Supergirl is going through something of a renaissance lately. It all started with 2002’s Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, a beloved eight-issue series that would bring the Maid of Might back to prominence, and is about to be the next big screen installment of the DCU. Kara Zor-El rejoined the cast of the Superman books in Action Comics #1050, and has since been making more and more appearances, leading to DC giving Supergirl her own amazing series in 2025. She’s finally becoming a superstar, or rather becoming one again, as before her death in the groundbreaking Crisis on Infinite Earths, she was one of the most popular and important members of the Superman family.
Her death was part of the symbolic death of DC’s Silver and Bronze Ages, which was the whole point of Crisis, but it wasn’t the end of her existence. Nothing really ends in superhero comics, but post-Crisis DC did change the lore of Krypton. At this point, Superman was the sole survivor of the planet, but eventually, readers would go to another world whether they met a new kind of Supergirl: Matrix, a protoplasmic shapeshifting life form made by Lex Luthor that acted as her Earth’s Supergirl. She ended up back on the regular Earth and continued the role, falling in love with Lex Luthor II (really Lex in a younger clone body), and it all would lead to the greatest version of the Teen of Steel: the Linda Danvers version from the classic Supergirl (Vol. 4) #1-80, from the late great Peter David.
Supergirl (Vol. 4) Made Everything Old New Again
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Matrix was a great Supergirl, but Supergirl (Vol. 4) #1 would make the character even better. In this issue, she ends up bonding with a teen girl named Linda Danvers (which was the pre-Crisis civilian name Kara Zor-El used). The pairing saw many of Linda’s memories being hidden, and the book was often about Matrix’s search to find who Linda Danvers was. This was also a fair metaphor for the series. The Maid of Might was a character with a very unique and honestly a bit crazy background. The Silver Age saw creators go mad with weird little changes to the character.
David realized how much all of this affected the hero over the years and set out to answer the answer of the question of who she was by exploring older ideas and themes from her stories with Linda’s own history, unfolding both for readers of the book. David was teamed with Gary Frank in the beginning and it was sensational. The two had worked together before on The Incredible Hulk (my favorite era of David’s Hulk run), and were able to bring wild, gorgeously rendered action and emotional imagery that sold the book’s primary thesis — learning the secrets of these women — adroitly.
Anyone familiar with Kryptonian history knows how weird it can be, but Supergirl is very different from Superman. The Man of Steel dealt with Fifth Dimensional imps, 12th level intelligences, wild Kryptonite changes, and gaslighting everyone. The Maid of Might had her own hallucinogenic adventures, including the whole Comet the Superhorse thing (he was a centaur who was in love with Kara), and David used newer, more modernied pieces of the Silver Age legends of Supergirl. It was one of the reasons that post-Crisis DC in the ’90s was so great; creators finding new ways to use old ideas. The best of them, like David, were able to work magic.
Meanwhile, the secrets of the post-Crisis Linda Danvers played a huge role in the book, as readers got to the dark truth about her. This would lead to its next phase, as her powers started to change and she became new. David was able to take Silver Age concepts that ’90s fans scoffed at, bring them back in ways that they loved, and use it all to tell his own story about his own Supergirl that is just as great as any of the ones that came before. It made the heroine into a modern legend, but the changing tides of the DC Universe would see it all end.
The Resurrection of Supergirl Changed Everything
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DC Comics in the ’00s was a changing place. Creators wanted to bring back the classic DC Multiverse. That meant Matrix’s adventures had to end so that the real Kara Zor-El could appear in Superman/Batman story “The Supergirl from Krypton” (which is excellent). However, David’s story continued in Fallen Angel, a creator owned book at DC and IDW. It ran for 20 issues at DC, 33 at IDW, and ended with two more miniseries.
The Matrix Supergirl was the Supergirl of the post-Crisis generation of readers, and she proved the promise of this bygone era of DC Comics. She was changed significantly, but the core of the character was reconstructed beautifully over 80 issues. She became something new, but also classic. It worked brilliantly, and left a legacy of great stories in its wake. Most of it is out of print, but if you have ever chance to get your hands on this classic, you need to. It’s one of the most inventive eras of Krypton’s favorite daughter.
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