AMAZON ART #14

Hilariously daffy "paranoia" cover, which looks like a "battle of the sexes" conflict. Unfortunately, the girls aren't the real heroines-- and to add insult to injury, they're not even real girls!

AMAZON ART #5

On television Supergirl has been enjoying something of a comeback, but I have to say that she doesn't have the best record regarding comic-book covers.

That said, here's one of the better ones to involve conflict between the "Maid of Steel" and her paternalistic cousin:

YEAR 1984: SUPERGIRL

The debut of Kara Zor-El for the first time in an audiovisual medium may (according to fannish scuttlebutt) have led to the death of the character a year later when DC's CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS came looking for disposable longjohn-types.

The genesis of the film was less than propitious.  Without the strong influence of a director like Richard Donner, who molded the superior SUPERMAN films for the Salkind production group, SUPERGIRL feels like nothing more than a telefilm introducing a new series-character.  Though director Jeannot Szwarc and scripter David Odell had some decent enough ideas, the execution proved pedestrian and the film itself did not perform well-- thus leading to some fans' suspicions that DC Comics "terminated" the character as part of their 1985 house-cleaning.

On the plus side, Helen Slater delivers a fine performance, combining qualities of innocence and courage in just the needed propotions.  Some of the romantic overtones show promise, with Supergirl battling not just to save Earth but also to win her prospective boyfriend from the clutches of an evil Older Woman.

On the minus side, Szwarc begins with a lame premise-- Supergirl goes to Earth hunting for a magical doohickey to keep Argo City alive-- and then lets the action plod around for most of the running-time until finally pulling out some stops for a moderately exciting climax. But by the time one gets there-- after suffering through scenes like one in which the Maid of Might takes ten minutes to dispose of a couple of grabby truckers-- one isn't likely to care much.

YEAR 1959: SUPERGIRL

Though Lois Lane was the premiere feminine influence on the Superman mythology, a case could be made that his super-cousin was number two in importance.

It must be admitted that Supergirl had a spotty career in the years of her introduction.  Perhaps in keeping with the mythos' love of secrets, for the first year or so during her appearance in a back-up series in ACTION COMICS, Superman kept the "Maid of Might" secret from the world, with the justification that he might need to use her as a "secret weapon."

A skeptic might assume that Superman may've had some issues about not being the only Kryptonian hero on the planet any more.  To be fair, the writers did employ Supergirl in a few stories that hinged on the populace's non-knowledge of her existence.  In addition, the editor may have been waiting to see whether or not she sparked any popularity with the young audience.  One assumes that there was some positive response by the time of ACTION #260 (1960), when Supergirl pleads with her cousin to be allowed more than "mild, secret adventures."   However, it took another 25 issues before Supergirl officially debuted to the contemporary world of Silver-Age DC, in ACTION #285.

Once this took place, the character arguably became more assertive, with one of her best 1960s battles occuring in ACTION #339 (seen above), when she meets Brainiac for the first time and kicks his android ass.

Unfortunately, the 1970s and 1980s weren't that kind to Supergirl, as she wasn't able to sustain a successful series, be it in SUPERGIRL, ADVENTURE COMICS, or THE DARING NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERGIRL-- though to be sure, she never enjoyed the best art or writing in any of these venues.

The big comedown, according to fannish lore, was the failure of the 1984 SUPERGIRL film.  The film suffered from its own creative problems, but allegedly DC was more willing thereafter to view the cousin from Krypton as an expendable commodity, leading to her famous fade-out in CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS.

Though that Supergirl died, arguably she continues to influence some if not all of her later incarnations.

TOP 50 FEMALE/MALE FIGHTS IN COMICS: 49

Supergirl has now undergone three major iterations. The newest one, debuting in the mid-2000s, may not be the best, but the newest heroine does have certain transgressive elements the other two could not have pulled off, as SUPERGIRL #15 demonstrates.

Without going in to the backstory of the heroine, suffice to say that this story builds on some of the familial traumas that inform Supergirl's origins. The story itself concludes an arc in which Supergirl, having dated a superhero named Power Boy long enough to become more than a little attached, suddenly finds that he's as loony as the proverbial bedbug-- if the bedbug were born on Apokolips, as PB was.

Joe Kelly and Ian Churchill are essentially writing a story of spousal abuse through the medium of superhero characters. As such they prolong the heroine's abuse a bit to keep up the comparison with real-life situations, before they permit Supergirl to fight back. The fight-scenes aren't that long but the moment when the aggrieved heroine drops a house on Power Boy's head is a show-stopper.

