Supergirl #6 - The Gang Lords.

This is it.

It's the 1970s.

And that can only mean one thing.

It's time for Supergirl to get relevant.

Having taken a part-time job somewhere or other in order to get credit points for her university course in whatever it is she's actually studying, Supergirl soon learns that two local street gangs are on the brink of war with each other.

One of the street gangs, led by Rick, is nice and is happily constructing buildings to improve the local neighbourhood.

The other gang, which used to be led by Rick before he reformed, is led by Steve and wants to smash him and his new gang's members' heads in for, "Selling out to The Man."

Of course, Supergirl can't allow this sort of thing to go on. She does, after all, represent The Man. So, after saving Steve's gang from accidentally gassing themselves, she convinces them to have a meeting with Rick's gang and make peace.

The only problem is there's a saboteur out to make sure both gangs get stuck into each other.

Needless to say, Supergirl soon sorts it all out by exposing the identity of the saboteur, and Rick's gang and Steve's agree to bury the hatchet and team up to construct yet more buildings between them.

If I thought previous stories in this series were slight, they were nothing compared to this one. Supergirl's now using her mighty planet-busting powers to stop a fight breaking out.

Oddly enough, it's a development I quite like. Even though she's ridiculously over-powered for such a role, Supergirl's basic niceness seems like a good fit for such minor do-goodery and it's all good, wholesome stuff that will no doubt convince many a big city American street gang to mend its ways and reform.

Or possibly not.

Wonder Woman comics that I have read.

It was certainly a big night last night for fans of strong-willed women who do what they want when they want and how they want, as Kate Bush took the stage for the start of her first tour in thirty five years.

Admittedly, her tour consists of playing just one venue over and over and over again until she wears a hole in the stage floor but, still, at least she made the effort to travel to the venue and didn't insist on making the fans come to her house to see her - like I would have done.

But what of that other strong-willed woman from our formative years? The one with the lasso and the invisible plane? The one who never sang of Heathcliff but became an icon just the same?

It can only be Wonder Woman. And here's where I take at look at the Wonder Woman comics I read in those formative years when I was too young to notice that she got tied up in every issue and too young to surmise as to why she got tied up in every issue.

To be honest, I've not read any of them since then, so my memories are likely to be a little hazy.

Still, even if I don't know what I'm talking about, I can at least admire the pretty pictures.

I don't know if this mag counts as being part of Wonder Woman's Emma Peel years or not. She's not in her old dominatrix gear but she is hanging around with Amazons. It almost hints that DC were trying to have their cake and eat it.

This one I do remember. Wonder Woman and Catwoman are after some sort of idol in Tibet or Kathmandu or Timbuktu or one of those other places that you didn't believe really existed when you were a kid.

Shoot me down in flames but, almost uniquely in fandom, I like Catwoman's Puss in Boots look from this era.

Right on, sister. Wonder Woman smacks us all in the face with a great big dose of women's lib as she takes on a department store owner who hasn't had a proper sprinkler system fitted in his workplace.

And you can read my review of this issue right here.

Clearly, sorting out department store sprinkler systems didn't grab DC's editorial staff overly-much as a future direction for the strip because, just one issue later, Wonder Woman gets back to her old style and comes up against her sister Nubia, with not a fire prevention measure in sight.

The villain in this tale has a head that's a giant domino. Exactly how one ends up with a head that's a giant domino, I have no idea.

Call me overly-Freudian but I think I may detect something vaguely suggestive about the cover of this book.

To be honest, I'm not totally sure if I have actually ever read this issue but the cover look familiar, so I'm assuming I have.

Either way, I have no idea what happens inside other than what the cover suggests to me happens inside.

Proof positive that bondage can be a bonding experience for both mother and daughter.

I do always feel it must be weird for Wonder Woman to have a mother who doesn't seem to be any older than she is.

Then again, it must be fairly weird knowing that she's a statue that was brought to life.

