With Totally Not James Gunn’s Supergirl movie being a hot mess and failing miserably, I’m only happy enough people with taste still exist in the world. Everything I’ve seen of it tells me nobody understood Kara Zor-El, but that’s been true since the New 52 spelled the end of DC Comics for me, after already having a Death Of DC category due to Dan DiDio’s darkening and destruction of what was my favorite comic universe. The last gasp of the Girl Of Steel I knew was in the internet version of DC’s Super Hero Girls by Shea Fontana. While I’m convinced that Lauren Faust was told to remake My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic rather than revisit her series of Super Best Friends Forever shorts, putting Kara in the “Rainbow Dash” persona rather than “Fluttershy” was a mistake, if she had to go with anything. But I’m getting off topic before I even got on topic.
Like with Starfire and what the aforementioned third full reboot of the DC Universe did to her (a sex fiend with the memory of a goldfish), my first introduction to Supergirl was from a free giveaway comic. I’d later get to see her origins in a black and white reprint collection Superman: From The 30s To The 70s that I used to get from the library constantly along with a counterpart book with Batman. However, while Starfire was trying to get kids off of drugs, Supergirl was a pusher…of computers. The second in a series of Superman comics by Radio Shack, in which DC heroes joined with him and Radio Shack’s original characters Alec & Shanna–the (then) TRS-80 Computer Whiz Kids–Supergirl was listed as a guest-star but is more of the lead heroine. They could have just put her name on the cover instead, like a pro-seat belt comic would years later. So how could an ad comic given away at a now extinct electronics store to push their new computers make me instantly like Superman if he were a girl? No, not puberty. You put the creators who make good superhero comics on the title.
“Couldn’t we just use these kid-sized battlesuits?” “NO, GET ON YOUR 1980S COMPUTER WITH PRE-INTERNET! TRS-80 is our god now!”
Superman” Victory By Computer
DC Comics/Radio Shack (1981)
WRITER: Cary Bates
ARTISTS: Curt Swan & Vince Colletta
This fits into “Scanning My Collection” on a technicality. I had a copy but it was lost years ago. I still have my copy of the first one and the early TRS-80/Tandy Computer Whiz Kids by Archie comics before they started messing with the continuity. As it was the city got renamed maybe twice. I understand not being able to use Metropolis, but it went from Metro City to Coast City to I forget what after. This is also after Alec and Shanna managed to help Superman stop Major Disaster from causing his namesake. We’re getting the broken in Alec, who isn’t such a wise guy. Lucky Kara.
I have reviewed the first comic, and this one“Yesterday’s” Comic> Superman/TRS-80 Computer Whiz Kids #2, for “Yesterday’s” Comic, as well as the final issue that involved Wonder Woman that I’ve never owned. I only put this one together for the buffer after Supergirl’s missteps were being overshadowed by the mixed reaction to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, but it’s still worth going over why I liked Supergirl so much, because of everything DC Comics and Studios abandoned. I also really liked the first Supergirl movie from the Salkinds that gave us Helen Slater’s better portrayal. I know that’s a minor opinion as well, but that’s hardly a first for me, is it?
The comic opens with Superman flying off for most of the comic, dropping Supergirl right in the thick of Miss Wilson’s class. It was established in the first comic that Miss Wilson knew Clark Kent growing up in Smallville, and this is when Clark was listed as one of Superman’s best friends and the only guy who knew how to call him…which oddly never got him in any trouble. “There’s the guy that has Superman’s phone number. Let’s get it out of him and trace it back to him. Kent’s a wimp. “Nah, let’s hassle the kid that summons him with a signal watch, or his girlfriend. It’s pasta night at the prison.”
Two no-name kids find it cool that “the mightest girl on Earth” is teaching one of their classes. The boy says they’re all hers. Did hit puberty? I still had this comic when I did. No, that’s not what happened to it, you sicko! For some reason this is just the splash and credits page. The story actually starts before this. Miss Wilson is called to the office in the days before Alec and Shanna would be part of some new activity that got them out of school and playing with computers to save the city. They needed to meet a superhero first. So she has the kids just look out the window while our Computer Whiz Kids stay in their seats with some other kids. The rebels. They’re all surprised by whooshing sounds coming from two directions, and this being Metropolis that’s either super cool or they’re about to become a statistic. In Gotham you never see it coming, so be glad you’re in Metropolis.
