Action Comics #256
Cover Date: September 1959 | Written by Otto Binder | Art by Jim Mooney
Read in Supergirl - the Silver Age vol. 1
NOTE: These commentaries are going to be very spoiler heavy.
Okay, I’m not going to try to read the Superman stories in these issues (some of which I don’t have access to anyway), but some of these covers! Ultra Superman? From the year 100,000?? What is happening here? I assume he has a bulbus head and long fingers because the artist is thinking that’s how we’ll evolve 0ver the next 98,000 years, but for real, that head looks like a butt.
What was it with sci-fi creators back then thinking that we were going to evolve massive craniums?
Anyway, Supergirl!
This issue’s Supergirl story doesn’t feature any massive craniums, but it does feature Kara using her powers in one of the grossest ways I’ve seen yet, but we’ll get to that.
“The Great Supergirl Mirage!” gives Supergirl a turn at one of the most tried and true (and overdone) Super plots of the silver age: the potential love interest character becoming obsessed with proving that our hero is actually a Super!
Just like the intro blurb says, in the tradition of Lois Lane and Lana Lang, this issue we’re introduced to Dick Wilson, who I’m pretty sure will be Dick Malverne eventually. Also, dude looks just like Peter Parker. I guess that’s just what your average teenage white guy looked like in comics back then.
We start with Supergirl doing patrols over Midvale, flying high enough to stay unseen. Meanwhile, Dick is taking pictures out of the orphanage window when he thinks he spots an eagle. He snaps a shot and thinks nothing of it.
While on patrol, Supergirl sees an accident. A man has rushed to the hospital in order to deliver an order of radium, but in the parking lot he stumbles and drops the leaden box that he was carrying it in. The box pops open and out flies the vial of radium. You’d think that a container carrying something as dangerous as radium and would be a little more secure, but apparently not! The radium flew into a lawn with some shrubbery, and the delivery man and the security guard are having trouble finding it.
Supergirl knows exactly where it is though! But unfortunately she’s still trying to keep her existence a secret on order from Superman, so she can’t just swoop down there and get it for them.
Her solution? Why, burrow under the ground, grab the vial from below, and chuck it at the people searching for it!
Linda really likes to burrow under things. I get that she’s trying to conceal her existence but she’s so fast she probably could have accomplished the same thing without them even seeing her just by running in and grabbing it. Look, I’m just worried that, at this rate, Midvale’s going to collapse into a giant sinkhole!
It’s good that those guys didn’t see her hand sticking up out of the ground. I know she probably did it fast enough to not be seen, but that would have been a HORRIFIC DISCOVERY!
Meanwhile, Dick Wilson is wandering around the orphanage when he notices that the breeze has blown Linda Lee’s door open, as well as blown all her papers onto the ground. He goes to pick them up for her and notices that Linda has barely started her essay for the class that starts in two minutes.
He leaves, and almost immediately Supergirl returns and changes back into her Linda Lee disguise. Realizing that she still has to finish her two thousand word report, she uses her superspeed to write the entire thing in three seconds.
Two thousand words... in three seconds.
I AM SO JEALOUS.
Ahem.
So later in class Linda turns in her finished report in class, much to the confusion of Dick, who asks her about the barely started report he just saw in her room. Linda makes the excuse that what Dick found was just her original rough draft, and that her finished copy was always safe in her desk drawer.
Which does make sense, good thinking Linda.
Dick buys it, and then jokes about how he thought Linda had superspeed. I guess in a world where Superman and Wonder Woman exist, that isn’t the silliest thing to assume.
He then invites Linda to come check out some photos he’s developing after class. We don’t see Linda’s response, but the scene transitions to Dick and Linda in a darkroom, which isn’t dark at all.
And wouldn’t you know it, one of the photos that Dick had snapped of what he thought was an eagle shows what seems to be a flying girl! And of course Dick immediately gets suspicious of Linda, I guess based solely on the unfinished report that he saw. Honestly it’s a pretty flimsy argument BUT it isn’t helped by Linda, upon seeing the picture, wandering out of the room with a haunted look on her face without saying a word.
I know you’re worried that you’re going to be found out, Kara, but could you try to look a little less guilty?!
So now Dick is trying to make it his mission to expose Linda Lee as some kind of Supergirl. To do so, he builds a dummy that looks just like him and fills it with chemicals that will explode upon exposure to x-rays.