I'm of the impression that later on Power Boy cleaned up his psycho act somewhat and reconciled with Supergirl. But to say the least, they don't go back to being boyfriend and girlfriend.

THE FEMININE WILL PART II

Usually, due to the strength disparities between male and female homo sapiens, the catfight is the primary method by which modern entertainment illustrates the feminine will to power. While I've shown several examples on this blog of fantasy-situations in which women triumph over men-- sometimes with erotic overtones, sometimes not so much-- the womano-a-womano battle is one that automatically seems to perk up erotic interest. Male audiences seem to be particularly attuned to the excitatory appeal of the catfight, but there seems to be (from what one can judge on the Internet) a sizeable female audience also interested in the phenomenon from an erotic standpoint. On one messageboard devoted to the subject, a purportedly-female poster even disparaged the tendency of TV shows like XENA to show the heroine defeating men and women alike. Apparently when the poster saw a female heroine kick male butt, this automatically destroyed the poster's ability to credence that a female opponent could give Xena any trouble.

This need for credibility in a female/female fight may account for the widespread appeal of the catfight, at least a little better than Jerry Seinfeld's more famous "maybe they'll kiss" explanation. After all, Jerry, if all you want is a lesbian encounter, why do you need the catfight at all? It's not like lesbo action is hard to find.


I'm led to the conclusion, then, that whereas the fight-fantasy in which a female triumphs over a bigger and stronger-looking male, which I examined here, is one more openly defiant of consensual reality, in that "the normal rules of weight and mass" do not apply. The catfight scenario might then be seen as more prone to stick to said reality, resulting in a fictional world where women can only exercise the "will to power" against other women.

HERE'S TO YOU, MRS. ZOR-EL?

Whereas the aforeseen ACTION COMICS cover shows Supergirl socking an ordinary mortal dressed as Superman, SUPERMAN #21 (Byrne era) shows the aftermath of the Man of Steel having a violent encounter with a new, post-Crisis version of Supergirl.

I'm surprised this cover hasn't been cited on a lot of those "covers that are funny when looked at sexually." I know the actual context of this one is violence, not sex (or even sexy violence), but has NO ONE remarked on this GRADUATE-esque image of Superman captured between the "V" formed by the new Supergirl's legs?

Vanishing point, indeed.

THE FEMININE WILL

If at all possible, view the following picture w/o paying attention to the cover copy from ACTION COMICS #346.





If one does not read the explanatory dialogue, the picture looks for all the world like Superman being decked by his female cousin Supergirl. To the knowledgeable fan who knows that both characters are gifted with super-powers, it's at least plausible for Superman to be stunned by a punch from his cousin, even though Superman looks like he might weigh in at twice whatever Supergirl might weigh.

However, if one knew nothing about the mythology of either character, and saw only a very muscular man being knocked silly by a slip of a girl, such a reader might have to suppose he was looking at a nonsense-scene, in which the normal rules of weight and mass simply didn't apply.

What's interesting is that while the above scenario does take place within the realm of super-powered beings, where it's entirely probable for a super-powered woman to fell a mere mortal man with a single blow, this sort of scenario is hardly confined to stories with super-powered beings in comics.

For instance, here's an example without super-powered types:





In BATGIRL #50, the then-current Batgirl-- who, once again, looks like she might weigh in at half what her opponent Batman does-- has a long and grueling battle with her bat-mentor in which the two seem evenly matched, though at the conclusion there's some suggestion that Batman may have manipulated the fight to some extent.

Granted, Batman and his non-powered allies don't live in "the real world," but they are meant to reflect the real world far more than those stories featuring super-powered beings.

And in terms of verisimilitude, BATGIRL #50 puts aside the question of what would really happen if a man and woman of roughly equal skills, but with such very disparate weights, fought one another.

Now, I'm not objecting to BATGIRL #50 or any similar story putting aside verisimilitude for the sake of a fantasy. I think that the fantasy works on its own terms in many if not all cases, and that BATMAN #50 is one where the suspension of disbelief is justified for the dramatic effect.

But when comic books are rife with examples of this type of female empowerment-- in which a spindly supermodel-type can beat down a big strong man with a single punch-- I'm dumbfounded that any fan, male or female, can complain about the lack of females having "agency," as I've quoted HER MAJESTY saying in earlier posts.

"What do women want," indeed?