It’s the two good Kryptonians not living in a bottle, of course. This surprises one student who was conveniently absent so she can be told about the first issue, which I was also absent for so I appreciated it. Radio Shack just had this one at the time. I had to get the first visit in back issue, meaning I paid for my copy, and would have to pay to get this back physically in my collection. That makes me sad. Makes me appreciate Free Comic Book Day more.
Shanna, after talking about the cool free TRS-80s Superman brought the first time, and the supervillain he brought the second time, that this time he didn’t bring them anything. Eventually these kids would get brought every new computer each issue until Tandy expanded to camcorders and stuff, but kind of strange she comes off as disappointed to not get freebees from a visit by the city’s two biggest superheroes. I thought Alec was the brat! Well don’t worry, Shanna, because they brought handheld TRS-80 Pocket Computers ™ to show off, small enough to carry in the pockets of their capes (and still have room for their civilian clothes). Nowadays practically all of us carry devices that make this keyboard with a one line text screen to shame but back then it was supercool even if you couldn’t go online with them. This is one of the flaws of the comic. It comes off far more like an advertisement than the first comic, which went over the history of computers, and these things are not the computers they’ll be using to save the day this time.
“Wait, you operate in Chicago now, right? I just need to find a blond teacher.” “Right, totally a blond.”
Suddenly, Superman sees something with his supervision and has to cut out. It must not be too serious, or Supergirl wouldn’t be here to continue the product pushing important computer lesson. Miss Wilson returns at that moment, and whispers her thanks to Supergirl, who whispers back that in her civilian identity she’s a teacher herself as well as a student advisor. I know she doesn’t operate in Metropolis, or at least I do nowadays having read other Supergirl comics, but should she be telling her that she even HAS a secret identity? Part of how Superman’s secret works is that nobody knows he has one, nevermind a mild mannered reporter. That might be for the reader’s benefit, since DC probably saw this as free promotion for their comics as well as Radio Shack selling their tech, but sounds more like a job for the narrator. Supergirl says “that’s okay, I like teaching kids*” with the narration going “*(in her civilian identity of Linda Danvers, Supergirl is a teacher and student advisor)”. You do you, Kara.
At the state prison, a TV reporter gives us the exposition dump. Lex Luthor, this being the time when he was still a criminal out to prove his genius by successfully pulling off a major crime and embarrassing Superman (though still less concerned about how much money he spent on it.), has announced that he’ll get Superman himself to break him out within 12 hours, so Superman goes to see what the deal is. The vault seems secure but Luthor still boasts that Superman will free him or his name isn’t Lex Luthor, because he’s nice enough to set up a joke for later. I appreciate the help.
Supergirl asks for volunteers to show what they know about the TRS-80, and you can guess the duo that’s up first. More shilling goes on, but it’s also foreshadowing for later. While not quite the internet we know, love, and fear today, an early version still existed. Radio Shack had access to Videotex. You put the phone on a special receiver rather than plug the computer into the phone line. It still works like dial-up, in that nobody can use the phone while you’re on the computer. (The school’s number is 555-1213, if you care.) They show off playing chess and having access to various news services. That comes in handy later. Except it’s Supergirl who will be playing the “chess”.
Of course we need a race between the superhero and the computer like last time. Since Lex is a current subject she challenges the Whiz Kids (not to be confused by the TV show of the same name on CBS around this time) to find the information before she can rummage through the Daily Planet‘s news files at superspeed. Of course the Planet has their own whatever they called websites back then. Since they don’t have travel time and aren’t doing it by hand, they win. Don’t want to cause a mess in the file room. She even says that she might need a computer’s help someday. More foreshadowing, but given that she probably accesses the I’m assuming more powerful computer at the Fortress Of Solitude, she probably already does.
Now there’s the science I expect in a DC comic. The nonsense-driven.
While Supergirl checks out something for Superman, the kids get a field trip to the Metropolis Museum Of Science And Industry. She’ll join them later…or that’s the plan, while a tour guide does the obligatory history of computers section of the comic, complete with a giant mock-up of a giant TRS-80. Nice to see the people who used to make oversized props in Gotham were still finding work in the 1980s. It’s out of date and we all know it by now, so let’s follow Kara. She sees a strange solar powered house broadcasting microwaves that might interfere with air travel and goes to sort it out, only for the solar mirrors to change from yellow to red. Not sure that’s how solar mirrors work, but the point is to make Kara fall into the house without her powers. Supergirl without her powers. Sound familiar, DC Studios? Watch how a real Supergirl deals with that problem, not by heading head first into it so she can get hammered but by trying to get out of it.
