Question about Linda Danvers

[dto]

Supergrl5013, don't worry -- computer glitches happen.  I'm sure the board moderator can delete your duplicated posts.

"RETCON" is short for "RETroactive CONtinuity", which usually means a new story that fundamentally changes an established character, environment or theme from their historic depiction, with the added note that the new interpretation is how it ALWAYS has been.  

For instance, when Superman was rebotted Post-Crisis in John Byrne's "The Man of Steel", he declared that Superman was the ONLY survivor of Krypton, and was NEVER a Superboy.  This meant there could be no Kryptonians in Kandor, no Kara Zor-El, and no Superboy stories still "in canon" -- these were all RETCONNED from history.  

With one creative decision, all those decades of stories officially NEVER HAPPENED.

But the Legion of Superheroes needed someone to substitute for Superboy, since he was so essential to their history.  So the Pocket Universe Superboy was created (and killed), so all past stories involving the original Silver Age Superboy were RETCONNED to be the Pocket Universe Superboy.  Later Lar Gand (aka "M'onel" or "Valor") was substituted for Superboy, and Laurel Gand ("Andromeda") replaced Supergirl in another RETCON.


As for Linda Danvers -- in "Many Happy Returns", the "original" Kara Zor-El arrived in modern-day Leesburg.  Linda took the confused time-lost Supergirl under her wing until the Spectre appeared and told them it was Kara's fate to go back into the past... and die in a great Crisis.

Kara was horrified at this revelation, so Linda nobly took her place.  But when she arrived on "Earth-1", the timeline began to stray -- and it REALLY went awry a couple years later when Superman revealed that he knew Linda WASN'T his Kryptonian cousin from the beginning, but he had since fallen in love with her!  So when the Crisis rolled into town, Linda was happily married to Superman and had a young daughter Ariella.  But by then Linda's timeline had departed so radically from Kara's intended timeline that the Spectre couldn't substitute Linda for the cover of "Crisis #7" anymore.  So after extracting a promise that Ariella would survive (it's strongly implied that she became R'E'L in "Supergirl One Million"), Linda had to rescue Kara from a villian who was busy killing off all Supergirl incarnations from multiple dimensions.  

And then after saving her life, Linda had to send Kara back to her "home" timeline, knowing full well she had just condemned the young Supergirl to an early death in the Crisis.  She had lost "her" Earth-1, her husband, her daughter (even though she knew Ariella had survived), and sent an innocent "sister" to her death.  That was too much for poor Linda to bear, so she renounced her Supergirl title, wrote Superman a resignation letter, and disappeared for parts unknown.   :cry:

[Supergrl5013]

Supergrl5013, don't worry -- computer glitches happen.  I'm sure the board moderator can delete your duplicated posts.

"RETCON" is short for "RETroactive CONtinuity", which usually means a new story that fundamentally changes an established character, environment or theme from their historic depiction, with the added note that the new interpretation is how it ALWAYS has been.  

For instance, when Superman was rebotted Post-Crisis in John Byrne's "The Man of Steel", he declared that Superman was the ONLY survivor of Krypton, and was NEVER a Superboy.  This meant there could be no Kryptonians in Kandor, no Kara Zor-El, and no Superboy stories still "in canon" -- these were all RETCONNED from history.  

With one creative decision, all those decades of stories officially NEVER HAPPENED.

But the Legion of Superheroes needed someone to substitute for Superboy, since he was so essential to their history.  So the Pocket Universe Superboy was created (and killed), so all past stories involving the original Silver Age Superboy were RETCONNED to be the Pocket Universe Superboy.  Later Lar Gand (aka "M'onel" or "Valor") was substituted for Superboy, and Laurel Gand ("Andromeda") replaced Supergirl in another RETCON.


As for Linda Danvers -- in "Many Happy Returns", the "original" Kara Zor-El arrived in modern-day Leesburg.  Linda took the confused time-lost Supergirl under her wing until the Spectre appeared and told them it was Kara's fate to go back into the past... and die in a great Crisis.

