Bwahahahah! It’s done! It’s finally done! This project that has taken every spare minute of my time is complete! Long story short. I love the ‘Superman Smashes The Klan’ DC comic! Enough to try to learn Gurihiru’s art style so that I could insert my favorite DC Power couple into the comic universe because they didn’t exist in it! Seems to be a theme with me lately. Any way,this was a labor of love and a challenge for me. I learned a lot studying Gurihiru’s style and also felt like I had so much more to learn by the end of it. I spent a long time on this so I’d love if any Supercorp fans wanted to have some back and forth on the subject. Also please read the original source material, it’s a great story and you won’t be sorry. I went into more detail on this version of the characters in my character design exercise I did of them previously. But just so you know the characters are kinda a combo of stuff I liked and didn’t like about the earliest incarnations of the characters. Here’s hoping I don’t notice any glaring mistakes after I post….

pov: kara gets to choose the couples halloween costume 🤭 (shoutout to brainy who got lena a DEO wig)

THE SUPERMAN FAMILY (1974) #214 written by Martin Pasko art by Win Mortimer

February 1961. If Lex Luthor was a teenager in Smallville when Clark Kent was Superboy, what happened to Lex's family? Jerry Siegel answered that question in a curiously roundabout way about a year later, in a story in SUPERMAN'S GIRL FRIEND LOIS LANE #23. Perry White assigns Lois to "write a story on witchcraft," and sends her to the New England town of Cardiff, where there were witch trials centuries earlier. In Cardiff, Lois visits the local library to learn more about the trials and notices that one of the alleged witches burned at the stake, Louella Thompsons, bore a striking resemblance to the town's current librarian, a young woman with the unusual name of Lena Thorul:

Learning that Lena was orphaned as a child, Lois soon works herself into a froth imagining that Lena is the reincarnation of Louella Thompsons, and that the accidents that killed her family might be the result of black magic. Lois then begins to think she's being watched, and experiences several bizarre events, including the mysterious disappearances of her camera and typewriter. She also narrowly avoids a car accident like the one Lena said killed her parents. Superman, as always in these stories skeptical of any kind of "superstitious magic," is convinced that there must be a scientific explanation — and since evil scientist Lex Luthor recently escaped from prison, Superman concludes there must be a connection. Locating Luthor's secret lab with Lois in tow, Superman finds that Luthor has been using remote "vision-screens" to monitor Cardiff and the Daily Planet offices, and used "super-science rays" to cause the mysterious disappearances of Lois's stuff. Superman even guesses the reason:

Superman then gets Luthor to explain the whole story:

In late 1962, Lena popped up again in the Supergirl strip in ACTION COMICS #295, which reveals that she moved to Midvale not long after her previous appearance. Lena befriends Supergirl in her guise as Linda Lee Danvers and applies for a job as an FBI secretary, but is rejected because, as an FBI official explains to Supergirl, "Our security check on Lena drew a complete blank! No one knows where she came from! There's no birth certificate! All we know is that she was found in the wreckage of a car after a serious accident, and once worked as a librarian in a small town! She's a complete mystery! A girl without a past!" Dismayed, Supergirl — who's unaware of Lois's earlier encounter with Lena — travels back in time and learns what Lex had previously revealed to Superman and Lois about his family.

That story reveals that while Lena's resemblance to Louella Thompsons was a coincidence, Lena does possess extrasensory perception. Learning that his sister has fallen in with a gang of thieves who want to use her psychic abilities for robbery, Luthor asks Supergirl for help:

Luckily, Lena actually uses her extrasensory powers to thwart the gang's attempted bank robbery. As she tells Supergirl:

From this point on, Lena became a semi-regular Supergirl supporting character. About two years later, in ACTION COMICS #317, she married FBI agent Jeff Colby and became Lena Thorul Colby. Supergirl kept her promise to Lex and didn't tell Lena about him, but in the Supergirl stories in THE SUPERMAN FAMILY #213–214 in 1981, Lena found out anyway, and was outraged that Supergirl had never told her the truth. Lena reconnected with Lex — whose concern about her wellbeing was completely genuine, if perhaps misplaced — and Supergirl expressed hope that Lena would eventually forgive her. However, THE SUPERMAN FAMILY #214 was Lena's last pre-Crisis appearance, so it seems they didn't reconcile before Kara's death in the Crisis in 1985.

