Steve Does Comics

It's been a mammoth journey but at last I've done it. I've reached the end of my reviews of Supergirl's ten issue 1970s run of her own title.

As I'm sure you've guessed, Supergirl issue #10 features not one but two tales of the maid of might. I reviewed the first story last week - and here's where I fling myself headlong into the second.

What happens is this.

A mad scientist decides to make a clone of Supergirl, so he can get it to commit crimes on his behalf.

Clearly he's not as clever as he thinks he is because, when it emerges from his machine, the clone has somehow been created as a somewhat inane male. Think of him as Justin Bieber but not as evil.

Not that our mad scientist cares about that. All he cares about is sending the super clone out to rob a bank.

Needless to say, it's not long before Supergirl is on the trail.

But, when she confronts him at his lab, the scientist orders the clone to kill her.

Supergirl tells it not to.

Torn between wanting to obey its creator and not wanting to kill Supergirl, the clone comes up with a happy compromise and instead blows his own brains out with a gun.

Well, there's a turn-up for the books. The idea of someone creating a copy of Supergirl to commit crimes with is hardly groundbreaking for the strip but the idea of the tale finishing with a character blowing his own brains out with a gun is totally at odds with the light and frothy feel we've come to associate with the title in its ten issue run. Because of this, I approve wholeheartedly.

Sadly that was it for the title. Supergirl's strip was then incorporated into the newly launched Superman Family and Supergirl had to settle for sharing the title with the likes of Jimmy Olsen and Krypto the Superdog.

Despite the general tameness of these ten issues, I do have a soft spot for them. There's a good natured naivete about them that lends them a certain charm and they look nice and Supergirl looks nice.

Therefore, whatever its faults, I declare the 1970s solo Supergirl comic to be a good thing.

Having said that, I'm glad I don't have to read any more of them.

This is all very exciting - because we've reached the last issue of Supergirl's 1970s comic.

But it turns out we still have two posts left because there's not one but two Supergirl tales in this issue.

And this post deals with the first of them.

Linda Danvers is watching America's new teenaged president - Prez - on TV when her X-ray vision spots that a man in the crowd has a gun hidden up his sleeve.

Quick as a flash, she's over there and gives the man the good slapping he deserves.

But it's not long before there's another murder attempt on America's main man.

No sooner has she foiled that one than the villains of the piece have fired a Voodoo powered Radar beam at her brain, designed to make her want to kill him.

For a man whose sole interest in life seems to be mending clocks, it has to be said that Prez does have a remarkable knack for making enemies.

Needless to say, Supergirl's far too sharp for the bad guys, and fools them with a dummy president before melting their mind-beam gun with her heat vision.

It has to be said it's a slight tale, presumably designed to point readers towards Prez's mag while getting whatever Prez fans there might be out there to pick up Supergirl's comic.

Clearly, as Prez only lasted for four issues and Supergirl's comic only lasted for ten, it wasn't what you'd call a triumphant tactic and it has to be said that Prez doesn't get to do a lot in this tale, apart from being nice to everyone he meets.

It also has to be said that the villains' scheme is foiled with ridiculous ease.

And how Supergirl can detect a gun up someone's sleeve by using her X-ray vision on a TV image is anyone's guess. Is there nothing the woman can't do?

Hooray! We've reached issue #9 in my issue-by-issue investigation of Supergirl's short-lived 1970s title.

The bad news is it turns out I've already reviewed it - over two years ago - which means I'm reposting that review below, in the interests of continuity.

The good news is that, after this, there's only one issue of the mag left to go - and that it features the titanic tale of what happened when the Maid of Might met Prez.

That, of course, will have to wait until next week.

In the meantime, here's that very post I did way back in June 2012......


It's the return of the feature the internet can't get enough of, as Supergirl Sunday makes a one-off return to Steve Does Comics.

How readers thrilled to that feature back in the days when it was a regularly occurrence. And how they flooded me with emails demanding I put a stop to it I give them more.

Admittedly, today's Tuesday, so technically that makes it Tupergirl Tuesday but who cares?