Kara was horrified at this revelation, so Linda nobly took her place.  But when she arrived on "Earth-1", the timeline began to stray -- and it REALLY went awry a couple years later when Superman revealed that he knew Linda WASN'T his Kryptonian cousin from the beginning, but he had since fallen in love with her!  So when the Crisis rolled into town, Linda was happily married to Superman and had a young daughter Ariella.  But by then Linda's timeline had departed so radically from Kara's intended timeline that the Spectre couldn't substitute Linda for the cover of "Crisis #7" anymore.  So after extracting a promise that Ariella would survive (it's strongly implied that she became R'E'L in "Supergirl One Million"), Linda had to rescue Kara from a villian who was busy killing off all Supergirl incarnations from multiple dimensions.  

And then after saving her life, Linda had to send Kara back to her "home" timeline, knowing full well she had just condemned the young Supergirl to an early death in the Crisis.  She had lost "her" Earth-1, her husband, her daughter (even though she knew Ariella had survived), and sent an innocent "sister" to her death.  That was too much for poor Linda to bear, so she renounced her Supergirl title, wrote Superman a resignation letter, and disappeared for parts unknown.   :cry:

aww...*wipes a tear* that's so beautiful...*cries*...thats for telling me what Retconn means

[Super Monkey]

you can get the story in the book Supergirl: Many Happy Returns (Paperback)
by Peter David

[Great Rao]

you can get the story in the book Supergirl: Many Happy Returns (Paperback)
by Peter David

Plug: which is available at a discount right here.

[dto]

Supergrl5013, take a look at this thread:

https://www.supermanthroughtheages.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=13247#13247

By the way, since "Fallen Angel" will be relaunched this December by IDW Peter David will have a new background history for Lee that will NOT involve the DC Universe.  So whether Lee WAS really Linda is now a moot question -- if she was, then Lee's been retconned into somebody else and Linda's been missing for over two years...   :cry:

[Supergrl5013]

thank you so much i printed a few pages of  the site...'cause if i printed any more the Library at school might ban me from using the priner and stuff like that...so many thanks to you

[Great Rao]

From what I've heard on another forum, Peter David is playing it coy, but admits that yes, if you want Fallen Angel to be Linda Danvers, she is.  I don't much see her being Supergirl in tone, but it's a pretty good read nonetheless.

I met Peter David at a comic-shop signing, back when DC's Fallen Angel #1 had just come out.

He told a few people in the gathering there, that Lee is absolutely Linda Danvers and that the Fallen Angel title is a direct continuation of the events from his last Supergirl storyline.  But he also said that he could never admit any of this in print anywhere or online anywhere and that he would always "officially" deny it.  He will most likely continue to deny it on forums and in emails, but will probably do his absolute best to tell you the most that he can without breaking the rules - which is to admit that it could be "possible."  So you have to read between the lines.

If you liked PAD's run on Fallen Angel and you like his interpretation of the Linda Danvers/Lee character, I would say that she continues on in the new incarnation of that title.  But if you like reading about a "Supergirl," then read the new DC Supergirl title.

If DC ever does refer to the character again (which I really doubt, since in effect she's moved to a new publisher, just that no one can say it), it will in effect be a new character who will have splintered off from the "real" PAD Linda Danvers.  She'll also have a new writer behind her.  The only similarity will be that she'll have Lee's old name.

[dto]

Great Rao, considering how soon "Fallen Angel" came out after "Supergirl" was cancelled, I can accept that Peter David really imagined "Lee" as "Linda" when the series began, and that his comments wasn't simply "hype".  Certainly this was a "logical" descent of her character after the traumatic, soul-wrenching conclusion of "Many Happy Returns", and that Peter David had more stories "in the pipeline" when ""Supergirl" was axed.

But there were discrepancies from the beginning (such as the "amputated wing" scars on her back), and as the series progressed the distance between "Lee" and "Linda" grew -- her baby in Issue #18 seemed to make it clear they were NOT the same person, though it's POSSIBLE that could still be explained in context.

Perhaps Peter David was growing more confident that "Fallen Angel" could fly without the "Supergirl" connection, and/or maybe he was already considering taking his creator-owned character to another publisher.  Keeping "Fallen Angel" separate from the DC mainstream universe proved a wise "insurance policy", but now "Lee" must shed any connection to "Linda" in the relaunch.

So one might say that in one Hypertimeline Linda Danvers became the Fallen Angel, but that timeline also branched off into two divergent paths -- one covered in Peter David's new series, and the one where "Lee" still remains within -- but not a part of -- the DC Universe.  And there is the other Hypertimeline that may never be revealed -- DC's official explanation of what happened to Linda Danvers, written by somebody other than Peter David.