Unlike in many modern stories, the pre-Crisis Luthors didn't appear to be particularly rich. Lex's comment in Lena's first appearance about their parents having "left everything" to her suggests that she might have inherited a little money, but given that she was working as a small town librarian and applying for secretarial jobs, she presumably wasn't independently wealthy.

In post-Crisis continuity, there was initially no indication that Lex Luthor had any siblings, but his parents were still killed in a car accident, which LEX LUTHOR: THE UNAUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY strongly implied that Lex arranged so he could collect on their life insurance policy.

at least i am (somewhat) consistent

WC: ACTION COMICS #317

We’re getting down to the end in my summations of my Windfall Comics purchase of 1988, which means that we’re going to start to see the same titles show up again and again, issue after issue. These were the books which were a part of that purchase in some bulk, the ones whose demand on the back issue market at that time was slim. Given the huge circulation of the Mort Weisinger Superman titles…

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from Superman Family #214

i saw this outfit and wanted to draw her in it (my design and the official one)

Supergirl should perhaps be the centrepiece of a blog celebrating strong female comic book characters, but Kara Zor-El, Kryptonian cousin of Superman and whose alternative identity was Linda Lee Danvers is a remarkably subdued super-heroine, particularly in her early years during which she suffers from chronic self-doubt and lack of confidence. The character, even in more recent incarnations, is often beset by loneliness, difficulty in forming relationships and very much aware of her subordinate status to her mighty male cousin. Supergirl was even killed off altogether by DC Comics in the 1980s and not relaunched until 2004. The character has secured renewed popularity thanks to the excellent TV show starring Melissa Benoist, which succeeds in highlighting Supergirl’s/Linda’s vulnerability but also her inter strength and refusal to accept the casual sexism she frequently encounters.

Some of this ambiguity has its roots in the very creation of Supergirl herself in the early 1960s - an era in comic book history when tough believable female characters were not favoured and, if they existed at all, tended to be portrayed as lesser versions of male heroes. Supergirl certainly suffered from this more than most when her entire early career depended on the support and approval of a paternalist Superman. By the time of the adventure featured here however, Supergirl had been “revealed” to the world and, adopted by the virtuous Danvers, had carved out a separate identity as Midvale’s very own super-heroine. Her supporting cast was becoming more intriguing too, featuring Comet the Super Horse (in reality an enchanted centaur); on/off boyfriend Dick Malverne and Lex Luthor’s own sister, the telepathic Lena Thorul who both aids and abets Supergirl throughout her Silver Age career.

The page featured is from the story The Girl Who Was Supergirl’s Double, which appeared in Action Comics #296 (January 1963). It was written by Leo Dorfman and illustrated by Jim Mooney.

comics vs. tv

I really enjoyed reading DC multiverse comic Superman Smashes the Klan. The story was great and the art was amazing! Gurihiru’s art is so appealing to look at and there are so many wonderful things about how he draws that I can’t begin to describe it.

That being said I wanted to study from the style so I gave myself a little homework assignment to see if I could try to emulate it a bit. I learned a lot! I decided for my assignment that I would try to draw the CW Supergirl’s Supergirl and Lena Luthor as close as I could in Gurihiru’s style and within the realm of the before mentioned Superman comicbook universe.

Also there isn’t a Supergirl in that comic so the appeal was to make her feel like she was from that time of 1946… though I decided to go with Lena and Kara Zor-El’s comic aliases names from back in the day rather than Kara Danvers and Lena Luthor…I guess to be truer to the earlier comic universe versions of them. When the two characters first met in the comics they were both living under aliases. Lena to avoid the shameful association with her criminal brother and Kara for obvious reasons.

Why model sheets? Well, What I wanted to do was make a three page comic within this universe and it’s style, however I was finding it difficult to draw a consistent looking character from panel to panel so I decided that the easiest option was to make some character model sheets with expressions. This way I can always refer back to a model sheet and see if I can even draw these characters in the first place consistently.

I took liberties with her outfit, Supergirl doesn’t show up in the actual old DC comics until later in the 1960s, so I hope the skirt length checks out for the 40s, heh. Anyway, I hope I did okay being a geeky artist.

my favorite version of lena is lena thorul from Pre-crisis who has telepathic powers. she's friends with supergirl

That sounds pretty cool! Though I think we all know that when supergirl is involved no one is ever really just “friends” lol

THE SUPERMAN FAMILY (1974) #168 written by Elliot S. Maggin art by John Rosenberger

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