I Want To Write Comics: Supergirl

So, in case you haven't guessed - which would mean, I think, that you haven't been reading any of my posts - I love comics. I think comics is one of the best mediums we have today, and for all that I complain of the multitude of flaws I see in it, I nevertheless love comics. And while I am planning on getting a real-peoples job, going to graduate school to become a librarian, I still want to write comics. I really, really want to write comics.

Some people want to write their favorite characters. I'm a little weird. I would write anything, but given my preference, I'd want to write books I DIDN'T think were going very well. So, I'm occasionally going to put pitches up here. I suppose you could steal them, though I doubt you'll get very far with them as they'll all be rough & ugly first drafts, so...eh.

Supergirl. The Maid of Might. She was a fan-favorite Pre-Crisis. She was revamped into a madcap cult favorite by Peter David in the 90s. Recently, Loeb brought her back, and while her series began well, selling over 100k per issue, it's dropped rapidly, and so two years later, it's down to about 30k and falling fast. I don't like the current book. I haven't read it faithfully, but occasionally, I'll read an issue in the store, and I'm horrified. Supergirl often acts like kind of a ditz. She NEVER seems to win fights - she's always saved by other heroes. And she whines. Constantly.

So. Here's an idea for a Supergirl story - a pretty long one, and it's only the intro, but feel free to critique it as you will, or just completely ignore this post.

Okay, my idea for a Supergirl arc. All the characters mentioned save Crucible are pre-existing.

Supergirl is trying to figure her life out when Devastation, a woman with all the abilities of Wonder Woman, shows up and brutally assaults her. Supergirl manages to fight her off, however, fighting to a draw and then forcing Devastation to retreat as the authorities arrive.

Supergirl doesn’t spend much time reflecting on what happened, though – she takes it as merely another supervillain fight. Meanwhile, she gets into a conflict with Kate Spencer over how to deal with a random supervillain – Supergirl manages to talk Kate out of killing the villain, saying she’ll take responsibility for his actions* and make sure that he stays in jail.

This is how she meets Director Bones, but on her introduction to him, things get…strange. Supergirl manages to get Kate’s mask out of her suitcase and on due to her super-speed, sparing herself the worst of the mind-affecting illusions, but she is forced to fight her way free of the hallucinating, but deadly, DEO officers. Using her super senses, she discovers that a series of enchanted items have been disguised and left near DEO HQ. She destroys them, freeing the DEO from the effects.

They think the attack was against them, and ask Supergirl to team up with Manhunter to discover what’s going on. Manhunter and Supergirl begin to investigate current renegade sorcerers, but in the course of their investigation, the two of them are attacked again – this time, by General Wade Eiling. A fight ensues, which Supergirl and Manhunter win together, even managing to capture and confine Eiling for arrest.

Manhunter returns to the DEO, to deal with the legal side of Eiling’s capture, leaving Supergirl with a message – something strange is approaching the Earth, fast. The Justice League is away, and the DEO believes that Supergirl can be trusted with this. Before she leaves, she’s challenged to spar with Lady Shiva under terms she can’t resist. She accepts, thinking she'll win quickly, but despite her massive speed and power, she finds that she can’t use it in the same way when fighting someone who would break so easily to a full-powered blow, and ends up losing the fight rather than losing control of herself.

Humiliated, she rushes into space, where she discovers a member of the Sinestro Corps chasing a young-looking girl flying extraordinarily fast. She defends the child, and together, the two of them take out the Sinestro Corp member.

Supergirl learns that the girl, named Ariella, is lost in time and space and lacks a family. She genuinely feels for the girl, and so takes her on as her own. She learns that Ariella was a terror of the spaceways in the 853rd century and that she was being pursued because she had destroyed a yellow power ring that had tried to give itself to her…and that she’s still a little bit of a terror. Supergirl has to try and teach Ariella how to control her powers, when to and when not to use them.

Meanwhile, Devastation returns to wreak havok on Supergirl’s town, this time with back-up. Supergirl nearly dies preventing Devastation from killing a group of high school students, and as she lies there, she sees Devastation flee, also severely wounded. Supergirl passes out.

When she wakes up, she is severely weakened and being held underground in a laboratory. As she attempts to escape, she must use stealth, as her powers are being somehow surpressed, so she uses the skills she learned from Batman and Wonder Woman to sneak her way through the facility and get the jump on the man running the show – Abra Kadabra, confronting and subduing him without her powers, but almost accidentally killing him in the process.

She gets free of the facility and calls Kate for a pick-up, Abra in tow. We learn that Abra was doing this at the behest of another, though they cannot get him to admit who. Kara retires to her house to recuperate, only to find Lady Shiva waiting there. The two fight again, but Kara has her powers better under control, and she manages to hold her own without going all-out and risking seriously harming Shiva.

As a reward, Shiva tells her where Devastation is hiding out, and then makes her promise that they will fight one more time. Supergirl goes to where Devastation is and tries to find out why Devastation has attacked her so often – however, Devastation seems unnaturally violent. At first, she almost doesn’t seem to recognize Supergirl, but then she suddenly strikes. This time, barely, Supergirl manages to defeat and capture her, and turns her over to the DEO.

Arriving at the DEO, she learns that the DEO’s prison has been broken into and assaulted in an effort to get some prisoners free, and Supergirl is confronted with Eiling, Abra, the villain she kept imprisoning, and someone she doesn’t recognize, a villain named Crucible, who she learned broke them out. He also releases Devastation from her restraints.

Supergirl tries to fight them all, but she ends up getting extremely hurt. However, she does manage to keep them contained to the area, throwing herself without concern at whoever tries to escape the area. As Supergirl is worn down and fighting sloppily, Ariella shows up, as does Lady Shiva.

Shiva berates Supergirl for fighting so sloppily, and then she and Ariella enter the fray. Supergirl stands, brushes herself off, and proceeds to kick ass. Together with those two, Manhunter, Director Bones, and the rest of the DEO, all of the villains that escaped are captured.

We see Crucible in his cell, speaking to nothing about how after all these trials, all this power, he was supposed to kill Supergirl and his group of villains were to take over the world. He begs an invisible figure, who he calls Lord Conquest, to explain himself. Lord Conquest manifests and explains that this was not to forge the villains, but instead to forge Supergirl into his perfect tool. Crucible swears revenge on Supergirl.

Meanwhile, Lady Shiva shows up for their final fight, and Supergirl cleanly and quickly defeats her without risking killing her. Shiva tells Supergirl that she’s ready, and that Shiva has been told to offer her a powerful magical weapon. She reveals a sword belonging to one of the sons of Ares, saying that she feels that Supergirl is not in danger of being overwhelmed by it.

Supergirl stares at the weapon. She picks it up – then hands it back to Shiva, saying that she doesn’t need help from anyone, not even a god. Shiva smiles, and as Supergirl flies away, Shiva leaves the sword on Supergirl’s table, saying that Supergirl may need to take it up for what is to come.


*Supergirl’s promise would come up a couple more times over the course of the series. Once when the villain (I don’t yet know who) escapes and hurts people, and Manhunter confronts her about her responsibilities to the people, and a few more times as we see Supergirl begin to take more and more responsibility – the villain escapes one or two more times, and each time Supergirl catches and beats him quicker and quicker.

The story would probably be about 12 issues - my 1-year plan to revamp Supergirl. It could use A LOT of work - this is merely a very rough first draft. It's a little too concerned with making Supergirl grow up a little, but it could be a lot of fun. But, ah well. i don't know why I posted this here, other than out of a kind of boredom.

Have a great day!