ACTION COMICS #276 (1961)
By Jerry Siegel & Jim Mooney
“Supergirl’s Three Super Girlfriends!”
Now that’s a title that would have a VERY different meaning today.
Supergirl is sad because she doesn’t have a girlfriend. And she can’t find one because her family doesn’t want her to be herself in public, forcing her to keep that side of herself hidden from the world.
But her girlfriend calls to her telepathically!
It’s a girl with a lead mask. A girl wearing Saturn Girl’s costume, with Saturn Girl’s hairdo, with Saturn Girl’s costume, and presumably with Saturn Girl’s voice. Who could it be?
Seriously, WHO? That’s a mystery!
But she’s not the only one. Another two girlfriends show up, one with intangibility powers and the other one able to split herself into three duplicates:
So technically Supergirl has FIVE girlfriends now. Good for her! Talk about progressive for 1961!
And the masked girl turns out to be… Saturn Girl!
I’m glad we kept that secret for literally 7 panels. Seriously, I counted.
Supergirl reasons that Superman won’t object about her girlfriend being from the Legion.
I mean, you’re still a minor, but so are the other girls, so it’s none of his business.
If anything he might object about having more than one girlfriend, but considering the whole Lois Lane vs Lana Lang thing, it’s possible that he wouldn’t mind.
From the guy who, as a teenager, had a shrine with Lex Luthor’s hair, it’s possible.
This issue is actually a sequel to Action Comics #267, which Supergirl neatly summarizes:
So it’s audition time! And we see three new applicants, keeping the tradition of calling superpowers in a weird way.
We have super-shrinking, super-bouncing and super-radiance. I guess it MIGHT be accurate for Sun Boy, since you could distinguish between what can be radiated, but shrinking shouldn’t need to be super. And bouncing doesn’t sound cool even if you add “super”.
That’s not against Bouncing Boy, though. Bouncing Boy is awesome.
We’ll ignore the rule about admitting one boy and one girl each year, since the writers will do the same.
But that’s nothing compared to the other applicant: Brainiac 5!
Descendant of Superman’s villain Brainiac and my favorite Legionnaire.
Who is so awesome he doesn’t even need to write down his superpower.
His power is that he’s Brainiac 5.
We have a neat flashback to Superman’s future, when we learn how Brainiac will one day be defeated for good:
Way to go down like a b*tch, Brainiac.
Bouncing Boy and Sun Boy demonstrate their powers:
Supergirl demonstrates that she can show off just as much as her cousin, by digging into the Earth and recovering freakin’ EXCALIBUR:
Why would Brainiac 5 want Supergirl to wear his force field belt? Because there’s a Kryptonite meteor aimed at her!
If you’re asking yourself “why is the meteor there and where did it come from”, the answer it’s “these things happen in the Silver Age”.
And since the force field is indestructible, it protects her from the radiation.
Brainiac 5 gives Supergirl the belt as a gift, which is enough to admit both into the Legion.
Sounds legit.
Unfortunately for Brainiac 5, now that Supergirl has found her girlfriends and has been shown that she doesn’t have to hide her true self from the world, being celebrated for what she really is, she’s not that into boys and leaves.
You might think that the story ends here, but Supergirl realizes something else: since the belt makes her immune to Kryptonite, she’s now more powerful than Superman!
I’m not sure why she thinks that traveling through time with her own powers wouldn’t allow her to keep the belt. She keeps her clothes when she does, why not the belt too? If that’s because the suit is indestructible, so is the force field that the belt projects!
Or maybe not, because she manages to break the belt on the next page.
And so Supergirl returns to her orphanage. Now that she’s experimented with five girlfriends, though, she goes back to thinking about boys.
Yes, the merman did show up in other stories.
No, he’s not interesting in the slightest.
Historical significance: 7/10
Personal bias aside, Brainiac 5 doesn’t have a huge impact outside of the Legion, and his crush on Supergirl never went anywhere. But we do find out how Silver Age Brainiac dies.
Legion significance: 7/10
Alright, I admit my bias, but Brainiac 5 is one of THE essential Legionnaires. There’s also the increased roster, and we have the first audition where we see multiple members (however briefly).
Silver Age-ness: 8/10
Every story where the synopsis includes “and then a Kryptonite meteor randomly crashes” is automatically Silver Age.
Does it stand the test of time? 7/10
Jokes about the modern use of the word “girlfriend” aside, Supergirl’s angst about not having friends has aged pretty well, even if it’s a bit heavy handed.
The descendant of one of Superman’s main villains being a good guy is pretty unusual for 1961.
Time travel doesn’t work that way
It’s kind of subtle since I didn’t catch it the first time I read the story (or maybe it’s obvious and it’s just me), but it’s been a full year from Supergirl’s last attempt to joing the Legion both for the Legion and for Supergirl. They have a time machine, why did they let her wait a full year?
We are legion
7 active Legionnaires: the 3 founders, Phantom Girl, Triplicate Girl, and at the end Supergirl and Brainiac 5. Once again I assume Superboy isn’t an active member.
How much Legion is too much?
The Legion of Superheroes currently consists of 15 people: the 7 active in this story, Superboy and Star Boy. I’m adding Shrinking Violet, Bouncing Boy and Sun Boy since they join between the scenes, plus Chameleon Boy, Colossal Boy and Invisible Kid from Action Comics 267, as this is clearly established as taking place afterwards.