Supergirl clearly doesn't. She's too busy mithering about men.

As always in a Supergirl tale, they're proving to be more trouble than they're worth. If they're not cheating on her, they're refusing to admit they need rescuing by her, or they're trying to give her a snog as a reward for her heroics.

Faced with such wanton boorishness, Supergirl does what any woman would.

She decides to become an Amazon, spending the rest of her life, cut off from the outside world, on Paradise Island.

With her mighty powers, the Amazons readily accept her as one of their own and even give her a tiara and some silly boots, to prove it.

There's only one problem.

Injured in an attack by shark men, Hippolyta's daughter Nubia - who she rather unflatteringly insists on referring to as, “My other daughter,” - needs urgent treatment with a flower or she'll die.

But the flower can only be found on one, distant island.

No time to waste, Supergirl flies there but is promptly attacked by a trio of witch-doctors who seem to make up three-quarters of the island's population and, as seems to happen in every Supergirl story from this era, she promptly loses her powers just as they're about to kill her.

Happily, she's rescued by the other one-quarter of the island's population, a man called Fong who's in the habit of running around in a gorilla costume to frighten off the witch-doctors.

Exactly where he got a gorilla costume from, on a totally isolated island, is never explained.

How come he speaks English is never explained

How he knows who Supergirl is is never explained.

Whatever. The loss of her powers means Supergirl's going to be trapped on the island for the rest of her life.

Not only that but Fong won't help her escape because, having rescued her from death, he believes it his duty to protect her from now on.

In his eyes, “protecting her,” mostly seems to involve violently twisting her arm to near breaking point while laughing triumphantly. Bizarrely, Supergirl exposits that he means well, making you wonder just what her idea of, “Not meaning well,” would be.

Happily, such things are no obstacle to the not-so-Supergirl and she quickly tricks the witch-doctors and gets her powers back.

But her short-lived imprisonment on the island's made her realise she doesn't want to be cut off from the outside world after all.

And so, having got the vital flower to Nubia, Supergirl renounces her tiara and silly boots and heads off back to San Francisco in search of a new boyfriend. Presumably one with less of a propensity for trying to tear her arms off.

For some reason this has always been my favourite of the short-lived early 1970s' Supergirl series. I don't have a clue why, as it's fairly lame and displays a casual acceptance of male-on-female violence that seemed dubious even at the time. It's also weird and frankly creepy to see Supergirl referring to the Amazon's Queen Hippolyta as, “Mother.”

It also has to be said it has a baffling lapse in continuity as we see Supergirl lift a man above her head and shake him about after she's supposed to have lost her powers.

Perhaps my liking for it's simply down to its basic premise of Supergirl becoming an Amazon. Then again, it may be down to the oddly Gene Colan-esque shark men. It may be down to the presence of a giant white gorilla. Or it may just be the way the witch-doctors seem to spend their days hiding inside carved-out Easter Island style stone heads in case anyone tries to steal their flowers.

But I suspect that, as always, with this title, the main appeal's down to the visuals, with the pencil of Art Saaf giving us a thing that might not make much sense but at least never fails to look charming.

Here it is, the concluding instalment of my look at a comic that's so epic, so awesome, so multi-layered in its themes and plot twists that it's taken two posts to review it.

Here's what happens.

Having been cast in a play, our heroine is busy leching after her co-star Mitch when she spots one of her college professors being mugged.

No sooner has she dealt with the muggers than she spots something else.

That her head's sprouted a load of snakes and she's turning people to stone.

Needless to say, the Justice League of America can't tolerate such a thing and turn up to give her a good kick in the asp.

Also needless to say, Supergirl polishes the lot of them off in about two seconds and then sets about trying to find a cure for her condition.

It turns out that the ghost of Medusa is to blame and Medusa has a brilliant master plan, which is to get the ghost of Perseus to possess poor old Mitch and get him to chop Supergirl's head off with his magic sword. Then Medusa's ghost will be free to take over Supergirl's dead body and conquer the world with it.

