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SUPERGIRL IN THE BRONZE AGE! October 2015 No.84 $ 8 . 9 5 Supergirl TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. 0 9 Pre-Crisis Supergirl I Death of Supergirl I Rebirths of Supergirl I Superwoman ALAN BRENNERT interview I HELEN SLATER Supergirl movie & more super-stuff! 1 82658 27762 8 Volume 1, Number 84 October 2015 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond! PUBLISHER John Morrow TM DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER ARTISTS Karl Heitmueller, Jr., with Stephen DeStefano Bob Fingerman Dean Haspiel Kristen McCabe Jon Morris Jackson Publick COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg PROOFREADER John Morrow SPECIAL THANKS Cary Bates Elliot S. Maggin Alan Brennert Andy Mangels ByrneRobotics.com Franck Martini BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . .2 Glen Cadigan Jerry Ordway FLASHBACK: Supergirl in Bronze . .3 and The Legion George Pérez The Maid of Might in the ’70s and ’80s Companion Ilya Salkind Shaun Clancy Anthony Snyder PRINCE STREET NEWS: The Sartorial Story of the Sundry Supergirls . .24 Gary Colabuono Roger Stern Oh, what to wear, what to wear? Fred Danvers Jeannot Szwarc DC Comics Steven Thompson THE TOY BOX: Material (Super) Girl: Pre-Crisis Supergirl Merchandise . .26 Jim Ford Jim Tyler Dust off some shelf space, ’cause you’re gonna want this stuff Chris Franklin Orlando Watkins FLASHBACK: Who is Superwoman? . .31 Grand Comics John Wells Database Marv Wolfman Elliot Maggin’s Miracle Monday heroine, Kristen Wells Robert Greenberger BACKSTAGE PASS: Adventure Runs in the Family: The Saga of the Supergirl Movie . .35 Karl Heitmueller, Jr. Hollywood’s Ilya Salkind and Jeannot Szwarc take us behind the scenes Heritage Comics Auctions FLASHBACK: Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 . .45 Paul Channing Keefe The death of Supergirl: the end of a hero and of an era Rob Kelly James Heath Lantz INTERVIEW: Alan Brennert . .52 Up close and personal with the writer of a handful of unforgettable comics stories FLASHBACK: The Many Lives of Supergirl . .67 If you’re viewing a Digital A look at the Post-Crisis Maid of Might Edition of this publication, PLEASE READ THIS: BONUS INTERVIEW: Wonder Woman Contest Winner Orlando Watkins . .75 #17 (Oct. 1981), featuring “The Many Lives of Supergirl.” Art by George Pérez and Dick Giordano. TM & © DC Comics. Remember the Bronze Age Wonder Woman contest? We do! This is copyrighted material, NOT intended for downloading anywhere except our BACK TALK . .78 website or Apps. If you downloaded it from The latest from the BI Bunker another website or torrent, go ahead and read it, and if you decide to keep it, DO THE RIGHT THING and buy a legal down- load, or a printed copy. Otherwise, DELETE IT FROM YOUR DEVICE and DO NOT BACK ISSUE™ is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, SHARE IT WITH FRIENDS OR POST IT Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, The Best of DC Blue Ribbon Digest ANYWHERE. If you enjoy our publications c/o Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief, 118 Edgewood Avenue NE, Concord, NC 28025. Email: enough to download them, please pay for [email protected]. Six-issue subscriptions: $67 Standard US, $85 Canada, $104 Surface them so we can keep producing ones like this. Our digital editions should ONLY be International. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. downloaded within our Apps and at Cover art by Karl Heitmueller, Jr. and friends. Supergirl TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. www.twomorrows.com All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2015 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing, except Prince Street News, TM & © Karl Heitmueler, Jr. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING. In the background: Cover to Supergirl in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 1 TM She lived among the Baby Boom generation, but she wasn’t one of them. Born years after the planet Krypton’s destruction, young, blonde Kara had grown up on a surviving fragment called Argo City and—when it became toxic—was shuttled to Earth for a surprise reunion with her adult cousin Superman in 1959’s Action Comics #252. Adopting the civilian alter ego of brown-wigged orphan Linda Lee, the freshly christened Supergirl went into training as the Man of Steel’s “secret weapon” in Action’s new backup series. Nothing ever really changed that much in Superman’s world, but his cousin—not beholden to maintaining a particular status quo—was a different story. Linda had boyfriends—local kid Dick Malverne, Atlantean merboy Jerro, and the Legion of Super-Heroes’ Brainiac 5—and left Midvale Orphanage when she was adopted by Fred by J o h n W e l l s