What was Supergirl up to exactly 40 years ago?

As you've no doubt noticed, one of this blog's sensational new features that's sweeping the Internet like a raging wildfire of chat is the one where I post a bunch of covers that tell us what our favourite heroes were up to exactly 40 years ago, and then briefly comment on them.

But those of you with senses as sharp as Eagle-Eye Action Man and minds as grasptastic as his gripping hands'll have noticed it only tends to concern Marvel heroes. No doubt the more astute among you'll have concluded that, like any competent blogger would, I'm going to have a separate set of posts dealing with the DC heroes.

And you'd be wrong.

I'm not competent.

In fact I planned to do the DC heroes alongside the Marvel ones but, looking at the DC covers, I didn't recognise any of them or have the slightest clue what happened in the pages within.

Now, as I've sometimes demonstrated, I'm perfectly happy to review comics I've not read - take my sterling Iron Man recaps in that 40 Years Ago feature - but doing it for seven or eight comics at a time is pushing it even by my standards. Therefore I've chosen the troubadour's approach and bottled it.

The one exception is Supergirl.

I'm not going to claim I've read every Silver and Bronze Age Supergirl story, because Silver Age Supergirl stories are like that thing you do as kids where you challenge yourself to come up with the largest number you can imagine. No matter what number you produce, you can always think of a bigger one. And so it is with Silver Age Supergirl. No matter how many stories you've read, there always seem to be more that you haven't. I happen to know from a scientist - the kind who knows that Gamma Rays turn you green - that the infinite number of Silver Age Supergirl stories means they form a body of work so huge that their mass threatens to suck the universe itself into them.

However, I have read several million Supergirl stories from that time frame and therefore at least recognise most of the covers.

And that means I can launch my latest feature: What was Supergirl up to exactly 40 years ago?

As if to prove the point, I have indeed read the above Adventure Comics #401 from January 1971, but I can't actually remember anything about it. Clearly there're bad people trying to turn Supergirl into a scaredy cat but that's all I could say. There's a man who might be Lex Luthor and a woman who might be her arch-pest of the era Nasty; Lex Luthor's niece. In the absence of either knowledge or wisdom, I will however say it clearly features one of Supergirl's many costumes of that time - the one first introduced in Adventure Comics #398 - and that I like her boots, although the gloves scream of sexual repression and an unhealthy fear of human contact.

As for the story, I'm feeling there's a 98% chance that Supergirl loses her powers at some point and a 95% chance she fakes being scared in order to turn the tables on the villains. There's also a 10% percent chance Superman shows up at the end, to say something like, "I saw with my super-vision that you were in danger but decided to let them kill you to teach you a valuable lesson in life. In fact, so keen was I to see you taught a valuable lesson in life, I was tempted to kill you myself."

If this has happened, there's a 60% chance that Supergirl responds with, "Please don't banish me to another planet," and a 95% probability that Superman says, "Banish you? Why, you silly little fool, I think you're wonderful. If it weren't a criminal offence, I'd marry you. By the way, have you met my new Supergirl robot? She's just like you."

Supergirl would then say, "I know. It's not a robot. It was me all along, pretending to be a robot because I know a robot Supergirl is the perfect wife for you." I honestly think I should be paid to write Supergirl stories. I like to think I have it down pat. I also think I got it off Pat, but Pat doesn't like to talk about it.