PLEASE BE MY SUPER-GIRLFRIEND! I PROMISE I'LL GIVE YOU BUBBLE GUM AND SPOILER WARNINGS!
Title: "
Supergirl's Three Super-Girlfriends!"
Release Date: May,
1961
Writer: Jerry Siegel
Penciller: Jim Mooney
Inker: Fingercuffs
LSH Roll Call: Saturn Girl,
Phantom Girl,
Triplicate Girl,
Brainiac 5,
Sun Boy,
Cosmic Boy,
Lightning Lad,
Shrinking Violet,
Bouncing Boy
Guest Stars: None
Bad Guys: None
Cameos: Lori Lemaris,
Krypto
So what happens?
(remember, most of these stories take place pre-
Crisis on Infinite Earths)
Linda Lee,
Supergirl's
alter ego is disappointed and
lonely because
Superman hasn't yet revealed her
existence to the world, and she can't share the fact that she's super-powered with any of her
girlfriends in the
orphanage. All this changes when she receives a
telepathic command to meet
someone by a local
river. Supergirl, after first sending her Linda Lee
robot to take her place at the orphanage, proceeds to the appointed place, and meets a
mysterious girl in a mask made of
lead, who tells Supergirl that she'll be her friend if Supergirl can guess her
identity. Supergirl is puzzled when suddenly, a disembodied
female voice tells Supergirl that
she'll be her friend too. Then a girl approaches from the nearby
forest, telling Supergirl that she'll also gladly be friends with Supergirl ... in fact will be three friends to Supergirl as this girl suddenly splits into identical
triplets.
Supergirl figures out the girl in the lead mask is
Saturn Girl, who then reveals the identities of the two other girls: Phantom Girl and Triplicate Girl! They've come to invite
Kara back to the
30th Century to try again for membership in the
Legion of Super-Heroes. Supergirl gladly agrees.
At the membership trial, Supergirl is informed that Legion rules have changed so that one male and one female applicant is accepted into the Legion each year, and thus she meets
Brainiac 5, the descendant of Superman's arch-
foe,
Braniac. Supergirl can hardly believe Brainiac 5 is a
hero but he manages to convince her by telling her the history of Superman's ultimate defeat of Braniac and how subsequent members of the Brainy clan learned to be good rather than evil from the battles Supes and Brainiac had. He then gives Supergirl his invincible
force shield belt just in time to
protect her from a
Kryptonite meteor that crashes at her feet. Convinced by this act of
selflessness, Supergirl accepts
B5's offer of friendship, and proceeds to her initiation
test, which is the same one she faced last year: perform a suitably heroic
super feat.
Working at
super-speed Supergirl locates and recovers three
mythical artifacts:
Excalibur, the helmet of
Achilles, and the belt worn by King
Richard the Lion-hearted. This definitely wows the Legionnaires, and so she is accepted as a member, along with Brainiac 5, who tells Kara to keep the force shield belt to take home with her back to the 20th century.
Right after Supergirl's induction ceremony and before she leaves to return to her home of
Midvale, Braniac 5, beginning one of the longest episodes of
unrequited love in
comic book history, asks Supergirl to stay in the 30th century to "be my girl". Supergirl, flattered, declines, returning home. She then telephatically
hails her
mermaid friend
Lori Lemaris asking Lori to find a lead-lined chest under the floor of the
ocean. Lori does so, and we discover that Supergirl, with the aid of the force shield belt, has decided to
remove all Kryptonite from
Earth, but while doing so, accidentally damages the belt which becomes
inoperable.
Satisfied with her adventures, her new status as Legionnaire, and knowing she really does have girlfriends with whom she can share her super-heroic secrets, Supergirl returns to the orphanage, reflecting on how lucky she is.
Cool Moments!
If you're up on Legion
continuity, you know the final,
chilling fate of King Arthur's sword, and if you're not ...
stay tuned! Brrr.
Khronic Kryptonite Kalamaties Kause Kara Zor-El Konstant Konsternation Department, Section 2
Dammit, if it weren't for the Kryptonite, Supergirl coulda had a faaaaaaaaabulous belt to accent her Supergirl
outfit.
The Future Hasn't Been Written Yet Department:
Saturn Girl's
only method of disguising her identity from Kara is the leaden mask. She's the only
blonde female Legionnaire Kara knows, and Saturn Girl's costume has the planet
Saturn emblazoned across the
bodice. Yet Supergirl is
mystified for more than a page. Buuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Also, Brainy gains membership in this issue, yet we saw him as an active member all the way back in the Legion's first appearance, though he was
unnamed. It would all
hang in there fine if the Legion, from their
point of view, actually had inducted Supergirl before Superboy.
Alas, it is later borne out that that's not what happened, so this minor
glitch in the space-time continuum will have to go unexplained.
The Legion appears to this day in monthly comics published by DC Comics.
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