The Other time She dated a Girl

Adventure Comics #384 (Supergirl Showcase vol. 4 maybe, one day)

Now it has to be said, Silver Age Supergirl is a terrible flirt. In fact it's Supergirl standard plot trope #2: Supergirl falls for someone inappropriate and it all goes horribly wrong. Consequently, it's hardly surprising that she'd occasionally fling herself at a guy who was actually a girl in disguise.

No, I lie. That's still weird. But it is all very Shakespearian. Except, despite all the cross dressing, Shakespearian couples invariable end up as male/female.

So in Adventure #384 Linda is jealous of her friends of the issue, who have been computer dating. She's sad that she can't use the service to get a proper match because she couldn't give her true details, and anyway, no Earth boy would be up to her standards.

It then occurs to her that she can use Superman's super computer as a dating aid. Superman is a bit put out at this frivolous usage of his technology, but he will get his own back, oh yes.

Superman's advanced high tech computer concludes that Supergirl would be best matched with Volar of the planet Tomar. Why it picks this person requires some speculation. I'm guessing that either 1) Superman, at his most passive aggressive fixed the results, b) the computer knows more about Supergirl than she's admitted to herself, or iii) it's a piece of junk.

Superman warns her off following the machine's advice, but in a vague way, so that when she gets back he can be all "I told you so" even though he didn't bother to give her the information he has that would have allowed her to make a much more informed decision.

Superman really is a dick sometimes.

Supergirl flies to Tomar for the weekend, and immediately finds Volar. He invites her home to meet his parents, which is maybe moving a little fast, but she's keen. Meeting Volar's father, she notices that his mother is treated as a servant. Tomar explains that women are considered inferior on his planet. It's been this way for centuries, since some galactic Republican misogynist stopped by to preach that women need to be kept in their place, and zapped everything with an X chromosome with his Suppressor Ray to make them docile and obedient. And apparently all the guys went "sure, why not?", subsequently indoctrinating all women from infancy to see themselves as inferior.

The two continue about their superheroing business, catching crooks and rescuing people, but Supergirl finds herself mocked and belittled because she's female. Whether this is the first time Supergirl has faced prejudice, I don't know, but she doesn't like it.

But then she's also put out that Volar is failing to, um, put out, complaining that after several hours in her company he hasn't yet tried to kiss her or even hold her hand.

Later that day, while spying on Volar having a quiet chat with his father, Supergirl learns that Volar will have to give up his career as a superhero the very next day, as they've run out of a mysterious serum and can't make any more. His father tells Volar to get rid of Supergirl, so she won't see what happens.

She hangs about all night, and when they see she's still there in the morning they invite her in. The shock sends Supergirl fleeing back to Earth "where I belong!"

Yes, you've guessed it. Volar is a girl in disguise. The mystery serum just made her boy mask work. She had planned to give up being a superhero and go back to being a second class citizen once she was no longer able to keep up the facade of being a guy, but Supergirl's example has inspired her to continue her career, despite how she knows she will be treated, and maybe she can set an example that will fight against the prejudice.

Supergirl comes off as spectacularly self-centred here. She's embarrassed by her own behaviour, and can't see beyond that to the plight of her colleague, so ground down by prejudice that she has to save the world dressed as a guy or she won't get any respect, or the society which has cast their entire female population into virtual slavery on the word of some visitor who, by his own admission, was out to get back at all women because he got dumped. But then, as is clearly indicated, Superman knew about the entire situation beforehand, and he was entirely okay with it.

The Other other Amazons

Action Comics #342 (Supergirl Showcase vol. 3 one can but hope)

Way back in the mists of time, I wrote about how Lois Lane was shipwrecked on a desert island and encountered a lost tribe of Amazons. It seems the oceans are simply awash with Amazon-inhabited islands, as the same thing happened to Supergirl nine years later.

Our story opens as Linda Danvers, along with a couple of other random students[1] from Stanhope college who have won a scholarship to send them to the South Pacific for a week to collect specimens for the college aquarium. The three travel by ultra-modern hovercraft.[2] In fact it's so ultra-modern that it doesn't even have a pilot.

Actual hovercraft circa 1965

Now small hovercraft aren't ideal vehicles for ocean travel, however ultra-modern they are, and while the crew are napping their vessel is caught in a storm. While her companions huddle in terror, Linda slips out and flies the craft to a random island because for some reason she couldn't navigate them to wherever they were supposed to go.[3]

Dawn breaks, and the girls seem unperturbed by their situation, lost on an uncharted island in the middle of the ocean. Perhaps they have a radio and have already called for help. I don't know. It never comes up. But before they can go hunting for marine specimens for the college fish tank they are attacked by strange women, who overturn their vehicle, which by now is looking more like a hydrofoil than a hovercraft, but still nothing like either.

Actually, I think there is a pilot. It's hard to tell, when, apart from the tall woman with the cap, all the other girls are dressed so similarly that it's difficult to tell between college girl and island Amazon. And none of them have personalities.