Now Supergirl has to sort out Mitch and his magic sword and find Medusa's tomb to put a stop to all this.

It has to be said that the main attraction of this issue is that you get to see Supergirl with snakes on her head and no cape on. Oddly enough, I have to say she looks a lot better like that and I can't help feeling they should have left her looking like that forever.

Other than that, I'm not sure it's a story that makes any sense at all. Medusa's plan would involve her taking over a headless corpse which, I would have thought, would pose certain practical difficulties when it comes to using it to take over the world.

Also, Mitch sees Supergirl's snakes on at least two occasions and suffers no harm.

Not only that but Supergirl and Mitch see the original Medusa's snakes at the climax and it has no effect on them at all.

With its illogical villainous scheme, petrification anomalies and the JLA and Supergirl showing no sense at all in their brief showdown, it does come across like a story that was written in a bit of a rush, without any great thought.

Still, Supergirl looks nicer in it than she's ever done before and that has to be something.

This is it. After weeks of the Maid of Might being held back by having to share a comic with the Siren of Sorcery, the two finally get to meet.

And, needless to say, Zatanna's still cramping her style.

What's happened is this. Horny as ever, Supergirl's desperate to get down to some serious canoodling with a man she's met in a driving incident.


That man is Tony Martyn, a handsome and mustachioed member of the Peace Corps.

There's only one problem. Right now, he's in danger of becoming a member of the Peace Corpse because he's gone missing in the Himalayas.

In fact, there's another problem too.

And that's that Tony's also met Zatanna - and she's as keen to tickle Tony's tonsils as  Supergirl is.


So, independently of each other, the two heroines set off to the Himalayas and soon find themselves at odds over just which of them should be rescuing the object of their desire.

It all comes to a head when they find themselves up against a giant snowman created by the mountain-living demon Orgox who's holding Tony captive.

Fortunately, after accidentally zapping each other instead of the snowman, it dawns on them to act like adults and team up against the the thing.


That dealt with, now all that's left for them to do is rescue Tony from Orgox and that's that.

Except it isn't because it turns out Tony doesn't have the hots for either of them and is an engaged man who can't wait to get home to his fiancée, leaving Zatanna and Supergirl to return home in a huff.

There's not really a lot to say about this tale apart from... ...erm, well nothing really. It starts, it finishes and it has some stuff happen in between. Supergirl and Zatanna both come across as needy, clingy, petty, stupid and immature - and also somewhat negligent, as it seems that Tony's been missing for ages before either of them motivate themselves to actually try and save him, despite their declarations of love for him.

Personally, I'd have preferred it if Tony had turned out to be gay and not just engaged, just to really thwart their amorous designs but it's the 1970s, so I suppose the chances of that happening were always going to be low.

Flatmate count in this issue: Zero.

This is it.

It's the 1970s.

And that can only mean one thing.

It's time for Supergirl to get relevant.

Having taken a part-time job somewhere or other in order to get credit points for her university course in whatever it is she's actually studying, Supergirl soon learns that two local street gangs are on the brink of war with each other.

One of the street gangs, led by Rick, is nice and is happily constructing buildings to improve the local neighbourhood.

The other gang, which used to be led by Rick before he reformed, is led by Steve and wants to smash him and his new gang's members' heads in for, "Selling out to The Man."

Of course, Supergirl can't allow this sort of thing to go on. She does, after all, represent The Man. So, after saving Steve's gang from accidentally gassing themselves, she convinces them to have a meeting with Rick's gang and make peace.


The only problem is there's a saboteur out to make sure both gangs get stuck into each other.

Needless to say, Supergirl soon sorts it all out by exposing the identity of the saboteur, and Rick's gang and Steve's agree to bury the hatchet and team up to construct yet more buildings between them.


If I thought previous stories in this series were slight, they were nothing compared to this one. Supergirl's now using her mighty planet-busting powers to stop a fight breaking out.

Oddly enough, it's a development I quite like. Even though she's ridiculously over-powered for such a role, Supergirl's basic niceness seems like a good fit for such minor do-goodery and it's all good, wholesome stuff that will no doubt convince many a big city American street gang to mend its ways and reform.

