ADVENTURE COMICS 387-388 (1969-1970)
by Leo Dorfman & Win Mortimer
cover by Curt Swan
We are at the end of the Supergirl retrospective. I considered reviewing her entire Adventure Comics run… but it’s just unbearably boring.
I do, however, feel obliged to cover the two-parter where we meet Lex Luthor’s superpowered nephew!
We begin with Lex Luthor stealing paintings by “attracting the chemicals in the paint”.
There is NO WAY that this scene would be made today without having Luthor come off as EXTREMELY creepy!!!
That’s actually the son of his sister Lena. She was married in Action Comics 317 from 1964, so if the son aged in real time he should be about five right now.
And it turns out that her son has telekinesis!
Which isn’t all that surprising, considering her mother is a telepath.
As a reminder, Lex is responsible for her powers. She doesn’t remember that.
He’s also responsible for the kid’s powers as well.
The kid is, well a kid, so he doesn’t control his powers well. This looks like a job for Lex Luthor!
Or not.
Luthor goes back to prison, where ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME!?
STOP GIVING STUFF TO LEX LUTHOR! IS THAT SO HARD!?!?
Lex Luthor being moved to a different cell is somehow newsworthy, and when the kid sees him on TV he decides to help.
It really says something about the guards that they are more worried about what the people will say if they shoot a kid rather than, you know, the idea of SHOOTING A KID.
This looks like a job for Supergirl!
Or not.
What, she thinks that international waters are a free-for-all!?
And that’s the end of the first part!
One of the most frustrating parts of the Adventure Comics run (other that it mostly sucks) is that the stories are way too short. So let’s move to the second part!
We are now in issue 388 from 1970.
At least they remembered Lena has useful powers.
We immediately retcon Supergirl’s stupid decision to let Luthor escape: it’s not because he was in international waters but because she was busy.
Oh come on, what vital mission!? It would’ve taken her like two seconds to capture Luthor right there!!!
In her defense, it’s not like finding Luthor’s secret base is all that hard.
I wonder if Luthor has to deal with Batman landing on his island while looking for the Riddler.
Luthor shows off to his nephew his giant TV screens pointed at the stuff he wants to steal.
The kid is pretty powerful, being able to move objects on another continent.
Then he gets the GENIUS idea of testing if the kid is vulnerable to Kryptonite. What, he thought his sister cheated on her husband with a Kryptonian!?
The kid plays around with the Kryptonite, which of course ends up affecting Supergirl.
No worries, she can still protect herself by switching to her secret identity.
This should help because… I’ve got nothing.
You have to love Luthor being consistently Luthor.
So… a powerless Supergirl trying to survive in a deserted island while attempting to infiltrate Luthor’s base. Should be interesting!
And by interesting I mean stupid.
One good thing about having Luthor around is that you can count on seeing some bats#it crazy Silver Age nonsense technology.
Okay, so, get this: Luthor leaves his lair, and since the Kryptonite vault is now closed Supergirl has access to the base. She could just get the kid home right now!
Instead she does THIS.
Which, once Luthor returns, leads to this:
This was all part of her plan! She really is related to Superman.
And AGAIN Luthor tries to get out of trouble because he’s out of Supergirl’s jurisdiction.
But of course Supergirl is not going to OH COME ON!!!
Since Supergirl is SOMEHOW restricted to stop Luthor only if he’s within US territory, her solution is to MOVE THE ENTIRE ISLAND. (!!!)
And conveniently it turns out that the whole incident with the alien spider took away the kid’s powers. SOMEHOW.
Luthor pretends he’s not actually the kid’s uncle, so he’s not completely bad this time.
And that’s the end of the Supergirl retrospective! At least for now.
She’ll get her own series in 1972 that lasted only ten issues, and which also wasn’t very good… I might cover something from that series, but no promises.
After that series she will appear in “Superman Family”, which is how the Jimmy Olsen will be re-titled after issue 163.
I will definitely cover some of those when we get to it.
But for the Adventure Comics run, I’ll just cover the many costumes of Supergirl.
Historical significance: 0/10
The kid has a couple of appearances in “Superman Family”, but he’s extremely underutilized for being Luthor’s superpowered nephew.
Silver Age-ness: 10/10
Silly baby talk? Check. Insane Luthor inventions? Check. Nonsensical plot? Check. Supergirl being an idiot? Check. Moving an entire island to gain jurisdiction? Check. Randomly removed powers? Check once again!
Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
Now you see why I’m not covering the Adventure Comics run? There is some minor potential here, but somehow things move too quickly despite the fact that not a lot actually happens.
I wasn’t a fan of Win Mortimer’s art in his Legion run, but he’s an ever worse match for Supergirl. And speaking of which… holy crap has the Maid of Might become dumber since her debut!