Video Discription |
This video is about the DC Comics female superhero (superheroine) Supergirl.
The focus is from her first appearance in 1959 to 1984, plus a review of her origin.
To show the evolution of her appearance and the sort of adventures that she got involved in, a chronological series of comic book covers featuring Supergirl are presented; including covers from the following comic book series: Action Comics, Adventure Comics, Superman, Supergirl, and The Superman Family.
Supergirl, also known as Kara Zor-El, first appeared in and on the cover of Action Comics No. 252 in 1959, which is the first cover in this video.
Supergirl was created by writer Otto Binder and designed by artist Al Plastino.
The reaction to Supergirl’s first appearance was tremendous, with thousands of positive letters poring into DC Comics.
Supergirl was created as a female counterpart to Superman, and shares his super powers.
Supergirl, like her cousin Superman, is a Kryptonian.
There was a Supergirl movie in 1984, with Helen Slater starring as Supergirl, and Sasha Calle played Supergirl in the 2023 The Flash movie.
Supergirl has also been on TV: notably with Laura Vandervoort playing her in the seventh season (2007-2008) of Smallville; and Melissa Benoist playing her in the Supergirl TV show that started in 2015.
In January 2024, Milly Alcock was cast in the role of Supergirl and is set to debut in the upcoming Superman movie, before her solo standalone movie set in the DC Universe, which is to derive significantly from the Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow 2021 to 2022 miniseries by writer Tom King and artist Bilquis Evely.
In 1969, Supergirl’s adventures became the lead feature in Adventure Comics, and in 1972 she got her own series, which ran until 1974, followed in 1982 by another series that ran until 1984.
Because of changing editorial policy at DC Comics, Supergirl was initially killed off in the year 1985 limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths.
DC Comics subsequently rebooted the continuity of the DC Comics Universe, but with Superman as the sole survivor of Krypton’s destruction.
After the conclusion of Crisis on Infinite Earths, several different characters written as having no family relationship to Superman assumed the role of Supergirl, including, Linda Danvers, and Cir-El.
After the cancellation of the third Supergirl comic book series, which was from 1996 to 2003, and starred the Matrix/Linda Danvers version of Supergirl, a modern version of Kara Zor-El was reintroduced in 2004 in “The Supergirl from Krypton” story in Superman/Batman No. 8.
This modern version of Supergirl has starred in her own series and other comic books.
Supergirl has had more than one origin story, what follows is one of them.
Supergirl is a survivor of Argo City, which had survived the explosion of the planet Krypton and drifted through space.
The city had been covered by a plastic dome for weather moderation, devised by Zor-El, a climatologist and engineer, and also the younger brother of Superman’s father Jor-El.
The dome held together a large chunk of land mass under the city as it drifted through space in the general direction of our Earth’s Solar System.
However, the bottom-most layers of bedrock were affected by the explosion of Krypton and slowly and steadily turned into green kryptonite.
Using raw deposits and refined materials at hand, the residents of Argo City laid down a ground shield of lead foil to protect them from the developing kryptonite.
Zor-El created a makeshift propulsion system to try to accelerate the city’s approach to the Solar System.
During the roughly 30 years Argo City travelled through space, Zor-El met and married Alura, daughter of In-Ze, who then gave birth to their daughter Kara, who was blonde like her parents and later becomes Supergirl.
Before the propulsion system was able to steer the city towards Earth a deranged citizen named Jer-Em, who was suffering from survival guilt, damaged the exhaust, veering Argo towards a swarm of meteors that crashed into the underside of the land mass on which it rested.
As the inhabitants of Argo were being killed by the green kryptonite radiation release by meteorites shredding the lead barrier, the adolescent Kara was sent to Earth in a rocket to be raised by her cousin Kal-El, also known as Clark Kent and as Superman.
To ensure that she would be recognized by Superman, Kara’s parents gave her a uniform that was similar to Superman’s uniform.
In regards to the future of Supergirl, do you have any plot ideas for her in comic books, TV shows or movies?
Are there any other characters, such as Power Girl or Wonder Woman or other specific female superheroes that you want her to be involved with?
Do you want Supergirl to retain her traditional costume appearance or are there any changes that you want made?
Many Supergirl videos, short and longer, can be viewed at the Comic Excitement Convention Supergirl Playlist. |