Yet again, I recall nothing of the contents but if the story really does feature a giant, evil chess piece attacking people with an axe, I suspect the failing is on my part rather than the comic's.

"You can't make me talk," says Wonder Woman, talking. Doh!

Supergirl #5 - The Devil's Brother.

Satan. As we all know, he can be a bit of a cheeky one, getting up to no end of mischief and trouble.

But what about his brother?

We're about to find out - as Supergirl comes up against that self-same diabolical sibling.

As it turns out, that's not who she's up against at all. She's up against the ruler of some other dimension, who just sort of very vaguely looks a bit like the devil might if he were bright green and had fairly pitiful pair of horns on his forehead.

Here's what happens.

After receiving a strange book written in a strange language, our heroine starts to lose her powers.

This is bad news, as she's meant to be taking a bunch of kids to a funfair and, needless to say, they keep pestering her to do super things of which she's not currently capable.

Supergirl being Supergirl, it's not long before the trip to the funfair leads her to another dimension where she meets its feared ruler Dax who says he's the one responsible for the loss of her powers. He says he'll give them back to her - and release one of the kids who he's holding hostage - if she promises to help him defeat some rebels who are trying to overthrow his tyrannical reign and bring freedom to their planet.

Supergirl agrees and, interrupting their plan to blow up a nuclear reactor, brings the rebels to him.

Just as it seems she's done the dirty on them, she then pulls a fast one, thanks to a wristwatch she's rigged to fire knock-out gas at Dax, thus ending his reign of terror and handing control of the planet to the rebels.

And, with that, Supergirl can return to our own world, hostage and superpowers intact and complete her visit to the funfair.

It has to be said there are certain things leap out at you with this tale.

One is that, when Supergirl meets up with the rebels, they're about to blow up a nuclear reactor and release its deadly radiation upon the general public.

Call me judgemental if you want but, to me, that makes them sound like raving lunatics who'd be labelled terrorists in any sane society. And is Supergirl really sure these are a safe bunch of people to leave in charge of a planet?

The other thing is, why does she rig a wristwatch to fire gas at Dax and knock him out? She has her superpowers back by this stage and hasn't made any kind of pledge not to use them against him. Fully supered up, all she has to do is belt him one.

All I can conclude is that Supergirl, like Satan's oldest foe, really does work in mysterious ways.

Speaking of working in mysterious ways.

Where's Wanda Five?

Yes, five issues in and there's still no sign of Supergirl's issue #1 flatmate around whom it seemed an entire story arc was going to be built. Fans of UK soap opera Coronation Street will remember the sad case of Tracy Barlow, a character who spent fifteen years unseen, in her room, listening to music cassettes, before reappearing, sporting a brand new face and transformed into a psychotic murderer.

We can only hope the same fate doesn't await Wanda Five.

Supergirl #4 - The Borrowed Brain.

As we all know, no good ever came of having a brain.

I happen to know this because I happen to know that all the worst ideas in human history were conceived by people with a brain.

If only we all had the intellectual development of a lettuce; how peaceful the world would be.

Well, that was all very philosophical. I feel like Stan Lee, rappin' with his readers in Stan's Soapbox.

As regards the brain situation, clearly this is a rap that needs laying down on Supergirl, as she literally - and unwisely - gives a would-be master criminal a piece of her mind.

What happens is this. As desperate for a bunk-up as ever, Linda Danvers instantly falls in love with David, a student she meets at a pool party.

It's true! Stay clear of his sappy love, Linda!

With the inevitability of night following day, it turns out he's a criminal genius who only wants to hang around with Linda so he can use her as an alibi. You have to hand it to Supergirl, her homing beacon for inappropriate romance never seems to get weaker.

Sadly, David isn't as bright as he thinks he is because, trying to get brownie points with the authorities, he gives himself massive brain damage whilst saving one of Linda's flatmates from death in a swimming pool.

