Detective Comics #384-385



'Tall, Dark, Handsome and Missing'

Plot: Barbara Gordon dolls herself up at the library for a handsome patron, only to have him not show up for his usual Friday appointment. Suspecting foul play, Batgirl looks for him, and finds out he was a private investigator working on a case, which she helps solve, even though it means saving his girlfriend. The girl turns out to be his sister, and Barbara gets her date... hurray!



Notes: The do a great job making Barbara Gordon look different when they say she's getting 'dolled up' which is good art. I'm not sure it makes sense that her motorcycle fits in the trunk of her car, and they're still using the 'multicolor tracker' to magically point to bad guys, but otherwise a good, if pedestrian, story.

'Die Small - die Big'

Plot: A group of thugs plot to kill Batman, and boring mailman (but master of disguise) Herbert Small learns of the plot thanks to his hyper sensitive ears. He's about to die, and sacrifices himself to make sure Batman can foil the plot.

Notes: Not sure why this is in the Batgirl Showcase... she's in one background panel as Barbara, and on the very misleading cover. This one screams Adam West (as one would expect for a early 1969 Batman comic).. Alfred looks like the actor from the show, and Batman makes some Adam West-like quips during the fight.

Adventure Comics #381

'The Supergirl Gang'

Plot: Linda Danvers finds out that one of her classmates was arrested for theft, and discovers that a 'crime fighting class' was the culprit. She goes undercover to bust up the plot, and has to beat up an undercover Batgirl to do it. They team up in the end to save the day.

Notes: There was a bit of weirdness here, Supergirl took much longer (weeks) to bust this up than needed so she could make sure she had proof, when that's never stopped any superhero before. It did make for a better story. It's 90% a Supergirl story... she has to beat 'Ms' Barbour' in combat to lead the next 'mission' to get proof, and is surprised how difficult it is. Batgirl's appearance is the last page, where she takes out the Kryptonite-toting robots (because every small time crook has Kryptonite) to make sure the day is saved. I definitely enjoyed this one, even if it's a Supergirl story in the Batgirl collection... I guess they were going for documenting every appearance?

The Batgirl back-up feature in Detective actually started with #384-5, with the two-parter "Tall, Dark, Handsome and Missing" (#384) and its conclusion "Hunt for the Helpless Hostage" (#385)...which you reviewed
The Batgirl feature alternated with Robin's, so her stories don't appear in every issue of Detective. 

Batman 214

'Batman's Marriage Trap'



Plot: When a group of crooks takes advantage of Batman's day off to be the prize for a beauty pageant, they decide to start a marketing campaign to get Gotham's ladies to demand Batman get married. The crooks hoped doing so would get Batman off the streets. It works for a while, but the woman they higher to start the plan and seduce Batman actually falls for him and sacrifices herself (she goes to jail, I think.. it's not clear) to stop the plot. The end!


Notes: UGH! All the silliness and illogicalness of an Adam West plot, but none of the camp and humor.. why would they write this story as a serious story?? Why?? It's painful. The Batgirl part is she joins the women trying to convince Batman to marry to go 'undercover' and figure out the plot. She's in all of 4 panels... two to have Batman and Robin see her and bemoan she's in on it two, and a couple later on where she kicks a goon and tells them it's all a big plot.

I broke out the Supergirl book today (working from home for a bit... Silver Age comics are perfect for filling idle time.


Action #271: Supergirl's Fortress of Solitude

Wow, do they pack alot into 13 pages! Supergirl decides to make her own Fortress of Solitude, and travels through Time and Space to get some materials for it, burying it in the desert. Some archeologists find it, but one is evil, so he convinces the others to hypnotize themselves into forgetting, while he goes and adopts Linda so she can steal stuff for him.

The plan works great until Streaky comes by and accidently fries their brains just the right way to make them forget ONLY that Linda is Supergirl, and they bring her back to the Orphanage.



Action #272 'The Second Supergirl and Action #273 'Supergirl of Two Worlds'

Otto Binder is back to writing this two parter, making me think that perhaps it was from earlier, and it's really a fill in. The other thing is the story starts with Supergirl wanting to prove herself a valid hero so Superman will introduce her to the world (rather than knowing she's the secret weapon).

