Post-Crisis DC And Supergirl's Death: Mike Gold and Legends

One of my favorite DC mega-crossovers ever was Legends, the first crossover after Crisis on Infinite Earths. The purpose of Crisis was clear; it was designed to redefine DCU, streamline it. Legends was a different story, it was a Crisis of the Soul (I believe one of the first potential titles for the book). But it also was the fertile soil of the new DC, a place from which a ton of highly successful, highly creative titles grew from. The 'bwa-ha-ha' JLA, the Suicide Squad, the Wally West Flash, the Ted Kord Blue Beetle, the George Perez Wonder Woman ... all of them popped up from this book.

And what a murderer's row of creators to be working on the book - John Ostrander, Len Wein, John Byrne, and Karl Kesel! That is an insane amount of talent to be on one book. And each of them went on to have a big part in many of the new titles that followed in the aftermath of Crisis.

I hadn't reread Legends in some time. The promise of it being reviewed on the new DCOCD podcast as well as having store credit at a bookstore after a holiday return, I decided to purchase the 30th anniversary trade.

While I loved the mini, it is important to remember that this was early in the post-Crisis DCU. There was no Supergirl in the universe, not even a memory.

 One thing that has been an intellectual curiosity for me is really picking at the bones of the decision to remove Supergirl from the DCU. Perhaps I have been interested in this too much, spending much of the spring and summer of 2015 (the 30th anniversary of Crisis) reviewing Supergirl's role in the Crisis, the decision to kill her, and the subsequent aftermath.

I am always happy to stumble upon more snippets about that. In this particular Legends trade, editor Mike Gold talks about his job on the book, establishing the creative team and thinking about the story in general. It is a very interesting read, the sort of 'behind the scenes' stuff someone like me absolutely loves.

And right there in column one is Gold talking about how maybe he wasn't on board with all the changes the Crisis brought. To him, Supergirl was Linda Lee Danvers. How could she and Barry be dead!

This is what all of us long time DC readers were thinking at the time. How do we make sense of this new world? It is just interesting ... and maybe a bit reassuring ... that not everyone thought Supergirl should be killed. Not everyone thought she was superfluous.

All that said, you can't deny that the Crisis led to the incredible creative output from DC in the late 80s. And that Supergirl death is undeniably one of the most important images and most important moments in comic history. And, of course, she came back.

I am intrigued that Gold brings up the shape-changing paramour of Lex. He is, of course, talking about the Matrix Supergirl. But she wasn't even going to be seen until a year after Legends ended, in Superman #16. And even then, she wouldn't become involved with Lex II for years after that.

At the time of Legends, Supergirl was gone ... like GONE.

If you haven't read Legends, go read it. And thanks to Mike Gold for the great essay discussing the book and that time in DC history.

Posted in: Reviews