The 00s Meet the Early 60s

That system was great. Unfortunately, the children who were raised on that era of comics grew up, the culture changed, but many of us still love our old comics. The only problem is that we also have learned critical thinking skills. Comics are aimed more at teenagers now so they can't be written as taking place in a fever dream anymore. Critics now look for plot holes and give real time feedback if the plot doesn't make sense. It's great that comics are better written now, but it does come at a loss of some insane energy that used to be present. Maybe you can't write 1960s style comics anymore, but at least one writer tried to merge the worlds.

The Peter David run of Supergirl never had problems with dipping into surrealism. What other comic book would have an 8 year old boy who may or may not be God interacting with the superheroes? After the 50th issue where things were never the same, the comic got a little muddled and seemed to lose its way. Sales dipped and the book was cancelled after an 80 issue run. The last five issues revived the title, unfortunately too late to save it, but they're a great read.

Part 1: The 60s come to the 00s The Supergirl of the title (wearing the white outfit popularized in the cartoons) was minding her own business when a rocket crashed containing the Silver Age version. She was bubbly and energetic and believed in her own laws of physics. The modern day hero (from now on, referred to as Linda) meets her counterpart (Kara Zor-El) doing a handstand. Linda wonders what she's doing.



Go on. Take a guess. If you saw someone doing that, what would you think she was doing? I guess the answer depends on when the last time you read an old comic book was. You see, Kara heard a report of a comet heading towards the earth and...



This is something that Superman did on a regular basis in the 60s. Moving planets around was one of his powers. Of course, when they drew that, they never drew him to scale with the planet. He was always the size of a city or a state which made it look a little more feasible. Drawn like this, it just looks silly, as Linda points out.



...repeatedly...



Right away you can see the theme of the run. Kara Zor-El is innocence and silliness. Linda Danvers is skepticism and adulthood. It doesn't just come into play with Kara's... unique... mix of science...



...but Kara is innocent in other ways too, of course:



I love the, "Uhm... Okay" of that panel. Not only was Kara not using her x-ray vision to look at naked boys, she doesn't even get what Linda was insinuating.

The heart of the story lies in a conversation that Kara and Linda have one night. Kara is worried about what they can do and if it's important or not so she asks



Innocence isn't just not thinking about sex and having naive attitudes towards science. It's also asking a question that people don't think to ask. Maybe it's because life has beaten them down to the point where they don't even think it's a conceivable option or perhaps they're just tired of thinking about the ramifications of their actions, but I can't picture Linda wondering about that on her own. She might wonder if she can trust Buzz or if Wally is who he claims, but she is a modern realistic hero. Kara might be a silly girl, but her boring purity and lack of grey areas can also be an inspiration.

The story quickly goes back to mocking the old comics. Linda has to reveal her identity to save her friends



which leads to all sorts of mocking about the secret identity stories of the 60s. And in the middle of the mockery, the story changes.



Part Two

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