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Silver Age Super Girls
Woodclaw wrote:
shadar wrote: I thought it was really cool the way Lady Blackhawk went from Homo Sapiens (20th century) to Homo Exaltus (5000th century) to Homo Supernus (10,000th century). I don't remember that panel per se, but this was likely the earliest origin of thinking that led to my creating the Homo Supremis (Velorians).
Still, the imagination and the art of that era left nothing on the table compared to today. In fact, I think the art was better. Despite all the muscle, they managed to maintain a strongly feminine yet exaggerated body. Some big imaginations at work back then.
I'm sorry Shadar, but you do realize that these aren't original panels from any story, but commisioned pictures from a present day artist.
shadar wrote: Which begs the question: Did comic art (at least for our genre) reach its peak in the Silver Age? Today's computer-assisted imagery seems to have taken a step backward.
Shadar
I would like to understand how computer coloring seem like a step backward?
Oh, bummer. They reminded me so much of Silver Age work that I enjoyed so long ago (too long ago to remember specifics, only the flavor). . I guess the good news is that we might see more of it over time if it's current work with an audience.
To your question, I don't have any particular issue with computer coloring, but the style of artwork that emerged after computer assisted drawing (or whatever it's called) came about doesn't appeal to me.
Shadar
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- shadar
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The cover is somewhat misleading: Super-Girl only appeared in the first chapter of the "3-part novel," and she had no secret identity.
The story may have been a "trial balloon" to see whether readers of the Superman comics would like to see a super-girl added to the cast of characters. Presumably the response was favorable, since the canonical Supergirl made her debut in Action Comics about a year later.
The engineer of that train seems to be enjoying the view!
11. SUPER-GIRL
Appeared in: "The Three Super-Wishes," Superman 123 (August 1958)
An archaeologist gives Jimmy Olsen a magic totem that supposedly grants three wishes once every hundred years. "Pure superstition, of course!" he says, but Jimmy gives it a try: "I wish that a super-girl, with super-powers equal to Superman's, would appear and become his companion!"
And sure enough ...
The next day ...
But Super-Girl, though well-meaning, turns out to be more a hindrance than a help.
You can see that this story is aimed at the pre-adolescent boys who made up the comic's target audience: Girls are pests. They're always tagging along and messing things up.
She even blurts out Superman's secret identity:
But when crooks drop a kryptonite meteor on Superman while he's repairing a railway bridge, Super-Girl swoops in to save him:
And the story ends on a poignant note:
Nice use of shadows in those panels.
As a footnote: When this story was reprinted in an 80-Page Giant some years later, Super-Girl became a redhead in an orange and green costume, presumably so that readers wouldn't confuse her with the unhyphenated Supergirl:
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- argonaut
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Which probably explains why they had to make Supergirl too young and too closely related to Kal when she finally appeared to put anything amorous back on the table.
Super-sex didn't fit well with the Comics Code of the day. Too many young imaginations were already thinking that way.
Shadar
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shadar wrote: Which probably explains why they had to make Supergirl too young and too closely related to Kal when she finally appeared to put anything amorous back on the table.
Shadar
Except for that one story where Superman hinted that he'd consider doing the Jerry Lee Lewis thing with his 15-year-old cousin if it weren't for the fact that marriage between cousins was illegal back on Krypton. (Check out my post on Luma Lynai, somewhere on this thread.)
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- Agent00Soul
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12. SUPERWOMAN (LOIS LANE)
Appeared in: "The Superwoman of Metropolis," Lois Lane 8 (April 1959)
I like the reversal in that panel: Superwoman scolding Clark because she has to spend so much of her time rescuing him!
Lois has been getting a little too aggressive in her attempts to prove that Clark is Superman, so Superman sits down with her and explains why it's important that his identity remain secret. Lois sees the error of her ways and promises to stop ...
Ha! Just kidding. This was the Silver Age, so Superman conducts an elaborate ruse to teach her a lesson.
You might be thinking that Superman is planning some cosplay hanky-panky, but this was the Silver Age, so get your mind out of the gutter. Instead ...
"Modulated frequency radio waves"? That's just FM radio, isn't it?
Lois realizes right away that she'll need to keep her identity a secret, so she puts on a wig. (Hey, it'll work for Supergirl.)
