The Energon Pub

Am I the only one who thinks they shouldn't have killed off the original Supergirl in Crisis On Infinite Earths? The reason DC gave for doing so was to make Superman unique, but they just brought in a new Supergirl (the "Matrix" Supergirl) a couple of years later. And now we've got a Supergirl who is once again Superman's cousin from Krypton. It would have been a lot less confusing if they just kept the original Supergirl, and had Donna Troy/Wonder Girl sacrifice herself fighting the Anti-Monitor. After they rebooted Wonder Woman as a newly arrived superhero, Donna Troy no longer made sense. So they had to keep giving her new origins (Titans of Myth, Dark Angel, etc.) in an vain attempt to fit her in the post-Crisis DCU. I wonder if DC considered making Donna Troy the "sacrifical lamb" instead of Supergirl, since they were going to reboot Wonder Woman? Or was the decision to reboot WW made at the last minute?

Now, was the actual reason to "make Superman unique" or to "get people interested in the story so they end up buying the comics and to get people re interested in Superman"

Death of characters sell, plain and simple. People want to know why and how it happened, so they end up getting the other issues they missed or the TPB.

Whichever one has the shorter skirt is the one that gets to stay.

I really thought it was that simple...

God Thundercracker wrote:Am I the only one who thinks they shouldn't have killed off the original Supergirl in Crisis On Infinite Earths? The reason DC gave for doing so was to make Superman unique, but they just brought in a new Supergirl (the "Matrix" Supergirl) a couple of years later. And now we've got a Supergirl who is once again Superman's cousin from Krypton. It would have been a lot less confusing if they just kept the original Supergirl, and had Donna Troy/Wonder Girl sacrifice herself fighting the Anti-Monitor. After they rebooted Wonder Woman as a newly arrived superhero, Donna Troy no longer made sense. So they had to keep giving her new origins (Titans of Myth, Dark Angel, etc.) in an vain attempt to fit her in the post-Crisis DCU. I wonder if DC considered making Donna Troy the "sacrifical lamb" instead of Supergirl, since they were going to reboot Wonder Woman? Or was the decision to reboot WW made at the last minute?

Yes, it was. I don't like Kara Zor-El either version of the character, or the liked the idea of having half of Krypton survive. Superman is the sole survior and not having his dog, cousin, aunt, uncle, older brother, cat, horse, monkey, old Krypton Gods, villians, and super computer all survive. Superman is suppose to be a sci-fi version of Moses and/or Jesus not Noah's Ark.
If it were up to me I gladly kill Kara Zor-El off again.

I'll go on record saying that Peter David's 80+ issue run on Supergirl and his 20 issues of Fallen Angel (which was suppose to be the continuing adventures of Linda) was the BEST titles
DC ever published.
IMHO it's better than Watchmen, Starman, V For Vendetta, Sandman, or any other great stories that DC ever published.

Counterpunch wrote:Whichever one has the shorter skirt is the one that gets to stay.

I really thought it was that simple...

I'm on CP's team. This is too classic and eerily legit sounding not to be right. Especially in these 'modern' times we live in....

Cyberstrike wrote:

God Thundercracker wrote:Am I the only one who thinks they shouldn't have killed off the original Supergirl in Crisis On Infinite Earths? The reason DC gave for doing so was to make Superman unique, but they just brought in a new Supergirl (the "Matrix" Supergirl) a couple of years later. And now we've got a Supergirl who is once again Superman's cousin from Krypton. It would have been a lot less confusing if they just kept the original Supergirl, and had Donna Troy/Wonder Girl sacrifice herself fighting the Anti-Monitor. After they rebooted Wonder Woman as a newly arrived superhero, Donna Troy no longer made sense. So they had to keep giving her new origins (Titans of Myth, Dark Angel, etc.) in an vain attempt to fit her in the post-Crisis DCU. I wonder if DC considered making Donna Troy the "sacrifical lamb" instead of Supergirl, since they were going to reboot Wonder Woman? Or was the decision to reboot WW made at the last minute?

Yes, it was. I don't like Kara Zor-El either version of the character, or the liked the idea of having half of Krypton survive. Superman is the sole survior and not having his dog, cousin, aunt, uncle, older brother, cat, horse, monkey, old Krypton Gods, villians, and super computer all survive. Superman is suppose to be a sci-fi version of Moses and/or Jesus not Noah's Ark.
If it were up to me I gladly kill Kara Zor-El off again.

I'll go on record saying that Peter David's 80+ issue run on Supergirl and his 20 issues of Fallen Angel (which was suppose to be the continuing adventures of Linda) was the BEST titles
DC ever published.
IMHO it's better than Watchmen, Starman, V For Vendetta, Sandman, or any other great stories that DC ever published.

I thought Linda Danvers was an okay character, but her origin was as confusing as hell, with that pocket universe and Earth Angel stuff. If you're going to have a Supergirl, it's much simpler for her to just be Superman's cousin. I do agree, however, that we don't need Krypto the Superdog or Streaky the Supercat, though. As for the original Kara Zor-El Supergirl being a boring character, I think Donna Troy is much more boring. But that's just my opinion.