She does this by using a science-o-nator in the Fortress to find a double of herself on the (very creatively named) planet of Terra.. Where the Statue of Liberty carries a banner and people have pet elephants instead of dogs. There, Marvel Maid is the main hero, and her cousin Marvel Man is the secret weapon.

Supergirl tries to proves she's a good hero, along with Marvel Man, but messed up a bunch of times because she doesn't know about Terra. Marvel Maid goes to Earth to tell Superman she's great, but he goes full into full Super Dickery mode and scolds her for not going to the Terra library first to figure out the lay of the land. Linda things this is just fine and meekly goes back to the Orphanage.

There's one scene here (I couldn't find a pic) where Superman is in the Fortress with Marvel Maid (he doesn't notice she's not Supergirl at first, a far bigger mistake than any Supergirl made, but I digress. We learn that Superman has a bunch of Supergirl robots all ready to go, just like the Superman ones. Why does he need a secret weapon when he can do that? I guess only he knows.

Poor Thing! We also get a 'pick Linda's new hair style' page.




Action Comics #274 'Supergirl's Three Time Trips'

History lesson time! Supergirl goes back in time to see Annie Oakley, Betsy Ross, and Pocahantas to research a history report. Apparently she has such pinpoint control she can go back to whatever time she wants.
At each visit, she has to help events a bit, but mysteriously there's kryptonite there. I feel like physics disagrees that that's possible, but it's the Silver Age, no need to quibble.

Far more odious to the modern reader is the portrayal of the Indians in the Pocahantas part... wow, it's 60s Spaghetti Western bad.





Action #275 'Ma and Pa Kent adopt Supergirl

Much like Superman's 'Imaginary Stories', this one is a dream, where Supergirl is the one that gets raised in Smallville by the Kents. Lex is there, too, but he's kinda a nice dude, and there's an alliterative love interest (Bob Benson).

There's quite a few questionable bits in here... Squawky the Super Parrot the chief among them. Then there's the 'Supergirl helps Ma around the house like CLark helped Pa in the store' line, or that she uses his powers to play hopscotch as a kid. I usually really like these, but where they just did this sort of thing with the Marvel Maid story, it felt really weird since this one isn't as good as that.

I was shocked to find this followed with a multi-part story! Action 278 - 282 are retroactively dubbed 'The Unknown Supergirl' story (after the first part, I guess)... I was referring to it in my head as the Lesla-Lar Saga while I was reading it.. you can call it what you like... it's really good! It's still got plenty of Silver Age silliness, but really seems like a big shift change from the previous stuff.


Action 278 - 'The Unknown Supergirl'

Krypto stops by to tell Supergirl that the time has come to announce her to the world... after Superman comes back from a space mission. As an aside, I love how they're always going into space randomly in the Silver Age for... reasons. That'd be a fun way to write new Silver Age stories, actually... 'Superman's lost Space Adventures'.. that was the excuse why he wasn't around for the JLA alot, too, a bit later.

Anyway, after he leaves, a ring of Kryptonite floats into orbit, rending the planet unlivable for our Super people. Supergirl takes refuge under the sea, where she hangs with her Atlantean boyfriend and Lori Lemaris, while using somewhat ridiculous super-feats to stop small times crooks that are trying to run rampant while they can. Of course the world assumes it's Superman, so Supergirl's secret is intact.

The ring disapates after a couple days, and Superman comes home, only to find Supergirl no longer has powers! To be continued!

OK, so this was a silly start. For some reason, I do like Jerro alot, and I love how Krypto is written as if he's simply a Super-person who can't talk... he makes me smile every time. I also love how Superman has a Supergirl highlight package ready to go. He must have some big servers in the fortress of Solitude!



Action Comics #279: Supergirl's Secret Enemy

Superman is unable to figure out what's going on, so Supergirl decides it's time to get adopted, and becomes Linda Danvers. This seemingly huge event gets kinda rushed through, surprisingly... in favor of some non-DC like angst. Meanwhile, we find out jealous evil scientist Lesla-Lar is responsible for sucking Linda's powers out with a Kryptonite ray shooting out of Kandor (best not to think about how illogical that is). She ALSO has a ray to shrink Linda down and swap places with her, which happens, and of course, since she's Kryptonian, Lesla-Lar quickly develops super powers. She goes to Lex Luthor in jail, and offers to commit crimes of him.. but to what end? Her evil plans continue next issue!