Or possibly not.

Satan. As we all know, he can be a bit of a cheeky one, getting up to no end of mischief and trouble.

But what about his brother?

We're about to find out - as Supergirl comes up against that self-same diabolical sibling.

As it turns out, that's not who she's up against at all. She's up against the ruler of some other dimension, who just sort of very vaguely looks a bit like the devil might if he were bright green and had fairly pitiful pair of horns on his forehead.

Here's what happens.

After receiving a strange book written in a strange language, our heroine starts to lose her powers.

This is bad news, as she's meant to be taking a bunch of kids to a funfair and, needless to say, they keep pestering her to do super things of which she's not currently capable.

Supergirl being Supergirl, it's not long before the trip to the funfair leads her to another dimension where she meets its feared ruler Dax who says he's the one responsible for the loss of her powers. He says he'll give them back to her - and release one of the kids who he's holding hostage - if she promises to help him defeat some rebels who are trying to overthrow his tyrannical reign and bring freedom to their planet.

Supergirl agrees and, interrupting their plan to blow up a nuclear reactor, brings the rebels to him.

Just as it seems she's done the dirty on them, she then pulls a fast one, thanks to a wristwatch she's rigged to fire knock-out gas at Dax, thus ending his reign of terror and handing control of the planet to the rebels.

And, with that, Supergirl can return to our own world, hostage and superpowers intact and complete her visit to the funfair.

It has to be said there are certain things leap out at you with this tale.

One is that, when Supergirl meets up with the rebels, they're about to blow up a nuclear reactor and release its deadly radiation upon the general public.

Call me judgemental if you want but, to me, that makes them sound like raving lunatics who'd be labelled terrorists in any sane society. And is Supergirl really sure these are a safe bunch of people to leave in charge of a planet?

The other thing is, why does she rig a wristwatch to fire gas at Dax and knock him out? She has her superpowers back by this stage and hasn't made any kind of pledge not to use them against him. Fully supered up, all she has to do is belt him one.

All I can conclude is that Supergirl, like Satan's oldest foe, really does work in mysterious ways.

Speaking of working in mysterious ways.

Where's Wanda Five?

Yes, five issues in and there's still no sign of Supergirl's issue #1 flatmate around whom it seemed an entire story arc was going to be built. Fans of UK soap opera Coronation Street will remember the sad case of Tracy Barlow, a character who spent fifteen years unseen, in her room, listening to music cassettes, before reappearing, sporting a brand new face and transformed into a psychotic murderer.

We can only hope the same fate doesn't await Wanda Five.

As we all know, no good ever came of having a brain.

I happen to know this because I happen to know that all the worst ideas in human history were conceived by people with a brain.

If only we all had the intellectual development of a lettuce; how peaceful the world would be.

Well, that was all very philosophical. I feel like Stan Lee, rappin' with his readers in Stan's Soapbox.

As regards the brain situation, clearly this is a rap that needs laying down on Supergirl, as she literally - and unwisely - gives a would-be master criminal a piece of her mind.

What happens is this. As desperate for a bunk-up as ever, Linda Danvers instantly falls in love with David, a student she meets at a pool party.

It's true! Stay clear of his sappy love, Linda!

With the inevitability of night following day, it turns out he's a criminal genius who only wants to hang around with Linda so he can use her as an alibi. You have to hand it to Supergirl, her homing beacon for inappropriate romance never seems to get weaker.

Sadly, David isn't as bright as he thinks he is because, trying to get brownie points with the authorities, he gives himself massive brain damage whilst saving one of Linda's flatmates from death in a swimming pool.

Well, there's no way Supergirl's going to let her latest dreamboat be a vegetable for the rest of his life. So, with the aid of a Kandorian scientist, she transfers some of her brain cells into David's head.

Don't try this at home, kids.

There's only one problem.

The new brain cells promptly give him super powers, enabling him to embark on an even better life of crime than before.

