The saddest things about Supergirl

[AMAZO]

I always thought the fact that she was able to hide her "super-ness" from her adoptive parents for a pretty long while was pretty dubious. Surely her new mother realized that her daughter was just wearing a bad black wig...
Also, it always seemed bizarre to me that Superman finally finds another Kryptonian survivor, and the last remaining member of his family, and promptly packs her off to go live in an orphanage.

[Just a fan]

I always thought it was strange that he packed her off to the orphanage instead of taking her to the fortress and showing her the the bottled city where they had a few distant cousins living, or at least joining her more often to see how her training was coming (did Kal do this with anyone else that showed up with super powers?) or getting her to tell him mor about krypton and it history, maybe he was afraid she end up telling him, not Kal that's not the design for a warp space engine, it the family reciepe for sour mash, by the way you do know your dad was the family drunk?.

[Lee Semmens]

I have always felt that the Supergirl stories before she was adopted by the Danvers are some of the lamest (and most juvenile) of all DC superhero comics of the late 1950s/early 1960s, although I must admit she has some pretty stiff competition from most of the contemporary Wonder Woman comics, and some of the more outlandish Batman stories.

Supervillains - or indeed any villains - are usually noticeable by their absence in this period, and stories revolving around Supergirl/Linda helping other orphans to get adopted, or solving their insignificant problems make for mind-numbing, boring reading - at least to this reader.

I prefer the Superman Family period of Supergirl most of all, when she left college and started working, particularly the Elliott S. Maggin and Jack C. Harris stories, even allowing for the fact that most featured the horrible inks of Vince Colletta.

[Continental Op]

In his encyclopedia, Michael Fleisher applied some amateur psychoanalysis to Superman's relationship with the women in his life, but he didn't really attempt to analyze the relationship with Supergirl. No doubt if he had, he would have theorized that the reason Superman often seemed to treat Supergirl so shabbily during the orphanage years was strong subconscious resentment on his part.

Her spending most of her formative years on Krypton(a Kryptonian city, anyway)... her having two sets of living parents when BOTH his were dead... her ability to keep a secret identity without having to act meek and cowardly like Clark Kent... he had to be at least a LITTLE envious at times, but strangely I don't recall the writers ever exploring this.

[MatterEaterLad]

While there is a lot of truth to the observations on the orphan years, I really think that Supergirl writers wanted to show a girl overcoming obstacles of a personal nature...its really not a lot different than "Tess of the D'ubervilles" or "Cinderella"...you can even see it in the extended "revealed to the world" story...the girl with the heart of gold finally gets her due...

I find it separate from Superman himself, though how he "should" have treated her is an interesting subject for speculation.

[VanZee]

Reading through comics history, I'd say Supergirl was a bald attempt by DC to cash in on the  popular Marvel Family.  Beyond that, not much development--which is a real shame.  Fawcett always seemed a bit better tapped into the "wish-fulfillment" appeal of superhero comics than DC.  I mean, a goofy little kid could say a catch-phrase and become "Earth's Mightiest Mortal."

I always found Supergirl an enormously appealing character, more so even than Superman at the gut-level: A teen-aged girl who could break open the head of the toughest DC bad guy, but also with a genuinely sweet personality who would burst into tears if a boy gave her flowers.  Awkwardness with superpowers coupled with raging teen emotions and angst might have made some GREAT stories in the hands of different writers.  But they never let her cut loose much in either direction.  The writers seemed to know enough about "what little girls are made of" to give her a kitty-cat and a pony to play with, but that's about it.  No attempt to build around her the secondary characters that give the main hero something to play off.

It would have been great to send her on a couple of dates with a Reggie type.... "If looks could kill...."

DC could have done a lot with Kara, but chose to keep her in the background as a subsidiary and adjunct to the "marketable property."  They eventually won their war with Fawcett and what need then to retain and develop the "Superman Family?"  Rather than finding something to do with SG that had dignity DC eventually just "erased her" as if she had never existed.  I see Crisis as DC's attempt to throw out the trash before sifting through it for gems.

I thought a much better end for Kara would have been to exile her to the Legion's 30th Century to continue her adventures there.  Timetrapper?  She always seemed to belong there a lot more than Superboy did (with a lot fewer continuity problems).

[JulianPerez]

I have always felt that the Supergirl stories before she was adopted by the Danvers are some of the lamest (and most juvenile) of all DC superhero comics of the late 1950s/early 1960s, although I must admit she has some pretty stiff competition from most of the contemporary Wonder Woman comics, and some of the more outlandish Batman stories.

Supervillains - or indeed any villains - are usually noticeable by their absence in this period, and stories revolving around Supergirl/Linda helping other orphans to get adopted, or solving their insignificant problems make for mind-numbing, boring reading - at least to this reader.

I prefer the Superman Family period of Supergirl most of all, when she left college and started working, particularly the Elliott S. Maggin and Jack C. Harris stories, even allowing for the fact that most featured the horrible inks of Vince Colletta.

I second and agree with everything you just said. Those SUPERMAN FAMILY backups were terrific. A special shout-out should be given also to Marty Pasko's Supergirl stories, like "The Girl with the See-Thru Mind."

I always found Supergirl an enormously appealing character, more so even than Superman at the gut-level: A teen-aged girl who could break open the head of the toughest DC bad guy, but also with a genuinely sweet personality who would burst into tears if a boy gave her flowers.

Supergirl is an emotional person, but I can't see her for a second crying because a boy gave her flowers. That girl is a very, very tough person.

It's only retroactively, by guys that don't understand the character like Alan Moore, did she become "Gidget."

Awkwardness with superpowers

Also another characteristic someone as competent as Supergirl does not have.

It would have been great to send her on a couple of dates with a Reggie type.... "If looks could kill...."

There are many characters I can see as dating jerks. Pre-Englehart Scarlet Witch, for instance, comes to mind, because she was impressionable and not a very assertive person (which changed when she got the courage to admit she loved an artificial man).

Supergirl is very, very low on that list as well. Like I said, she's tough.

[Super Monkey]

I always found Supergirl an enormously appealing character, more so even than Superman at the gut-level: A teen-aged girl who could break open the head of the toughest DC bad guy, but also with a genuinely sweet personality who would burst into tears if a boy gave her flowers.

Supergirl is an emotional person, but I can't see her for a second crying because a boy gave her flowers. That girl is a very, very tough person.

It's only retroactively, by guys that don't understand the character like Alan Moore, did she become "Gidget."

cough...

"Physically, she's the mightiest female of all time!  But at heart, she's as gentle and sweet and is as quick to tears as any ordinary girl!  I guess that's why everyone who meets her loves her!"
 - Action Comics No. 285, February 1962