Something I don't understand

[james_davis_nicoll]

Why the change from having Jonathan Kent support Superman's career as a hero to opposing it?

Supergirl, as I recall, has always had someone trying to discourage her. In the old days it was Superman. And I cannot recall if the Danvers had any idea she was Supergirl; they may not have had the option to support or discourage her.

Not that comic book characters age in real time but if she was 16 in her first 1959 appearance, Supergirl would have become an adult at a very interesting time for women's rights in the US...

Comments

[carbonel]

As it happens, I just finished watching the first episode of the new Supergirl TV show. In that, Kal-El placed Kara with the Danvers. They were scientists, and helped him understand his powers, so they always knew about Kara's. Kara made the decision to downplay her powers and be "normal," until one day she wasn't. It also turns out that her (normal) sister was recruited by a government agency in charge of dealing with alien threats -- originally because of her connection to Kara, but she kept the job because she was good at it.

I'm not sure I'm going to keep watching -- it's awfully comic-booky. And I'm assuming there was some trademark issue, because the word "Superman" is never mentioned. It's always "my cousin" or "Kal-El."

[carbonel]

As it happens, I just finished watching the first episode of the new Supergirl TV show. In that, Kal-El placed Kara with the Danvers family. They were scientists, and helped him understand his powers, so they always knew about Kara's. Kara made the decision to downplay her powers and be "normal," until one day she wasn't. It also turns out that her (normal) sister was recruited by a government agency in charge of dealing with alien threats -- originally because of her connection to Kara, but she kept the job because she was good at it.

I'm not sure I'm going to keep watching -- it's awfully comic-booky. And I'm assuming there was some trademark issue, because the word "Superman" is never mentioned. It's always "my cousin" or "Kal-El."

[kithrup.livejournal.com]

I blame Smallville for that, and due to both that, and the horrible Man of Steel, there's an entire generation who think Pa Kent was an asshat.

[davidgoldfarb.livejournal.com]

I don't know whether the Danvers knew what they were getting into from the start, but by the 1962 story "Superman's Super-Courtship" (notable for an early appearance of the adult Legion of Super-Heroes, and for establishing that Krypton didn't allow first cousins to marry) she was able to discuss Supergirl matters with them openly.

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

People aren't supposed to _want_ to be heroes nowadays.

Also, anyone displaying special powers will be squirreled away by the Secrit Gubment down under Area 51 next to the freezer full of dead alien babies.

(I wonder: does Area 51 change hands from Evil Conservatives to Evil Liberals when there is a change of administration?)

[sean o'hara (from livejournal.com)]

The original version of Pa Kent must've been a Klan member and thus saw vigilantes as a natural and good part of American culture, whereas the modern version is a good and upstanding citizen who realizes that extra-legal law enforcement violates fundamental civil liberties and must be discouraged in all circumstances.

[glaurung-quena.livejournal.com]

1960's comics canon had it that Kara was 15 when she came to earth, and there was an issue in which she celebrated her 16th birthday. Also, IIRC, the Danverses learned that Linda was Supergirl shortly after they adopted her, again in the 60's comics.

I worked up a timeline of when, publication schedule-wise, significant events happened in Supergirl's life (high school graduation, etc), but it's on my other computer, I'll post it here in the morning.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Back at the start of the Silver Age, when Kara arrived on Earth, her cousin Kal-El helped her set up her identity as Linda Lee (complete with a long dark wig in plaits) living at an orphange. She was then adopted by (as I recall) a very ordinary couple called Danvers - and she was Linda Lee Danvers at that point. Not only was her identity secret, but Supergirl only operated behind the scenes until Superman decided she was ready and announced Supergirl to the world. I used to own that comic, but then we sold those DCs to buy Marvel.

P.S. So far, so normal. But Supergirl had two animal companions - Streaky the supercat and Comet the Superhorse. Comet was actually the result of a bit of Circe's magic gone wrong - he was actually a centaur who had fallen for Supergirl and asked the witch to make him wholly human so he could court her. Unfortunately, after the failure, there was this period where Supergirl's horse was in love with her... Bet they don't do that on the TV!

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Don't ask me why the change (which started mildly enough in Smallville, but was ramped up off the scale in the Man of Steel film) to Jonathan's role in Supe's life occurred, except for the horrible US habit of having parent/child issues everywhere. The Kents were a very functional family in the comics, particularly after John Byrne reconned the origin to make them survive well into Clark's adulthood.

Sorry for the multiple edit. I really should not reply to stuff at 6:20 am...

[jayblanc.livejournal.com]

This, along with about half of any questions about why someone made some dumb plot decision in any movie, is answerable by "Someone read 'The Elements of Screenwriting' when learning to write screenplays, and no one told them to ignore all the parts of it that are not to do with formatting a screenplay". Generating artificial conflict as being more important than realistic character depth is pretty deeply rooted in Hollywood writing because of the 'this is the correct way to have your plot' sections of that book.

[glaurung-quena.livejournal.com]

Supergirl timeline (by publication date):

May 1959, Kara comes to earth, Superman gives her a secret identity as Linda Lee and puts her in an orphanage, because the writers were aiming more for exactly paralleling the story of Superboy than they were trying to write anything that made sense. Superman also instructs her to keep her existence as Supergirl secret from the world so she can be his "secret weapon."

Over the next several issues, various foster parents consider adopting her, but on Superman's instructions she avoids getting adopted.

November 1960, Supergirl turns 16. To celebrate, Superman subjects her to a series of hazings, because he's a jerk. No other birthdays being commemorated in the comics before this, geeks who obsess about this assume she was 15 when she came to Earth, but she could also have been 14 on her arrival and her 15th birthday went unremarked, just like all the birthdays that followed.

August 1961, Linda is adopted by the Danverses. She does not avoid this adoption because at the time, she has lost her powers and thus is no longer required by Superman to remain at the orphanage. She gets her powers back a couple issues later.

February 1962, Linda tells her foster parents that she is Superman's cousin, and later in the same issue Superman reveals Supergirl's existence to the world.

February 1964, Kara learns that her biological parents did not die along with everyone else in Argo city, but escaped into a phantom dimension (just like but not the same as the phantom zone, because that place is full of Kryptonian criminals and we can't have her parents forced to survive among such reprobates, now can we?). She frees them from the phantom dimension and they take up residence in the bottle city of Kandor.

November 1964, Linda graduates from high school.

May 1971, Linda graduates from college

Linda's post-college careers were quite varied and paid little attention to any kind of plausibility in terms of her resume or qualifications:

May 1971: Clark Kent helps get her a job working for the news crew of KSFTV in San Francisco.

November 1972: Quit broadcasting and enrolled in a (presumably post-grad) drama program at Vandyre University, near San Francisco.

June 1974: Quit drama school and became a counselor at the New Athens Experimental School in Florida.

July 1981: Became the star of a soap opera, "Secret Hearts," in NYC.

November 1982: Linda quits showbiz, is suddenly declared to be only 19 years old, and enrolls as an undergrad in Lake Shore University in Chicago.

[w. dow rieder (from livejournal.com)]

Relevant to the changing portrayal of Superman: 'the CCA prohibited the presentation of "policemen, judges, government officials, and respected institutions ... in such a way as to create disrespect for established authority."'

CCA was the Comics Code Authority in the US, and most outlets would not distribute comics that didn't have its seal from the 50s through the 80s or so.

Now an interesting twist would have been for Pa Kent to oppose Superman's career if he was going to be a code-compliant hero...