Well, there's no way Supergirl's going to let her latest dreamboat be a vegetable for the rest of his life. So, with the aid of a Kandorian scientist, she transfers some of her brain cells into David's head.

Don't try this at home, kids.

There's only one problem.

The new brain cells promptly give him super powers, enabling him to embark on an even better life of crime than before.

Except it doesn't - because no sooner has he begun his super crime spree than he loses his powers and Supergirl hands him in to the cops.

Will Linda Danvers ever develop the sense to find a decent boyfriend?

Obviously not.

After all, where would DC's Silver and Bronze Age writers have been without every boyfriend she ever had turning out to be a robot/woman/horse/statue/murderer/ghost/whatever?

On the face of it, this issue should be a reason to celebrate as, after three issues of Supergirl coming up against no kind of threat to her at all, she finally comes up against someone who can be a match for her, thus theoretically upping the dramatic stakes.

Sadly, the dramatic stakes remain well and truly un-upped, as no sooner has she encountered David in his super form than he promptly loses his powers. Again, I suspect this is down to the comic having to accommodate a Zatanna back-up strip and therefore the page count having to be kept down.

Yet again, there's no mention whatsoever of mysterious flatmate Wanda Five. I really would love to know just what happened with that storyline. I'm starting to wonder if Supergirl's murdered her and the truth is being kept from us.

Zatanna meets the Pied Piper - Supergirl #2.

Only the other day, I suggested that part of the reason why Supergirl's adventures in her own 1970s comic were neither involved nor involving was because she only had part of the comic to herself and it inherently limited how complex the tales could get.

That's because, even though it was her comic, she was having to share it with that enchanting enchantress of enchantment Zatanna - not to be confused with Satanna.

Perhaps that, therefore, is my cue to take a look at what the Mistress of Magic was up to in issue #2 while Supergirl was trying to inflate Kandor.

It seems that the city Zatanna is in is being overrun by rats.

Quick as a flash, she comes up with the solution.

She'll go back in time and bring the Pied Piper to the present, so he can deal with the rats, leaving her free to do whatever it is she does when other people are doing the donkey work for her.

Needless to say, no sooner has she arrived back in Hamelin than she's attacked by ergot-crazed locals who hack her to pieces and...

...Oh.

No.

That doesn't happen. Instead, she finds the Pied Piper all set to dispatch the rats and steal the town's children. Our heroine makes a quick attempt to prevent their abduction, fails and promptly loses all interest in them. All she cares about is chin-wagging amiably with their abductor.

Totally unfazed by her claims to be from the future, he agrees to go back with her.

Except it doesn't work. When she gets back to the present, there's no sign of him.

But then who shows up? Why, it's the local rat-catcher. And blow me down with a feather if he isn't the spitting image of the Pied Piper. It seems fate works in mysterious ways.

I'd like to say it's a masterpiece but the truth is it's pretty lame. We have to put up with Zatanna delivering half her lines backwards, which means you have to make far too much effort to find out what she's saying and, when you do, it turns out she's not said anything interesting.

There's also the issue of the stolen children. Obviously, Zatanna has to accept she can't rewrite history but she could try showing some sort of concern over their fate and at least ask the Piper just what he's done with them. Instead, she seems to forget all about them the moment she realises she can't save them.

There're no credits given for the tale but it's pretty clear it's drawn by Don Heck on one of his midling days, though I suspect I see the hand of Dick Giordano in the inking.

So, there you go. Enchanted it may have been, but magic it wasn't.

Or perhaps I should say, "T'nsaw ti cigam."

I am now going to make ten million people read this post.

Tsop siht ta kool, elpoep noillim net.

Supergirl #3 - The Garden of Death.

There aren't many people in this world who can come up with plans even more unlikely than the Maid of Might's but Supergirl issue #3 provides us with just such an individual.