When Lois and Clark are covering the tenth anniversary of the "famous Metropolis time capsule," a sudden lightning storm threatens to set off the "ultra-scientific weapons" inside the capsule. (Huh?) So Lois slips away and goes into action as Superwoman. And she passes up an opportunity to discover Superman's secret identity.
Clark tries a couple of ploys to prove that Lois is Superwoman, but Lois outwits him each time ... until an emergency at a carnival forces her to reveal her identity to him.
But then ...
So Lois's powers wear off, and Clark has a horse laugh at her expense. Has she learned her lesson? You'd think, but no. Will she gain super-powers again? Yes -- ten issues later. Stay tuned.
Remember to leave a thank-you to vote for more of these.
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- argonaut
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I hate them a bit too as they add things to my want list like that Tales of the Unexpected. . And an original of that Night Girl story and all those Legion collections. They are gorgeous.
Almost done with ‘if it has Supergitl in the actual title’. But all those are all after 1970 (action comics, Adventure, etc don’t have Supergirl in the title of the comic). I’m down to some obscure stuff.
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- TwiceOnThursdays
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Thank you for sharing.
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- Markiehoe
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Markiehoe wrote: I really like this version of Superwoman/ Supergirl's costume the best!
Thank you for sharing.
That's exactly what I was thinking. That's the best version of the Superwoman/girl costume I've seen
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Agent00Soul wrote:
Markiehoe wrote: I really like this version of Superwoman/ Supergirl's costume the best!
Thank you for sharing.
That's exactly what I was thinking. That's the best version of the Superwoman/girl costume I've seen
The blue boots are quite unique.
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- Woodclaw
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ace191 wrote: When your car radio sees the pilot tone, it turns on the little stereo light.
Do car radios still have this indicator light?
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ace191 wrote: Remember, in 1959 frequency modulation was the new thing and even in LA there were very few FM stations. The transistor was only two years old. But all of that would change quickly as transistor radios appeared and a 19.7 kilohertz pilot tone was incorporated into FM transmitters. FM receivers locked onto it and flip-flopped in sync with the transmitters 19,700 times a second between the right and left channels and thus stereo was born. When your car radio sees the pilot tone, it turns on the little stereo light.
I'd forgotten all about that. Probably because my first car was a 1957 VW (old when I got it) which I drove most of the way through the 60's. Got my driver's license in 1964 on my 16th birthday, already had that VW, and drove that thing another hundred thousand miles.
All with an AM radio that ran on German valves (tubes). Then rebuilt an old MGB also with an AM radio. From there graduated to high-powered motorcycles. No radios. Didn't own a car with an FM radio until 1976.
Shadar
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13. DUMB BUNNY (ATHENA TREMOR)
First appeared in: "The Coming of the Costumed Incompetents," Showcase 62 (May - June 1966)
Dumb Bunny was a member of the Inferior Five, a parody super-hero team that had its own title for a couple of years in the 1960's. She was very strong and very, uh, blonde, and she wore a bunny costume -- not very PC, but this was 1966.
The I-5's parents were members of a World War II era super-hero team called the Freedom Brigade -- a foreshadowing of the "legacy" concept that DC would later use in comics such as Infinity Inc and JSA.
("Princess Power" was a Wonder Woman knock-off.)
When Awkwardman trips and falls, Dumb Bunny helps him get back up:
Merryman really "digs" Bunny's outfit!
Later, the I-5 battles a cash-strapped mad scientist and his jerry-built contraptions:
To me, the high point of their series was issue #5, in which the I-5 time-travels back to the French Revolution:
The story is a clever mash-up of A Tale of Two Cities and The Scarlet Pimpernel -- though I wonder how many readers would have caught all the references to those novels.
The Inferior Five hasn't had its own comic since the original series ended in 1968, but they've appeared from time to time in other comics -- usually in cameos, but sometimes in full-length stories, such as an issue of the Bat-Mite mini-series (2015):
Note that her nom de guerre has been changed to Tough Bunny (I would have gone with "Buff Bunny" for the alliteration) but she's still a little shy in the IQ department:
Apparently I'm not the only one who remembers Dumb Bunny fondly: There's a fair amount of Dumb Bunny fan-art at deviantart and elsewhere on line. Here's a drawing I commissioned from Michael Dooney a few years ago, which larafan kindly colored:
(Does anyone recognize where I swiped the gag from?)
