ACTION COMICS 335 (1966)
by Otto Binder & Jim Mooney
We are now in the college era for Supergirl; I will only cover a few of these issues since the quality took a nosedive. For example, this time she participates in a beauty contest.
We begin with Supergirl retrieving an alien space prove from a whale (???) and deciding to bury it in her backyard.
Since she’s not a minor anymore, sometimes we get some very tame fanservice.
In her date with her boyfriend Dick, they come across a friend who is a talent scout for the Miss Universe beauty pageant.
She sabotages the attempt to take her picture thanks to her X-ray vision… but Dick is suddenly eager for her to enter the contest. Despite the fact that she’s made it clear that she’s not interested.
He has second thoughts about it: he’s worried that if she becomes famous she won’t give him the time of the day, to the point of having nightmares about this!
But at least he’s not a Dick about it.
No, wait, he’s still a Dick.
Now you might be wondering: if Supergirl went to college, what did she study?
Well, the comics are inconsistent on that; it depends on the story. This time around, she’s studying how to make herself pretty. (WTF!?)
Hello 1960s sexism, it’s bee a while! I didn’t miss you.
She gets into the contest despite the fact that she didn’t even submit her own picture or consent to ANYTHING.
Of course she HAS to participate. It’s not like she needs an education if she’s pretty, right?
Jesus Christ, 1960s…
The whole point of her secret identity was to go unnoticed, but now she’s Miss United States!!!
She will compete against Miss Asia and Miss Europe.
Look, I get “Miss Americas” doesn’t sound right and that you probably don’t have the rights to the name “Miss America”, but maybe use countries and not continents for the other finalists?
Supergirl performs as a ballerina in a rather goofy pose.
But wait, I thought she DIDN’T want to win?
Yes now she’s determined to ruin this for everyone else, starting with Miss Asia.
As for Miss Europe, how hard will it be to ruin a puppet show?
It’s easy with her super-bulls#t powers.
Miss Europe will later seek psychiatric help.
So… yeah. Supergirl is Miss Universe now!
But obviously you don’t do a story with Miss Universe in a series where the protagonist is an alien unless you want other aliens to participate.
Remember the space probe she recovered from the whale? That’s how she knew there was a Miss Universe contest that was schedule to feature someone from Earth.
She also gets a mysterious masked maid.
You thought we were done with weird uses of superpowers? This one tops them all.
But we are the end of the contest, so Supergirl has to beat Rainbow Girl…
…and This-Is-Actually-Disturbing Girl.
With competition like that, all Supergirl has to do is the old coal-to-diamonds trick.
Kind of weird that Miss Universe was just a stepping stone to become Miss Cosmos, but whatever.
Despite suspecting that the guy running the contest was a bad guy (that was the entire reason she participated!), Supergirl accepts the prize: eternal youth.
Or not. Turns out that the maid was actually a previous winner and that “the prize” is…
And why did this guy organize a beauty pageant only to disfigure the winners?
Because he hates beauty.
Supergirl arrests him, but once she gets back to Earth…
Surprise! This is actually a two-part story.
Historical significance: 0/10
Linda Danvers should be at least a little famous after this storyline, but she’ll continue to be treated as an ordinary girl with a normal life.
Silver Age-ness: 8/10
It was rather standard until Supergirl came up with the idea of using her telescopic vision as a projector. I still have no idea of how THAT happened!
Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
What a mess. First Supergirl is pushed by peer pressure into a contest she’s not interested in, then she wants to investigate a potential bag guy, then she trusts, him only to immediately figure out that he was the bad guy all along? Dick comes off as extremely shallow, and Supergirl didn’t really have a good reason for lying to her adoptive parents or to sabotage the other contestants that harshly.