and Edna Danvers. As Supergirl, she went public to worldwide acclaim. Linda found a best friend in the psychic Lena Thorul (who happened to be Lex Luthor’s sister). Supergirl was reunited with her Kryptonian parents Zor-El and Alura, who’d miraculously survived Argo City’s destruction via “the Survival Zone” and relocated to the shrunken Kryptonian city of Kandor (in part to avoid any discomfort for Mr. and Mrs. Danvers). Once Linda graduated from high school in 1964’s Action Comics #318 and headed to Stanhope College, though, the forward momentum ceased. Five years later, Linda was still in college and the only thing that had changed was the artwork. In a movement by art director Carmine Infantino to reflect the more dynamic look exemplified by Neal Adams, longtime Supergirl artist Jim Mooney was forced out and replaced by Kurt Schaffenberger effective with late 1967’s Action Comics #359. The change undeniably refreshed the series and may have caused wheels to begin turning in Superman editor Mort Weisinger’s mind. KARA’S BIG ADVENTURE Since 1965, Supergirl had headlined an annual Giant issue of Action Comics consisting of old stories, and Weisinger wondered what the Maid of Might could do with her own monthly comic book. At some point, his eye fell on Adventure Comics, a title that had the unusual distinction of being one of DC’s—and the industry’s—bestselling comic books while simultaneously having the weakest sales of the company’s seven Superman-related titles. Although Adventure officially starred the Legion of Super-Heroes, it featured Superboy—and occasionally Supergirl—on every cover and Weisinger had come to believe that it was the Boy of Steel who was really selling the book. While it still outsold Adventure, the Superboy solo comic book was losing more readers per issue. “Mort’s conclusion was that the Legion of Super-Heroes was draining sales from Superboy,” former LSH writer Jim What to Wear? In the early 1970s, writer/artist Mike Sekowsky whisked the Girl of Steel down a reader-recommended fashion runway that would even make Katy Keane dizzy! From Super DC Giant #S-24 (May–June 1971). TM & © DC Comics. Supergirl in the Bronze Age Issue • BACK ISSUE • 3 Shooter told Glen Cadigan in The Legion Companion (2003), “and that the property really wasn’t good enough to hold its own.” Weisinger’s solution was to move the Legion into the back of Action Comics (effective with issue #377) while making Supergirl the new star of Adventure Comics starting with issue #381 (on sale April 29, 1969). With the Girl of Steel in place, Shooter detailed, the editor believed “that the sales would hold […] and that Superboy’s sales would rise, since it was no longer being diluted.” The swap coincided almost exactly with the tenth anniversary of Supergirl’s debut and introduced the feature’s third long-term penciler in the form of Win Mortimer. The industry veteran had been the Legion’s regular artist at the time of the transition and Weisinger kept him on the book (generally inked by Jack Abel). The Mortimer/Abel team drew the inaugural Adventure tale—Supergirl’s first book-length story—while a returning Kurt Schaffenberger was on hand for the entirety of issue #382. After that, each artist got half an issue for a short story apiece. There was also new blood in the writer’s seat. After a decade of being primarily written by middle-aged men (most recently Leo Dorfman), Supergirl’s adventures were now coming from the typewriter of 21- year-old Cary Bates. A contributor to Weisinger’s Superman books since the mid-1960s, Bates had written a few Supergirl solo stories before in Action #356, 358, and #366–368, but this was his first shot at a regular series. win mortimer His inaugural installment involved Supergirl and a gang of brainwashed female thieves who’d also been infil- trated by a tough-as-nails blonde … revealed on the last pages as the red-haired Batgirl. Despite being a relative newcomer, the latter had already met Supergirl twice in Bates-scripted issues of World’s Finest Comics (#169 and 176). Issue #382’s Schaffenberger-illustrated book-lengther was a callback to a memorable 1957 story from Adventure #240 in which Superboy met a Kryptonian Robot Teacher. In the 1969 sequel, the Robot Teacher was revealed to have a pre-programed chauvinistic streak that convinced him that a female could never use superpowers properly. Supergirl, of course, proved him wrong. Same As It Ever Was (top left) Supergirl usurped Adventure Comics from its previous caretakers, the Legion of Super-Heroes, beginning with issue #381 (June 1969; cover by Curt Swan and Neal Adams), but before long Superman family editor Mort Weisinger’s march toward retirement made the Maid of Might’s tales seem stale, as with (top right) this Luthor appearance in #387 (Dec.