And here's a comely cosplayer as DB:
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- argonaut
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That commission of yours is better than anything in the comics. A perfect portayal of someone with more muscle than brain. We should call her Ms. Oops.
Shadar
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- ace191
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Why can't we have a little fun once in awhile?
That cos player was adorable.
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- Markiehoe
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shadar wrote: I remember DB, and she had potential, but even in the 60’s I thought she was a bad dumb blonde joke. Penthouse Comics later did an x-rated character inspired by DB who was more fun.
That commission of yours is better than anything in the comics. A perfect portayal of someone with more muscle than brain. We should call her Ms. Oops.
Shadar
Or Ms. Oopsie-Doopsie?
Even in the original series, despite all the "dumb blonde" jokes, it was sometimes implied that Bunny wasn't as dumb as she appeared -- or at least that what she lacked in "book smarts" she made up for in "people smarts."
And here's a page from a 2010 issue of The Brave and the Bold:
Dang -- this gives me an idea for a Dumb Bunny story that would fit right into the current workshop ... with no time to write it.
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- lojack
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The "D" is gone from her belt, so maybe she's just "Bunny" now?
And I swiped the idea for my commission from this classic "Far Side" cartoon:
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- Agent00Soul
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With the twist being in 2018 , my idea is to gender swap all the characters- to kind of playing with the idea of superheros who aren't perfect in a world that demands it. Otherwise a mostly Female team is well...inferior.
of course with this being Case Dumb Bunny becomes there token male character.
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- castor
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a. SUPERMAID (LOLA KENT)
Appeared in: "The Son of Jimmy Olsen," Jimmy Olsen 56 (October 1961)
Lola Kent is the daughter of Superman and Lois.
Jimmy Olsen, Jr is smitten by Supermaid but regards Lola as a "drip." Eventually, however, he falls in love with her (before learning of her other identity) and they get married. (Since Jimmy, Jr's mother is Lois's sister Lucy, he and Lola are first cousins -- a point never brought up in the story.)
b. JOAN SUPERMAN
Appeared in "Lois Lane's Outlaw So," Lois Lane 46 (January 1964)
Joan is the daughter of Superman and Lana Lang -- whom Superman married on the rebound after Lois married a reformed Lex Luthor. (And yes, she goes by "Joan Superman" -- as if "Superman" was a family name.) She woos Lois's "outlaw son" Larry Luthor in the hope of getting him to give up his criminal ways -- unsuccessfully at first, but eventually he reforms and the two of them get married.
c. SUPERLASS (LISA KENT)
Appeared in: "Love Is Blind," Lois Lane 91 (April 1969)
Dig that hip teen lingo!
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- argonaut
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I'd known about most of these, but not all of them. They're (naturally) the kinds of things I collect, I'd just forgotten about them. I mostly remember the non-silver age Superman Family stories about Mr. and Mrs Superman and their daughter.
I love no sense of continuity (not the point) and no need to be tied to the other future stories as it was in flux. (Counterpoint to Kingdom Come which DC kept trying to see if it could make happen.)
IIRC they never revealed who Superman's wife was that led to the ancestor Laurel Kent in Legion. (I never liked the Manhunter retcon either.)
So Thanks.
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- TwiceOnThursdays
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Too bad he could never get it together in the mainstream comics. I mean, he's the last (male at least) from an amazing race of superbeings (under yellow suns anyway). He should be working very hard to keep Kryptonian genetics alive. These panels are just a hint of what's possible.
But no, he is either bound to Niven's rules, or he just prefers to keep it in his pants. Even then, he and Wonder Woman should have strengthened the race of heroes. Not to mention lovely Kara. Not to forget Maxima, who lusted after his genetics. Many others too.
But thanks to the comics code and all, we only get a glimpse of the possibilities in these alternative stories
What I do find interesting is that most of his offspring in the alternative pages are young females. I could guess at the reasons (most writers were male during this period), but I won't elaborate.
Other than to say that Superman has a spectacular disregard for continuing the best bloodline in the universe. Kryptonians are weird.
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