After being dumped by her latest boyfriend, our heroine discovers that horticulturalist Albert Brooks, the father of a fellow student of hers, has been arrested for murdering various people, including local crime boss, "Lucky Coin," Lacey.

With all the evidence pointing toward him, it looks like curtains for Brooks.

But it's not long before the clue-happy Kandorian discovers he's been framed by Lacey who's alive and well and, thanks to a crooked plastic surgeon, now looks and sounds exactly like Brooks.

His plan is this;

He's framed Brooks for his murder, so that Supergirl will get involved and clear Brooks. Then, when Brooks is released, Lacey can kidnap him, kill him and take his place, on the grounds that no one would suspect him of having killed and replaced the man who's just been cleared of murdering him.

This plan, of course, depends on his fake body being found, even though it's buried in a private garden, Supergirl getting involved, Supergirl believing Brooks to be innocent for no good reason, Supergirl clearing Brooks and then losing all interest in the case and making no attempt at all to solve it from that point on.

Call me a sceptic but, given all the variables involved, I can see no way this plan could possibly succeed. Nor can I see why Lacey didn't just kill Brooks and take his place without all the other stuff involved, thus avoiding the involvement of Supergirl who's clearly going to be the biggest threat to his plan's prospects of success.

As with the other tales I've so far reviewed in this series, it's all a bit tame, as, for the second time in three issues, Kara goes all Murder She Wrote on us and faces no danger to herself whatsoever.

Admittedly, there is a scene where she's eaten by a giant Venus flytrap - whose presence is never explained - but there's never any threat that it's going to be able to do her any actual harm.

Probably the real mystery that sticks in the mind in this issue is the whereabouts of Wanda Five.

I'm sure you recall that, in issue #1, she was introduced to us as Linda Danvers' enigmatic new flatmate - the one with strange alien artefacts in her room. At the end of that tale, we were left in no doubt that the solving of that riddle was going to be a major plank of the series and probably its driving force. In this tale, however, Linda now has two totally different flatmates who we've never seen before and there's not a mention of Wanda Five. Where on Earth - or off it - has she got to and how has Supergirl so totally forgotten about her?

Of course, anyone with any sense would at this point be asking why I'm bothering to review Supergirl stories when they're totally tame, lack any kind of tension and make no sense.

The answer's simple. Like Supergirl herself, these tales have a strange charm that defies all attempts at critical analysis. They're just oddly likeable. Like candy floss.

Forty years ago today - August 1974.

What's this? Claims in the news that there are plans to link-up Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle into one mighty northern mega-city of awesomeness?

But were our favourite Marvel heroes of exactly forty years ago being equally awesome?

Or were they, instead, being as thrilling as a dead whippet in Wetwang?

Only a trip in Steve Does Comics' ferret-stuffed flat cap of Time can tell us.

Behold! The Past!

Is there something wrong with me? I have no recollection at all of ever having read this story, even though it must, presumably, be reprinted in an Essential Avengers book that I  have in a cupboard not more than five feet away from where I'm sat right now.

It's madness, I tell you! Madness!

I suspect, from the title, that things have got so bad for our Antediluvian aggro-meister that he can't even meet vegetables now without them wanting to kill him.

It's the classic tale where Steve Rogers has one almighty great mard-fit and decides to quit being Captain America.

Hooray! The Mandrill shows up!

Admittedly, I can never see the name, "Mandrill," without being reminded of an unwatchable TV show called Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters that Yorkshire TV insisted on inflicting on late night viewers in the early 1980s. How our brains melted in the merciless onslaught of their Country and Westernness. Frankly, just the thought of having to watch that show inflicted more terror into my heart than even a talking, homicidal, sexed-up baboon ever could. And those aren't words I say lightly.

Subby's back and causing yet more mischief for our heroes.

Biblical allegory gets laid on with a trowel as Warlock does the Jesus thing.

I can't help feeling that any tale that has the Mandarin, the Unicorn, Sunfire and The Yellow Claw in it might prove to be a little overcrowded - especially in the ego department.