See, Superman, this is why you don’t go around telling everyone everything about yourself, because now any rando knows how to make traps for you and Supergirl.
The next day, Linda and Dick have to set out to the woods to collect mineral specimens for geology class.
Dick quickly rushes off to a cliffside where he stored his dummy. He tosses the dummy off the cliff and yells for help, hoping that Supergirl will come and “rescue” him.
The next panel has a caption that says “Linda suspects trickery, but...” which I assume is because she’s worried now that Dick’ has suspicions about her. Still, kind of a big leap to make off of that. I guess it pays to always be on guard though.
Anyway, Linda uses her x-ray vision to see what’s going on, and sees the dummy that has immediately caught fire.
To cover this up, Supergirl, changing out of her disguise, has one second to fly up to the sky, blow two storm clouds together in order to cause a lightning strike so that Dick will think the dummy got struck by lightning instead of because of Linda’s x-ray vision.
And it works! Well, sort of.
It’s not enough to completely dissuade Dick, but it is enough to make him consider this a failed experiment.
Dick proclaims that he failed to trick Supergirl this time, but he’ll be smarter next time. While looking directly at Linda. Which understandably worries her.
The next day, a traveling circus comes to the orphanage to put on a free show. The headmaster asks Dick to help unload all the props that got shipped to the orphanage before the circus’ arrival . While doing so, Dick comes across two dumbbells with "500″ (as in 500 pounds) written on them. One is fake and meant to be used in a clown act, and one is real and meant for the strongman act.
Yep, you guessed it, these dumbbells' give Dick another brilliant idea. He switches the tags on the dumbbells and asks Linda for help with the props. When she gets there, he asks her to move the “clown act” dumbbell, which is actually the real dumbbell. She lifts it with ease, not even registering its weight at first.
A-HA! Dick’s finally caught Linda! And to be fair, he actually has. This was a much simpler and much more efficient trap.
Linda is distraught, scolding herself in a thought bubble about not noticing the heaviness of the dumbbell.
But hope’s not lost yet!
Linda has a plan. And this is the gross use of powers I teased at the beginning.
There’s coal laying around for the fire eater in the show, so Linda grabs a piece and squeezes it until it becomes a diamond. She’s then able to use her super-strength and diamond to puncture a tiny holy in each of the weights of the dumbbell. Her “super-drill” as she calls it, will grind the steel of the dumbbell into dust that can pour out of the hole that the drill made entering.
She then BEGINS SNORTING THE STEEL DUST THAT IS POURING OUT OF THE DUMBBELLS! Linda snorts it to save it for later use.
EW.
EWWWWWWWWW! I don’t know why but this is so gross to me.
All of that takes “an eye-wink” to do, as the caption states. And it works. Dick is shocked that he can also lift the one he was sure was real. He goes to try out the second dumbbell, but before he can Linda punctures a tiny hole in the fake one and EXHALES THE STEEL DUST THROUGH HER NOSE INTO THE FAKE ONE.
For real, EW!
When Dick tries to lift the fake one he finds that he can’t. For the moment Linda has successfully duped Dick Wilson.
Side note, the fake dumbbell is described as paper-mache. Somehow I don't think paper-mache can hold five hundred pounds of steel dust, but this is a comic book and that isn’t even close to the weirdest thing we’ve seen.
That particular crisis is averted, but Linda is still distraught about the photo that Dick has. She’s terrified that he’s going to expose Supergirl and eventually expose her secret identity. She thinks that she might as well just tell Dick everything before he can expose her.
Damn Kara, believe in yourself a little more, jeez.
We then cut to the next page, which starts off with a shot of Supergirl on stage during the traveling circus show, apparently having given up on hiding all together.
BUT WAIT! The very next panel has Supergirl expose herself as a robot! She informs everyone that she was made by Superman and sent to the show as a surprise, excuse me, a super-surprise, for the kids.
Upon seeing this, Dick assumes that the picture of “Supergirl” that he took was actually just this robot, and rips the photo up on the spot.
Linda is relieved and later she finds a note from Superman, explaining that he saw what was happening and built this to help her out of her jam. The story closes with her wondering if Dick Wilson’s going to become a snooping pest to her just like Lana Lang was to Superboy, basically promising that yes, yes he will.
Wow, Dick wasted no time making it his mission to expose Kara. For as tired of a trope as “potential love interest makes it their mission to expose the hero’s secret” is, it’s fun to finally meet one of Supergirl’s recurring characters.