Except it doesn't - because no sooner has he begun his super crime spree than he loses his powers and Supergirl hands him in to the cops.

Will Linda Danvers ever develop the sense to find a decent boyfriend?

Obviously not.

After all, where would DC's Silver and Bronze Age writers have been without every boyfriend she ever had turning out to be a robot/woman/horse/statue/murderer/ghost/whatever?

On the face of it, this issue should be a reason to celebrate as, after three issues of Supergirl coming up against no kind of threat to her at all, she finally comes up against someone who can be a match for her, thus theoretically upping the dramatic stakes.

Sadly, the dramatic stakes remain well and truly un-upped, as no sooner has she encountered David in his super form than he promptly loses his powers. Again, I suspect this is down to the comic having to accommodate a Zatanna back-up strip and therefore the page count having to be kept down.

Yet again, there's no mention whatsoever of mysterious flatmate Wanda Five. I really would love to know just what happened with that storyline. I'm starting to wonder if Supergirl's murdered her and the truth is being kept from us.

Only the other day, I suggested that part of the reason why Supergirl's adventures in her own 1970s comic were neither involved nor involving was because she only had part of the comic to herself and it inherently limited how complex the tales could get.

That's because, even though it was her comic, she was having to share it with that enchanting enchantress of enchantment Zatanna - not to be confused with Satanna.

Perhaps that, therefore, is my cue to take a look at what the Mistress of Magic was up to in issue #2 while Supergirl was trying to inflate Kandor.

It seems that the city Zatanna is in is being overrun by rats.

Quick as a flash, she comes up with the solution.

She'll go back in time and bring the Pied Piper to the present, so he can deal with the rats, leaving her free to do whatever it is she does when other people are doing the donkey work for her.

Needless to say, no sooner has she arrived back in Hamelin than she's attacked by ergot-crazed locals who hack her to pieces and...

...Oh.

No.

That doesn't happen. Instead, she finds the Pied Piper all set to dispatch the rats and steal the town's children. Our heroine makes a quick attempt to prevent their abduction, fails and promptly loses all interest in them. All she cares about is chin-wagging amiably with their abductor.

Totally unfazed by her claims to be from the future, he agrees to go back with her.

Except it doesn't work. When she gets back to the present, there's no sign of him.

But then who shows up? Why, it's the local rat-catcher. And blow me down with a feather if he isn't the spitting image of the Pied Piper. It seems fate works in mysterious ways.

I'd like to say it's a masterpiece but the truth is it's pretty lame. We have to put up with Zatanna delivering half her lines backwards, which means you have to make far too much effort to find out what she's saying and, when you do, it turns out she's not said anything interesting.

There's also the issue of the stolen children. Obviously, Zatanna has to accept she can't rewrite history but she could try showing some sort of concern over their fate and at least ask the Piper just what he's done with them. Instead, she seems to forget all about them the moment she realises she can't save them.

There're no credits given for the tale but it's pretty clear it's drawn by Don Heck on one of his midling days, though I suspect I see the hand of Dick Giordano in the inking.

So, there you go. Enchanted it may have been, but magic it wasn't.

Or perhaps I should say, "T'nsaw ti cigam."

I am now going to make ten million people read this post.

Tsop siht ta kool, elpoep noillim net.

There aren't many people in this world who can come up with plans even more unlikely than the Maid of Might's but Supergirl issue #3 provides us with just such an individual.

After being dumped by her latest boyfriend, our heroine discovers that horticulturalist Albert Brooks, the father of a fellow student of hers, has been arrested for murdering various people, including local crime boss, "Lucky Coin," Lacey.

With all the evidence pointing toward him, it looks like curtains for Brooks.

But it's not long before the clue-happy Kandorian discovers he's been framed by Lacey who's alive and well and, thanks to a crooked plastic surgeon, now looks and sounds exactly like Brooks.

His plan is this;

He's framed Brooks for his murder, so that Supergirl will get involved and clear Brooks. Then, when Brooks is released, Lacey can kidnap him, kill him and take his place, on the grounds that no one would suspect him of having killed and replaced the man who's just been cleared of murdering him.