God Thundercracker wrote:Am I the only one who thinks they shouldn't have killed off the original Supergirl in Crisis On Infinite Earths? The reason DC gave for doing so was to make Superman unique, but they just brought in a new Supergirl (the "Matrix" Supergirl) a couple of years later. And now we've got a Supergirl who is once again Superman's cousin from Krypton. It would have been a lot less confusing if they just kept the original Supergirl, and had Donna Troy/Wonder Girl sacrifice herself fighting the Anti-Monitor. After they rebooted Wonder Woman as a newly arrived superhero, Donna Troy no longer made sense. So they had to keep giving her new origins (Titans of Myth, Dark Angel, etc.) in an vain attempt to fit her in the post-Crisis DCU. I wonder if DC considered making Donna Troy the "sacrifical lamb" instead of Supergirl, since they were going to reboot Wonder Woman? Or was the decision to reboot WW made at the last minute?

Well to be 100% accurate the Supergirl to be killed in "Crisis On Infinite Earths" was not the original Supergirl.

The original Supergirl first appeared in Superman #123 and was created by Jimmy Olsen useing a magic totem to wish a "Super-Girl" into existence as a friend and partner for Superman.

As for why they didnt kill Wondergirl instead.........Teen Titans was DC most popular book at the time it would have made no sence for them to kill of one of the most popular members of their most popular book.

sto_vo_kor_2000 wrote:it would have made no sence for them to kill of one of the most popular members of their most popular book.

Somewhere, Doomsday is crying himself to sleep.

Shadowman wrote:

sto_vo_kor_2000 wrote:it would have made no sence for them to kill of one of the most popular members of their most popular book.

Somewhere, Doomsday is crying himself to sleep.

There's no comparison's.....while Superman is one of DC's most known characters his books arent always on the top selling list.

And at both the time of the "COIE" and the "Doomsday" saga sales on Superman books were stagnating.

sto_vo_kor_2000 wrote:Well to be 100% accurate the Supergirl to be killed in "Crisis On Infinite Earths" was not the original Supergirl.

The original Supergirl first appeared in Superman #123 and was created by Jimmy Olsen useing a magic totem to wish a "Super-Girl" into existence as a friend and partner for Superman.

Good point.

I was also under the impression that part of what inspired DC to kill off Kara Zor-El in COIE was the failure of the Supergirl movie as well.

Jaw Crusher wrote:

sto_vo_kor_2000 wrote:Well to be 100% accurate the Supergirl to be killed in "Crisis On Infinite Earths" was not the original Supergirl.

The original Supergirl first appeared in Superman #123 and was created by Jimmy Olsen useing a magic totem to wish a "Super-Girl" into existence as a friend and partner for Superman.

Good point.

I was also under the impression that part of what inspired DC to kill off Kara Zor-El in COIE was the failure of the Supergirl movie as well.

I'm sure it was a factor but by how much is the real question.

What I believe most inspired her death and the change of the "status quo" for the DC universe is that for the 2nd time in just over a decade DC comics was in real danger of going bankrupt.

In the early and mid 70's DC was in so much financial trouble that they were in negotiations to sell all of its characters to Marvel comics.The only hold backs that DC tried to hold on to were the Superman and Batman families of characters.

The 1978 Superman movie saved DC comics as we know it but by the mid 80's Dc comic sales were dropping again.There was a hope that the Supergirl film would do for the comics what the Superman movie did but it failed.

So DC had to do something big not only to Supermans character but to the entire DC universe.

Superman's comics were on a down slope on sales so DC figured if they could bring his character back to the state he was when he was most popular then they could bring the sales back up.

And Supermans most popular era was when he was the "Sole" surviver of Krpton.

The changes to his character were even more far stretching then that.Most of the character changes were referred to as the Marvelizeing of Superman" back in 1985.

The greatly redused his powers and humanised him to a large degree.Making the character of Clark Kent more relevent.

sto_vo_kor_2000 wrote:The changes to his character were even more far stretching then that.Most of the character changes were referred to as the Marvelizeing of Superman" back in 1985.

The greatly redused his powers and humanised him to a large degree.Making the character of Clark Kent more relevent.

The Man of Steel is what got me started reading Superman. I was 12 or 13 at the time. I like the Clark presented there much more than the pre-Crisis and the post-IC Clark they're currently using.

MagnusPrimal wrote:

sto_vo_kor_2000 wrote:The changes to his character were even more far stretching then that.Most of the character changes were referred to as the Marvelizeing of Superman" back in 1985.

The greatly redused his powers and humanised him to a large degree.Making the character of Clark Kent more relevent.

The Man of Steel is what got me started reading Superman. I was 12 or 13 at the time. I like the Clark presented there much more than the pre-Crisis and the post-IC Clark they're currently using.

"Man of Steel" was the first story done featuring the changes to Superman's character.It was written and penned by John Byrne whos previous runs on Marvel's "X-men" and "Alpha Flight" made his a great choise to revamp the Superman myth.