Action Comics #280 'Trapped in Kandor

Linda is in Kandor, living Lesla-Lar's life, and the up the Irony to 11 by having her go to the movies and watch the origin of Supergirl... guess it was time for an origin recap.
Meanwhile on Earth 'Supergirl' has Superman crush some rocks and tricks him into thinking that cured her, then she one ups him saving people from an earthquake, so Superman (who has no idea it's not Linda) decides the plan to reveal her existence is back on.

After suckering Superman, she gives Luthor plans for a Kryptonite Ray that should kill him once he builds it. In a really funny moment, she tells him to stop using silly death traps and just shoot him...so many villains could heed that advice!



Action Comics #281 'Secret of the Time Barrier

Krypto comes home from a 'Space Mission' - How awesome is it he has his own space missions, by the way' and immediately realizes it's not the real Supergirl, and somehow swaps them back. Before they do, though, we see that a movie director has spotted 'Lesla-Lar' and since she looks so much like Supergirl. casts her in a Supergirl movie. (she's, of course, terrible at it)

ONce that switch back, since Linda has no idea what's going on, and Krypto can't talk, all the humans know is now Supergirl is suddenly powerless again. They try the ore that 'worked' before to no avail, then SUperman deicides to see if Linda's powers work in the past, so they go back in time, and, Voila, they do?

Superman leaves her in 1692 for a while to 'play' while he goes back to the present, and Supergirl does a whole lot of Super things, and realizes in the end that the 'Golden Witch' she read about in history class was really her! That was pretty cute... though this trip back in time doesn't have as much educational content as they usually. do.

At the end, we see Lesla-Lar in her lab.. waiting for Linda to go to bed so she can zap her to switch places again... to be continued!




Action Comics #282 'The Supergirl of Tomorrow'

This time Superman shows up with a Legion Time Bubble, and Linda goes to the future to see if her powers work there, while Lesla-Lar impatiently stews and waits for her to go to sleep.. Linda unknowingly outlasted her the night before and stayed on Earth.

Instead of doing the obvious and visiting the Legion, she goes to a less distant future Earth that just had a war with Mars, and helps clean of some giant bird monsters that are still lying around (OK, yeah, that's pretty dumb, but there's some cool animal mix up art). I wonder if the ever tried to fit that in with anything. They do a bit of a Bradbury tribute here, as the bad guys in charge of Earth when Linda gets there are 'the All Seeing Eye' and his men, who want to burn all the books so people can't have ideas about freedom. Simple and quick, but made me smile.

After saving the day, Linda decides she'd rather stay powerless in the present (even though Superman makes it seem like he won't need to bother with her anymore), rather than be Supergirl in the future with the Legion (which Superman does suggest, at least). She then goes to the beach with her new voted hair style and hangs out with Dick Malverne.

There's a very unfortunate 60s panel there, where they are swimming, and Linda says 'I can't actually beat him in a race, but even if I was still Super, I'd let him win because men like to fell superior to women'. UGH.

She puts on her Supergirl costume one last time before throwing it out, and a miracle happens, she has powers again! Lesla-Lar is watching from her creepy monitor room, and tries to blast her again but it doesn't work. In fact, Supergirl seems to now be immune to Kryptonite, and save Superman from some. While Kandorian police (who sensed the ray this time) bust into Lesla -Lar's lab and arrest her, we see what happened. Mr. Mxyzpltk! he decided to embarass Superman by giving a 'slip of a girl' powers better than his, and picked Linda because she was in the costume.

We'll just ignore how bad that is, and how illogical it would be that he wouldn't already know about Supergirl. We end with Superman thinking that maybe he should be Linda's assistant. (A bit of redemption!)

Great story overall, despite some Silver Age hiccups. Krypto has risen fast as my favorite Super Family member!

I agree... I was surprised to see she never was introduced post-crisis.   It's not like Kandor is gone.  Especially with the Luthor connection (Which they did play on in the 90s)

I have at least one of the Superman Family books she was in though, so maybe at some point I'll see if I can get the rest .



Two of her other appearances are still to come in this omni .