This plan, of course, depends on his fake body being found, even though it's buried in a private garden, Supergirl getting involved, Supergirl believing Brooks to be innocent for no good reason, Supergirl clearing Brooks and then losing all interest in the case and making no attempt at all to solve it from that point on.

Call me a sceptic but, given all the variables involved, I can see no way this plan could possibly succeed. Nor can I see why Lacey didn't just kill Brooks and take his place without all the other stuff involved, thus avoiding the involvement of Supergirl who's clearly going to be the biggest threat to his plan's prospects of success.

As with the other tales I've so far reviewed in this series, it's all a bit tame, as, for the second time in three issues, Kara goes all Murder She Wrote on us and faces no danger to herself whatsoever.

Admittedly, there is a scene where she's eaten by a giant Venus flytrap - whose presence is never explained - but there's never any threat that it's going to be able to do her any actual harm.

Probably the real mystery that sticks in the mind in this issue is the whereabouts of Wanda Five.

I'm sure you recall that, in issue #1, she was introduced to us as Linda Danvers' enigmatic new flatmate - the one with strange alien artefacts in her room. At the end of that tale, we were left in no doubt that the solving of that riddle was going to be a major plank of the series and probably its driving force. In this tale, however, Linda now has two totally different flatmates who we've never seen before and there's not a mention of Wanda Five. Where on Earth - or off it - has she got to and how has Supergirl so totally forgotten about her?

Of course, anyone with any sense would at this point be asking why I'm bothering to review Supergirl stories when they're totally tame, lack any kind of tension and make no sense.

The answer's simple. Like Supergirl herself, these tales have a strange charm that defies all attempts at critical analysis. They're just oddly likeable. Like candy floss.

Crikey! Has it really been a week since I reviewed issue #1 of the maid of might's very own 1970s comic?

That can only mean one thing.

I have to review issue #2!

And I will!

Discovering that her university professor Allan is on the verge of death just as he's about to make a breakthrough in the treatment of sickle cell anaemia, Supergirl takes him into the bottled city of Kandor, in the hope that, there, she can find a cure for whatever it is that's afflicting him.

Inevitably, not all goes to plan and it's not long before the pair find themselves kidnapped by a giant bird.

Still, our heroine is never one to give up and it's not much longer than that before she's located the coffin of a Kandorian scientist who conveniently has the cure for all known ailments, clutched in his dead hands.

Sadly, it's only after she's administered Allan with the cure for everything that Supergirl realises it tends to make its recipient grow at an alarming rate.

Thus it is that he's now growing uncontrollably, is too big to get out of the bottle and is in imminent danger of crushing the entire city to death.

That's when Supergirl comes up with a solution that has to be one of the stupidest that even she's ever contrived, as, having exited it, she super-heats the bottle to make it malleable and then inflates it with her super-breath, so she can pull Alan out of it before it's too late.

Now, I don't like to poke holes in things but how on Earth do the people of Kandor possibly survive this mega-exposure to furnace-like heat and the massive pressure of her super-breath?

That's, of course, assuming that they do survive.

In fact, we never see them again from that point on in the story. So perhaps they don't survive. Perhaps Supergirl's just killed the lot of them and we're being spared the distressing truth by writer Cary Bates and penciller Art Saaf.

The truth is that, Supergirl's homicidal methodology aside, it's a slight tale. You can't help feeling the main strip's suffering from the fact it's having to share the comic with a Zatanna back-up tale, meaning space constraints are forcing the main story to be on the flimsy side.

Oh well, we do at least get to see Supergirl fighting giant octopuses - and what more could a man or woman want in life?

If there's one thing this blog knows how to achieve, it's unpopularity. Over the years, it's launched numerous features that have died a death before they've even made two posts.

But there's only been one that's so unpopular that I've received emails of complaint about it.

And that's Supergirl Sunday.

Needless to say, that's not going to prevent its return, as I finally get round to taking an organised look at the title that set out to launch the Kandorian clobberer into solo superstardom in 1972.

