl, Vol. 2, however, is compiled purely from Action Comics.

As I've said elsewhere, these stories are typically lightweight and good-natured, with an effervescence that's actually quite charming; the Jim Mooney artwork for the majority of the stories is a big plus, especially when you compare it against the odd bits of Wayne Boring. Al Plastino also turns in some pleasant artwork, and there's a couple of entries from Curt Swan as well, plus one from Kurt Schaffenberg, so, all in all, several of the bigger Super-an-related names are in display.

[Kathy KS · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I saw this at Hays Public Library I couldn't resist checking it out. The episodes included in this book of over 500 pages were all written in the time period when my brother and I were purchasing and reading DC comics alot... especially those in the whole Superman family of titles.

Although I enjoyed tripping down memory lane, I did discover that the comics read alot differently from early grade school to 60+ librarian. I am now appalled at the way Superman keeps telling Supergirl what to do; I do realize she is a teenager, but for some of us that lived through the whole change from 50s-60s views of gender roles to the present it grated.

Will I later pick up more of the reprints of older DC comics? Possibly so, I'm still a nostalgia-freak and I'd like to re-read some of those episodes that still stick in my memory!

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of overlap between this and Superman vol 2. But that's not a bad thing as the stories are about both Supergirl and Superman and so should be in both.

These stories start with a couple of Supergirl preludes where they tested the waters with a Supergirl-like characters before her actual introduction.

Some silly stories of note here include:
A dying rich man convinces Clark Kent to reveal his secret identity as Superman to him since he is about to die. Turns out he was faking and is the leader of an anti-Superman gang. Oops. It takes both Supergirl and the Superman Emergency Squad to get Supes out of this one.

Supergirl travels into the past to live with Ma and Pa Kent for a week to prove she can keep her secret identity secret, even from Superboy!

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The DC Showcase reprints are affordable, uncluttered with ads, and extremely enjoyable by our family. Good clean, fun comics. Great old-school role model hero for the girls (especially now that Superman and Woman are killing people).

And if any youngsters in your family have any artistic inclinations, these are invaluable! The folks who were making these comics back in the early 1960s had mastered perpsective, anatomy, how cloth drapes a body...etc. It's easier for kids to learn how to draw a line if they are not distracted by the colors surrounding the lines.

Highly recommended.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting to see the late-50s/early-60s ethos transformed with a female hero. On the one hand, there's still a lot of unfailing authority, rigid gender roles, deception-driven conflict, and deus-ex-machina plot resolution. On the other hand, there's a little more psychological complexity than the contemporary Superman stories, and a multi-issue story arc actually develops (Supergirl loses her powers and is replaced by a villainous substitute).

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read lots of Supergirl tales over the years, but not much of her earliest adventures, nor in order. The running theme in this book is that Superman wants Supergirl to keep her existence secret until she proves she's ready to use her powers wisely. Thus Supergirl has to cope with parents who want to adopt her and keep trying to prove to Superman that she's ready. I liked it, though it's far from first rate; Superman Family in the Silver Age isn't for everyone though, so YMMV.

[Annice22 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading all of the old Supergirl stories. It was interesting to see how much the character has changed over the years.

[Heidi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this book and will definitely buy the next volume.

[Sam Poole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weird, sometimes to the point that yheyxdontnhold up, but overall very fun.