But back to the plot. The girls are brought before the Amazon Queen Jarta, who tells them they must stay and become Amazons, the strongest women on Earth. To facilitate this, she feeds them with what she calls the "nectar of strength", which will give them great powers in three days.[4]

Until then, they will be kept as prisoners, have to wear slave-girl outfits, and perform menial tasks.[5] So let's see if I'm getting this right; the plan is to piss them off and then give them super powers? I'm not sure this is going to end well.

The next morning they start their labours. Wait a sec. The last scene was only the previous morning, unless the Amazon village is a really long walk from the sea shore.

You can tell it's the Silver Age by how unsexy the slave-girl outfits are.

Linda is set to buffing some statues that are oddly masculine for an entirely female society, while her companions whine about how tough it is to sweep and cook. Looking up, they see what they think is Supergirl passing overhead. But in fact it's just a sea bird that Linda dressed her costume in the previous night. For some reason.

The next day Linda pretends that the Nectar of Strength is already affecting her, and generally screws around with the Queen, spoiling her ponygirl fun,[6] dropping coconuts on her head, and almost drowning her. The Queen retaliates by commanding her to finish building the royal pyramid [7] while she goes on a picnic.

Unfortunately the Queen hasn't provided enough stones to finish the huge monument, so Supergirl, in full on asshat mode, partially dismantles the village to provide stones to complete it. She's really going out of her way here, too. Rather than take down one building at a time, she's clearly taking stones from all over the village to cause as much chaos as possible.

This is too much for the Queen who begs her to just go the hell away. Linda's smug thought balloon here assumes she doesn't want the competition of someone so strong, blithely ignoring what a huge pain in the ass she's been and the damage she's caused the community.

So Linda and her two fleeting acquaintances [8] sail away. I can see there's only three of them now, so either they never had anyone to pilot their "hovercraft", or she decided to stay on the island and hang out with the super strong, all-girl society and play pony games.

It's an odd Supergirl story. She's usually the nice one, not given to the dickish behaviour and sadistic mind games often displayed by her more famous cousin and his close friends. She would eventually make it to the official home of the Amazons, but not until 1973.


Notes:
1) She studies there for six years, but never seems to hang out with the same students two issues in a row.
2) Which the artist clearly did zero research on. I know this was pre-Wikipedia, but hovercrafts were news in 1966; that's why writers kept dropping them into stories. Pictures weren't that hard to find.
3) I'm assuming red kryptonite, as that was the excuse for everything in those days. I mean she's got X-ray telescopic vision and can navigate between stars, but she can't find her way in the rain?
4) Charles Atlas eat your heart out.
5) On second thought, this sounds a lot like Golden Age Paradise Island.
6) This gets more and more like Golden Age Paradise Island. If you don't know what a ponygirl is, you probably shouldn't Google it.
7) I think you're mixing your mythologies there.
8) Who do have names, but there's no point in remembering them as they'll never be seen again.

The Legion again

(I hadn't been planning to write much more about the early Legion adventures, but these Showcase volumes are so full of daft ideas that I can't help wanting to share the fun.

But first, a correction. In my previous article I said Shrinking Violet and Triplicate Girl weren't introduced until Adventure #300. In fact they, and Bouncing Boy first appear in a Supergirl story in Action #276 that, more than any other appearance, has all the hallmarks of a stealth pilot, as it features the most complete version of the Legion prior to their own series.

In this story we are told that the Legion has revised its policy of only allowing one new member per year to allowing one boy and one girl per year (1). Applicants shown include Brainiac 5, Sun Boy, Bouncing Boy, and Shrinking Violet. Since all of them are members by Adventure #300, the Legion series must take place at least two years later, assuming that these guys were taken on their second or third attempts, over other applicants that hadn't already been rejected (2)(3).

Other highlights of this story include Saturn Girl fooling Supergirl into not recognising her by wearing a mask, even though she is in full costume and has demonstrated her powers; the whole "super-girlfriends" routine which is ripe for innuendo by someone with a smuttier mind than I, and Supergirl's demonstration of power for her membership application, which involves destroying hugely important archeological sites by burrowing down to cherrypick a couple of choice items that made the archeoligist in me wince, and my experience is limited to watching the odd episode of Time Team; and how convenient is it that a kryptonite meteor just happens to fall out of the sky right on top of Supergirl just in time for Brainiac 5 to demonstrate his cleverness and self-sacrifice by slapping his force field belt on her and tuning it to fit her personally in less time than it takes for her to get out of the way of it. Anyone would think he had arranged it on purpose...

I feel a bit sad for poor Shrinking Violet here. I mean here she is, she's got as far through the Legion application process as having a placard with her own name on it, and then at the last minute she has to go up against someone who is related to the most famous hero in history that inspired the Legion in the first place, and who they have traveled back in time to personally invite. It must be particularly galling when Supergirl bogs off as soon as she's inducted and hardly ever turns up for meetings(4). She doesn't even get to be one of Supergirl's super-girlfriends.

Notes.

1) which makes you wonder how they end up with a 3:1 male/female ratio.
2) In Adventure #301 we find that Bouncing Boy was rejected once.
3) However, since there are no new female legionnaires between this and Adventure #300 I can only guess that Sun Boy reapplied in drag.
4) Talk about nepotism...