In issue #1, we find our heroine making a major life transition as, having quit her job as a reporter, she goes to university.

There's a slightly odd scene early on where she rushes to move house, so she can start uni, even though she only lives ten miles away from the university and has super speed and therefore has no need to move house at all in order to attend the place.

But, of course, this is all a set-up, as it gives writer Cary Bates a chance to get Supergirl into a brand new environment where she can discover hints of strangeness about her new flatmate and fellow student Wanda Five who has ornaments in her room that seem to come from outer space.

But, before Supergirl can tackle that mystery, there's a bigger one to be dispatched.

There's been a murder on campus.

And then there's another.

It seems someone's bumping off drama students for no noticeable reason.

Fortunately, Wanda Five just happens to be psychic and thus keeps telling Supergirl when and where the murders are going to be committed.

And so, no longer needing anything that even resembles detective work, our heroine quickly captures the bad guy, who turns out to be the university drama tutor who's killing his students because he likes neither their hair nor their insistence on method acting in roles he once made his own.

Of course, that still leaves the mystery of Wanda Five and how come she just happens to be psychic...

It's a perfectly solid and safe start to the strip's new direction but it does feel like one with the seatbelt on. I'm not sure it suits Supergirl for her to be doing the Murder She Wrote routine when we're used to her having far more rococo - and at times plain perverted - adventures and it feels like a massive gear change down from her usual lunacy.

Still, it has nice art by Art Saaf and Vince Colletta and does at least set up the hints of a far bigger and more ambitious story line to come, as regards her new room mate. Could we be about to get a Tana Nile situation?

You see? All people with sense may hate Supergirl Sunday but what other scenario in life would ever give me the chance to use the phrase, "Tana Nile situation"?

Admittedly, Thor Thursday would but we'd best gloss over that.

Hooray! It's the return of the internet's favourite recurring feature.

It's Supergirl Sunday!

Many a moon has hung gibbous in the sky since last I perused the adventures of the Cupidacious Kandorian and, admittedly, it's not Sunday, it's Saturday.

If I had any class at all, I'd respond to that obstacle by doing Saturn Girl Saturday.

But I won't. One, because I can't be bothered. And, two, because Supergirl looks exactly like Saturn Girl, so who's going to notice the difference anyway?

But of course Saturn Girl isn't the only character Supergirl looks exactly like. Famously, she also happens to look exactly like Lesla-Lar, Kandorian criminal, and Luna Lynai, onetime girlfriend of Superman.

Most of all, she looks exactly like her friend Lena Thorul who's applied to join the FBI. As part of her "Audition" for the job, Lena's sent to interview her brother Lex Luthor in prison.

There're only two problems with this.

One is she doesn't know he's her brother.

The other is that Lena Thorul's psychic.

Needless to say, this means that, when she and he meet, it doesn't take her long to discover the truth.

Blimey! Break it to her gently, why don't you?

And, needless to say, Lena reacts as any of us would - by losing her memory and going to live in Africa, as an animal-controlling jungle queen.

Discovered by an entrepreneur, she comes back to America to perform in his big show but her memory has returned and, traumatised by her knowledge of who she is, she can't go on with the show, meaning her exact lookalike Supergirl has to stand in for her.

Fortunately it's all put right when Lex Luthor escapes from jail by the least likely means possible and uses a special flower to rob Lena of all memory of his true identity, so everyone's happy again.

I've always loved this tale because it's so nice. Lena Thorul's nice. Supergirl's nice. Even Lex Luthor's nice, showing more concern for his sister than for himself. He even escapes from prison nicely. It's winningly drawn by Gentlemen Jim Mooney and it gets through an insane amount of plot in just twelve pages.

There's a ludicrous charm to this tale that you simply couldn't imagine being replicated in the modern world. There's also something oddly engaging about the sight of Supergirl, in jungle queen gear, having her head chewed by a lion for the entertainment of others.

So there you have it. A classic feature returned and a classic tale - of sorts - covered. No wonder I couldn't wait for Sunday in order to post it.