"Who Stole Supergirl's Life?"
Intriguing mystery story by Paul Kupperberg that begins with the surprise that while Linda Lee is watching tv in her shared apartment, she is shocked to discover Supergirl is currently stopping a crime in progress. Soon we learn Linda's powers are slipping away from her one by one and that Supergirl has no memory of ever having the secret identity of Linda Lee.
The final revelation is about as complicated as explaining the hows and whys of The Return of Superman, but at least it's all done within the confines of a single issue and you only need to have read a previous arc from when the book was titled The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl. I guess after the first year they weren't as daring or new anymore. ;)
9. Brave and The Bold #147
"Death Scream From The Sky"
Supergirl and Batman team up against the Terrorist threat of the Children of The Light!
The Children of The Light use red solar energy to prevent Supergirl from destroying a hijacked Wayne Tech satellite. Batman attempts to destroy the hijacked satellite only to have his Bat-Jet destroyed by the built in defenses, but not before he ejects out of it into the cold of space. Luckily Supergirl uses her heat vision to stop him from freezing to death and her indestructible cape to protect him upon re-entry into the earth's atmosphere.
Batman being the awesome Detective that he is discovers that Dr. Light is the leader behind the Children of Light and he and Supergirl bring down the villain together.
Awesome Jim Aparo art and a story that would never get past Bruce Timm's desk make this one a winner
in my book.
8. Valor #2
"Boy Meets Supergirl"
This one's a standard hero fight by Robert Loren Fleming with some nice art by M.D. Bright. This is back when the Matrix Supergirl was dating the Aussie Lex Luthor II (don't ask). The basic plot is Supergirl is sent out to bring Lar Gand back to Lexcorp and a fight between the two ensues after Supergirl accidentally destroys the memorial Lar Gand built to his deceased father.
7. Superboy v1 80
"Superboy Meets Supergirl"
While building a huge Snowman and goofing around with her cousin Superman, the Man of Steel laments to his cousin that he never had anyone to play with as Superboy like Supergirl does today. This gives the Girl of Steel the idea to break the time barrier and go hang out with Superboy. They basically spend the issue doing all kinds of things only a Kryptonian could do, fly through stars, launch super darts at each other's chests, swim around on an alien water world and have super speed races from planet to planet. Superboy even wonders how a "mere girl" could beat him in a race and of course she does beat him, advising that she is just as "super-duper" as he is. Of course then Supergirl realizes she's probably damaged the space-time continuum and has Superboy sniff some flower that makes him forget that past week they spent goofing around together. Could be worse, I mean at least it wasn't a super-french kiss that made him lose his memories. ;)
6. Superman/Supergirl Maelstrom
This one's a five issue mini-series brought to you by the same writing team that is writing the current Jonah Hex and Power Girl series, Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti. The focus is on the villain Maelstrom who hails from Apokalips and intends to get into Darkseid's good graces and become worthy of being his Queen by destroying Superman as a bridal gift of sorts. Of course when she first shows up Supergirl is the first citizen of Metropolis to greet her, but her bellowing brings along Superman as well soon enough.
Darkseid's cruelty in stringing along Maelstrom for his own personal amusement and schadenfreude is perfectly written and when Kal and Kara go to survival train on a planet with a red sun, it's nice to read a piece where just b/c a Kryptonian is powerless, he or she isn't completely worthless (even if he did learn some tricks from Batman about survival techniques).
Anyway by the 4th issue Superman is poisoned and this gives Supergirl a chance to shine and come into her own in this mini-series. By the final issue they are newly charged with yellow solar energy thanks to Supergirl's best efforts and are back in Metropolis in time to have a rematch with Maelstrom who's brought along the Female Furies this time around.
5. Supergirl v4 #28
"Hell Hath No Furies..."
Amusing Peter David piece where The Female Furies from Apokolips Bernadeth, Lashina, Artemis, Stompa and Mad Harriet crash a "Space Girls" concert to bring back the ongoing villain called Twilight (who it turns out is a former student of Granny Goodness). Lots of good action scenes by Leonard Kirk and my favorite line is in Supergirl's fight with Stompa. Stompa has been going on and on about how "Granny taught us..." this or that and so on. Stompa of course mentions this as she tries to crush Supergirl with her boot. Supergirl then catches her foot and says, " Did Granny give you tips...on dealing with...Broken Ankles?" and proceeds to break her ankle and toss her away like a beach ball. Ah, classic Peter David swarmy wit-tastic goodness, gotta love it.
4. Supergirl v5 #14
"Special"
Let me start out by saying I've never really cared for the "evil" League of Assassins Cassandra Cain Batgirl, but it just so happens to make for a really good face off between her and Supergirl in this issue. Hired to take out Supergirl, Cain kidnaps Kid Boomerang or whatever he should be called now that his dad's not croaked anyway to lure Supergirl into a one on one face off. A nice little exchange between Kara and Tim Drake in the Batcave when she's doing her background check on Cassandra Cain. Pretty cool imagery of Batgirl almost looking like Darth Vader coming after and slicing up Supergirl with Red Solar powered Katana Blades. Normally I suppose I'd abhor Bat-Fan Aura stuff, but since it's the female version (which hadn't really been done to death before) and it's written by Joe Kelly (a favorite Superman writer of mine), I have to say I enjoyed this story a lot. Even with the lame "evil" Batgirl she got cool lines about how she wore the Batgirl outfit while assassinating Supergirl "out of respect for our 'fathers' and how neither of them is truly special. The Ian Churchill art might be a little too Rob Liefield for some folks but it's okay by me.
3. Supergirl Cosmic Adventures in the 8th grade #2
"My own best Frenemy!"
This book is part of the kid friendly DC Kids line of comics. When a lab accident occurs with the school projector and various forms of Kryptionite, it creates a nefarious duplicate of Linda Lee who calls herself Belinda Zee who decides to go about making Linda/Supergirl's life miserable. Kind of a Veronica looking version to Supergirl's "Betty" look, Belinda makes it look as if Linda's trying way to hard to fit in and finding everything she can to put her in the worst possible light.
Luckily for Linda, new student, science whiz Lena Thorul shows up and zaps Belinda Zee with a machine she invented that stops her lies and makes her quack like a duck instead. So in the end Linda has made a new friend in Lena. Now if you're familiar with classic Superman lore you'll probably know the "twist" ending to this story right away involving Supergirl sending off an email to Superman at the Fortress and Lena sending off her own email to her big brother Lex, but if you were a first time reader I think this would throw you for a bit of a loop in a good way.
2. Supergirl v4 # 75-80
"Many Happy Returns"
Great Peter David story that features the then current Supergirl's final arc in which she teams up with the classic Silver Age version.
Lots of poking fun at the "science" of the Silver Age of Comics and Filmation cartoons, but when the shit hits the fan and The Spectre shows up to remind the girls of Silver Age Kara's fatal destiny in regards to the Crisis On Infinite Earths proper weight and pathos is given its due. Ed Benes really creates some nice moments here as well and of course you've gotta love Superman under the influence of Pink Kryptonite as he hits on Jimmy Olsen and tells him what a great looking bow-tie he's wearing.
1. Crisis On Infinite Earths #7
The penultimate Supergirl story in which her sacrifice helps to save the entire multiverse. Awesome epic artwork by George Perez and a really emotional script by Marv Wolfman.
note: I'd also like to cheat and mention the opening of Crisis #4 and how I really like the opening scene between Batgirl and Supergirl in the first few pages as well.
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