After going back to the tour a bit, we see Ms. Wilson chatting with Superman about how Supergirl hadn’t returned. Supergirl wakes up in a house with her memory jumbled. (Sound familiar, modern Kara?) The doors have some odd markings, a pair of Ps and dice. It reminds her of something but thanks to the red sun radiation she can’t remember a lot about the house before it captured her. Her superstrength is gone and her other powers are fading, plus there’s a guard at the door. Without her powers she isn’t leaving that way. Using a paper clip to unlock a second door she finds a room with a TRS-80 computer. Clearly somebody overlooked something or the place wouldn’t even be furnished. Lex is usually smarter than that but he does employ a lot of idiots as helpers.
A random slip of the thought gets Kara to realize this is a place called the Purple Palace, minus all the purple. She can’t remember more beyond that. The goons also left behind a TRS-80 and a working telephone. That’s sloppy, but convenient. She figures if she tried to call the cops they’d think her a crank. I’m not so convinced but the guard might overhear her or if they bugged the place, but nobody thought of that. Clearly nobody thought about security cameras, either. Remember, this is the computer that helped take down Major Disaster. Alec and Shanna even showed it off on television. The computer is only there to give her the idea to call Ms. Wilson’s room at the school. After some more promoting the Videotex, our usual pair get to work. With Alec on the phone, Ms. Wilson helps Shanna through the new features so they can get to the Daily Planet info on the Purple Palace, a front for the mob that Superman helped shut down. Remember when he fought normal criminals that weren’t trying to blow up the city and murder millions as a rule, rather than the exception?
Superman shows up at the school to update the kids, since they’re friends with Supergirl now, too. The House Of El makes friends easy. You just have to not be evil. They update Superman, who is prepared for a trap and happens to come upon the opposite side of the house. Thanks to the news story, Supergirl found a secret tunnel…seriously, guys, did you or Lex even bother doing your homework on this? Two middle schoolers found all this in minutes, and you have the all-mighty TRS-80 at your disposal? It’s the other flaw in this story. They went full Dr. Evil. “I’m just going to zap Supergirl with red solar radiation, keep her locked up in the house, assume everything went to plan, and come back in the morning to check on her. What?” At least they’re smart enough not to waste their bullets. Hope they went back for the guard.
The heroes report back to the kids, noting that they didn’t tell Luthor how Supergirl escaped with their help. I imagine sixth graders foiling his plan would drive this Lex even nuttier than the evil businessman most people know today. Alec says that between the four of them and the TRS-80s they make a good team. Superman says that for once Alec said something they can all agree in, a statement that only makes sense if you remember the “Smart Alec” from the first comic. I didn’t, so I didn’t know why Superman was dumping on Alec.
“Hey, I’ve been good the whole comic.” “Because we hardly got to talk, Alec.”
I said in my “Yesterday’s” Comic review that this is the weaker of the DC period TRS-80 Computer Whiz Kids comics, and it is. Between shilling a pocket computer that plays no part, pushing the Videotex service, and the usual history of computers that followed Alec and Shanna to the Archie comics and their reuse of scenes, half the page time is gone. Alec and Shanna really don’t get any character moments this time as the focus is on Supergirl and to lesser extent Superman. It’s a Supergirl story where Superman cameos and the Whiz Kids are just there for the plot to happen.
On the other hand we see how resourceful Kara is without her powers. More importantly to this discussion we see how cool, good natured, and kid loving she is. She knows how to get help, she doesn’t panic without her powers like too many writers love to do in their hatred of superpowered heroes (JLA: Act Of God comes to mind), and she’s not looking to get drunk. It’s a far better introduction to the Maid Of Might than what people are getting today, even if the story requires the crooks to fail at their job. I still like the story for what it is, but lucky for me better examples of Supergirl stories pre-Crisis would come along, so when I heard she died and was just getting replaced by a protoplasm shapeshifter I was disappointed. Matrix turned out to be a good character, but she’s no Kara Zor-El. Sadly, neither is the Kara we get in the 2020s.
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