It's another classic John Romita cover as Spider-Man and the Punisher team up to tackle the Tarantula.

Galactus being a bit of a sad-sack there.

I am totally unfamiliar with this tale but, to be honest, if I was labelled, "The Sub-Human," I'd probably want to smash things up too.

Supergirl #2 - The Death of a City.

Crikey! Has it really been a week since I reviewed issue #1 of the maid of might's very own 1970s comic?

That can only mean one thing.

I have to review issue #2!

And I will!

Discovering that her university professor Allan is on the verge of death just as he's about to make a breakthrough in the treatment of sickle cell anaemia, Supergirl takes him into the bottled city of Kandor, in the hope that, there, she can find a cure for whatever it is that's afflicting him.

Inevitably, not all goes to plan and it's not long before the pair find themselves kidnapped by a giant bird.

Still, our heroine is never one to give up and it's not much longer than that before she's located the coffin of a Kandorian scientist who conveniently has the cure for all known ailments, clutched in his dead hands.

Sadly, it's only after she's administered Allan with the cure for everything that Supergirl realises it tends to make its recipient grow at an alarming rate.

Thus it is that he's now growing uncontrollably, is too big to get out of the bottle and is in imminent danger of crushing the entire city to death.

That's when Supergirl comes up with a solution that has to be one of the stupidest that even she's ever contrived, as, having exited it, she super-heats the bottle to make it malleable and then inflates it with her super-breath, so she can pull Alan out of it before it's too late.

Now, I don't like to poke holes in things but how on Earth do the people of Kandor possibly survive this mega-exposure to furnace-like heat and the massive pressure of her super-breath?

That's, of course, assuming that they do survive.

In fact, we never see them again from that point on in the story. So perhaps they don't survive. Perhaps Supergirl's just killed the lot of them and we're being spared the distressing truth by writer Cary Bates and penciller Art Saaf.

The truth is that, Supergirl's homicidal methodology aside, it's a slight tale. You can't help feeling the main strip's suffering from the fact it's having to share the comic with a Zatanna back-up tale, meaning space constraints are forcing the main story to be on the flimsy side.

Oh well, we do at least get to see Supergirl fighting giant octopuses - and what more could a man or woman want in life?

Fifty years ago today - August 1964.

As all the finest scholars know, the month of August didn't get that name by accident.

Good grief, no.

It's named after August Darnell of Kid Creole and the Coconuts fame.

But were our favourite Marvel heroes of fifty years ago going nuts? Or were they just sitting back and drinking their cocoa?

There's only way to find out.

It would appear that the Enchantress and the Executioner have teamed up with Baron Zemo to cause trouble for Marvel's finest.

The super-soar-away Owl makes his debut.

You can't help feeling that, if he'd played his cards right, the Owl could have been Daredevil's answer to the Kingpin.

Clearly he didn't play his cards right, and the Kingpin ended up being Daredevil's answer to the Kingpin.

But take a look at DD. How could anyone not love that red and yellow costume?

How?

How??

I believe this tale sees the return of the Red Ghost and yet another trip to the moon for our heroes.

The Grey Gargoyle makes his debut.

I've always liked the Grey Gargoyle. Leaving aside the fact he spells, "Grey," the British way, he's always seemed a most unpleasant cove and a bit of a bounder.

It's clearly a big month for debuts, as Kraven the Hunter makes his first appearance.

Swipe me down with a can of Raid! It's yet another dastardly debut, as the Beetle shows his face for the first time.

But there's a worse peril for the Human Torch around, as Dr Strange now has fifty percent of the cover - and a battle with Loki to give us! How can our flaming phenomenon ever hope to see off such a challenge?

The Unicorn makes his horny debut.

Well, with all these great villains making their first appearances this month, just what legendary foe can Giant-Man give us?

That's right.

It's Colossus.

No wonder Hank Pym went mad.