With the Girl of Steel scheduled to make her return to the Screen of Silver in a couple of weeks, I wanted to go back to one of the items I most regret never getting around to during the original Year of Superman project: Peter David’s excellent Supergirl series. David launched this series in 1996, taking the “Matrix” version of Supergirl and pulling her out of Metropolis. He dropped her not only in the seemingly nondescript town of Leesburg, but also into a metaphysical conflict that was very different from most superhero comics at the time – or for that matter, even since then. 

The real question is where to READ the book in this day and age, if you weren’t lucky enough to have bought them month-to-month as they came out like I did. David’s run lasted 80 issues, along with a handful of annuals and spinoffs, and a few mini-crossovers with other books like Resurrection Man and Young Justice. A few years ago they started series of omnibus editions that went for four volumes, collecting roughly the first half of the series, which we can all agree isn’t enough. Last year, though, when the DC’s Finest line of paperbacks was launched, they included two hefty volumes that made it almost as deep into the run as the four omnibus editions combined. One could only hope that they’re selling well enough to justify collecting the rest of the run in that series.

That said, this week I had time to read the first five issues, as well as the prologue story that was published in Showcase ‘96 #8, so that’s what I’m going to focus on today. The prologue, written by David with art by Terry Dodson, is connected to the main series more thematically than in a story fashion. Supergirl – the shapeshifting protoplasmic Matrix that Superman first encountered in the pocket universe where he was forced to kill General Zod and his cronies – is called upon to help with a hurricane causing terrible destruction. In the midst of the storm, she desperately tries to save a pregnant woman who has gone into labor, and the chaos around her forces her to think about concepts of mortality – both the beginning and end of life – that she as an artificial life form has never really had to contend with before. 

In its own right, this would be a perfectly good short story, a sort of character piece in which a superhero wrestles with a very human existential crisis. However, knowing what David was going to do with this series in the years to come, it really does feel like a glimpse at the future. Is it necessary for understanding the main series? No. But it sure as hell gives you the flavor.

The series proper, with art by Gary Frank, begins not with Supergirl, but with Linda Danvers. Linda – at this point a total blank slate to the audience – is introduced to us in the shower, covered in minor injuries and washing off blood. When she gets out of the tub, there’s also an odd accumulation of pink sludge…and a glance in the mirror makes her realize that her injuries are mysteriously gone. She can’t remember what’s happened to her or how she was hurt, but she’s also got memories that don’t quite seem to be hers.

The first two issues introduce us to Linda and her world: her highly contentious relationship with her parents, a journalist and strange admirer named Cutter, and a demonic acquaintance of hers called Buzz among others. We also learn that Linda’s relationship with the people of Leesburg seems to be full of friction. A lot of them were under the impression that she was dead. OH YEAH – and when she was missing, Supergirl had tried to find her, and somehow the two of them became fused into a single being, one that has more limited versions of Supergirl’s powers and a memory that’s been Swiss Cheesed like Sam Beckett in Quantum Leap. Issues three and four push the book into a crossover with DC’s Final Night (which I wrote about last year) in which Grodd invades her little town and tries to make people embrace their bestial side while faced with the possibility of the death of the sun, and in issue five, Supergirl has a face off with Superman’s old enemy Chemo. 

The supervillain stuff is fine – Peter David was an excellent writer and handled that as well as anybody. But what really made this run (and his work in general for that matter) stand out from the pack was the way he handled characters. Forget the Pre-Crisis Linda Danvers you may remember – this Linda is by no means the paragon of virtue that one would assume to be that Supergirl’s secret identity. 90s Linda is a girl with a past that these first five issues only begin to dig into. Her parents start off as stereotypes: her cop father is an overbearing authority figure and her fundamentalist mother is…well…a fundamentalist mother. But as the series progresses, all three of the Danvers grow into fuller, rounder characters, moving past who you would assume them to be at the beginning. Cutter is an intriguing character as well, and while Buzz…there’s a lot to say about Buzz.

Buzz is a sort of portal for this story into the supernatural, something that Superman-family stories tend to shy away from most of the time. But over the course of this series (particularly the first half) David deals with a lot of metaphysical questions, battles between good and evil on a scale that’s more existential than physical, and questions about mortality and the afterlife. To put it bluntly, it’s a much deeper book than you would expect. 

I’m definitely going to continue reading this series again now that I’ve started. I won’t necessarily write about every issue, but I’ll probably come back with new blogs whenever I hit the high points. In the meantime, if you’ve never read the series, the whole thing is currently available on DC Universe Infinite and, as I mentioned, the two DC’s Finest paperbacks are in stores now. And with the news that Sophie Campbell is planning to bring Matrix back in the current Supergirl comic book, there’s no better time to move in and enjoy one of the most intriguing and most underrated parts of Superman lore. 

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. Don’t forget, you can check out earlier blogs in the Year of Superman/Superman Stuff Archive! Got a request for a future “Superman Stuff”? Drop it in the comments!