Supergirl

One of the things you just have to get used to if you read super-hero comics is the fact that, unlike here in the real world, "death" is very often an inconvenience rather than a permanent state (unless you're Bucky, Uncle Ben, or Captain Marvel...comic book fans will understand that comment...you non comic book fans don't worry about it, it's not that important.)

In 1985, Superman's first cousin, Kara Zor-El...better known as Supergirl...was given a dramatic, much-hyped send off in the pages of Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 (see above.) Wailing was heard throughout the land...vengeance was sworn...chests were pounded...there wasn't a dry eye in the place...

Since then a couple of other young ladies have taken up the mantle of Supergirl...one was protoplasmic artificial shape-changing lifeform from a dead universe who later became a flame-winged angel (hey, I wish I was making this up but I'm not...) and another was the time-traveling daughter of Clark Kent and Lois Lane from an alternate timeline (ibid.)...and the history of the fictional DC Comics Universe rolled along smoothly (well, not really...but the road between 1985 and 2005 is so convoluted that if I tried to explain it all of our heads would explode so I'll leave it be.)

20 years after Kara's heroic demise, this young lady is about the star in her own comic as the newest Supergirl:



Her name is, perhaps unsurprisingly, Kara Zor-El...and she is (apparently) Superman's first cousin, of course. Everything old is new again...especially in super-hero comics. Death be not proud...and, very often in comics, death be not permanent either...it's one of those things you just have to accept if you're going to be a comic book reader. So when Supergirl #1 comes out this summer, I'll buy it and probably enjoy it and not give it a second thought that this character "died" 20 years ago. We comic book fans are sometimes a strange lot :-)