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A Gift of the Future

25 Nov 2018 16:48 - 25 Nov 2018 16:49 #62137 by shadar
A Gift of the Future was created by shadar
A Gift of the Future

I've been working for some time on a novel about Kara Zor-El's family, called Little Krypton, which is set around the end of the 21st century. I'm planning for it to be ready to publish in the next couple of months or so. 

To prepare for that, I went back to write a story about Kara's early life, set in 1961, and based the story off a scene from a 1963 comic. It was initially just for me to do a test drive with the character, but I enjoyed it enough that I may do a second story in the same timeframe. It also came out good enough that with some sprucing up I've decided to release it here. 

The early sixties was when I was a teenager and discovered Supergirl in the comics. 

My basic premise is to "what if" her life if she'd not been killed off in 1985 by DC comics. 

There is a fair bit of worldbuilding in this first story, which is part of putting my personal stamp on the character, and will hopefully be interesting to fans of the early Kara. But there is also plenty of action as well as she tries to deal with the challenges of living on Earth.  

The setting is when she's still living in the Midvale Orphanage and just before she's adopted by the Danvers. Up to this point, she's been Superman's secret weapon while she learns how to use her own powers on Earth. But given he was called away to deal with a planetary crisis in deep space, Kal has announced her to the people of Earth and she's assumed some of his responsibilities for the first time. 

I've tried to recreate the sensibilities of the early 60's, but with a very light touch, given that's not crucial to the later novel. Suffice it to say that some themes remain until today and some have changed. 

Hope you enjoy, and I am looking for feedback as to how "authentic" my take on Kara is compared to your perceptions of the very early Kara Zor-El in the comics. I can't adopt her as a character without digging deep inside her, and this is my attempt to do that. 

Shadar
Last edit: 25 Nov 2018 16:49 by shadar.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Sarge395, Raa, slim36, mastadon, kshoo, ChaozCloud, RD, Allgirlsaresuper

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26 Nov 2018 23:12 #62149 by Random321
Replied by Random321 on topic A Gift of the Future
Thank-you Shadar.  I read this last night and enjoyed it greatly.  I feel like I owe you more specific feedback but I wanted to stop and quickly give my kudos.

R5 and I were chatting about the differentiations in how the Supergirl character has been characterized over the decades and how she can and should stand as her own character.  This writing dovetails into that perfectly.  How do you take what was a great character from another era and modernize (for lack of a better word) her without loosing what we like(d) about her.  I think you're starting to answer that and I like it.

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27 Nov 2018 05:04 #62156 by shadar
Replied by shadar on topic A Gift of the Future

Random321 wrote: Thank-you Shadar.  I read this last night and enjoyed it greatly.  I feel like I owe you more specific feedback but I wanted to stop and quickly give my kudos.

R5 and I were chatting about the differentiations in how the Supergirl character has been characterized over the decades and how she can and should stand as her own character.  This writing dovetails into that perfectly.  How do you take what was a great character from another era and modernize (for lack of a better word) her without loosing what we like(d) about her.  I think you're starting to answer that and I like it.


Thanks, Random, we seem to be on similar pages here. When I went back to read some old rags from that era, I quickly decided I wasn't learning much about her inner self. Just superficial stories. Part of it is just how comics were at that time, but I suspect it was also because she was intended to be a light-weight character. That changed by the early 80's, but I still felt like they left a lot on the table. So I filled that in with my own imagination. 

Now, I'm trying to take my 50+ years of imagination on the subject, and capture her origin and personality and temperament and style and morality and expectations in some stories. Yeah... just that! <grin> As I'm finding, that's no small task. But if I don't get this right for Kara of 1961, I won't be able to envision how she's changed (or not) 130 years later. Because that's the timeframe of my novel. Kara is in the novel, but the focus is more on her kids, who not only have her genetics and all her abilities and more, but they are interesting because they were all raised by Kara Zor-El, their mother.  The comics didn't exactly focus much attention on what kind of mother she might be. Like zero attention. So I have to invent that. 

When you get some time, I'd love more thoughts on how I'm trying to flush out her early character. I suspect there are several other people on this forum who have expended significant energy conceptualizing Kara beyond comics/movie/tv portrayals. Especially dealing with the Linda and Supergirl duality. Since much of what we are, and what we become, comes from our experiences, Kara is interesting because she has two radically different streams of experiences going on all the time. Two lives, but both of them are Kara's lives.

Are both lives equally authentic with real experiences and growth?

Or is one the "real" Kara and the other just a convenient disguise?  

Or are Linda and Supergirl roles that Kara plays very consciously?

Or do her perceptions and personality actually change dramatically between identities? It's an unconscious adjustment that has been learned over time and practice. She's really living two lives. (I'm thinking of my 130 years in the future problem). Basically, she has two personalities but one set of memories. So it's not in a schizophrenic way where they don't know about each other. Both lives are simultaneously real and fully interconnected. 

Shadar

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