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Today, we look at Supergirl’s hidden husband who was only revealed to her cousin Superman after the hero died in Crisis on Infinite Earths!
In every installment of “If I Pass This Way Again,” we look at comic book plot points that were rarely (sometimes NEVER!) mentioned again after they were first introduced.
Comic book fans were certainly told that the maxiseries event, Crisis on Infinite Earths, was going to change the DC Universe forever, but I don’t think fans were really quite prepared for HOW much it was going to change things (I don’t know that the deaths of the Crime Syndicate of America really moved the needle that much in fan reaction) until Crisis on Infinite Earth #7 (by Marv Wolfman, George Perez, Dick Giordano and Jerry Ordway), when Supergirl lost her life in a battle against the Anti-Monitor.
One of the new heroes who was introduced in the storyline was a Japanese scientist who gained superpowers and became the new Doctor Light. She didn’t particularly WANT to become a superhero, but after spending some time with Supergirl, she was so shocked and impressed by the heroism of the Girl of Steel that she couldn’t help but choose to become a better person and a true superhero herself.
Things looked bleak for the universe and especially Supergirl’s beloved cousin, Superman, in a battle against the Anti-Monitor, who was about to wipe out the last few remaining worlds. Supergirl attacked him with so much surprising force that she even cracked his armor…
Tragically, though, her heroism managed to save her cousin, but not herself, even though her death helped save billions…
Superman did not take the new particularly well that his cousin had sacrificed herself to save him…
THE SUPERMAN COMICS STILL HAD TIME TO GO BEFORE THE REBOOT
I don’t know if I would call it a “problem,” per se, but an issue with DC comic books during this time was that Crisis on Infinite Earths was going on, changing all of the DC Universe and yet meanwhile, you had all of these other comic books that were still being released that were doing their own things. Marv Wolfman initially wanted a more coordinated effort between the books so that the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths meant a new start for all of the series, but that was more of an aspirational goal than anything else. In reality, you had this weird overlap of time before the books were all rebooted. I discussed how that affected Catwoman continuity in a recent article, where Catwoman’s continuity was still a certain way a year after Crisis ended, but then Batman: Year One rebooted the Batman continuity.
So the Superman titles, which would be rebooted with John Byrne and Dick Giordano’s Man of Steel miniseries later in 1986, were in a similar situation in late 1985. Just keeping on keeping on while knowing that the ride was eventually going to stop. This led to the Crisis tie-in issue, Superman #415, where Cary Bates, Curt Swan and Al Williamson made a shocking revelation following Supergirl’s untimely demise…that she had gotten married!
WHO WAS SUPERGIRL’S SECRET HUSBAND?
It all started when Superman was helping out a ship looking for oil (doesn’t it just seem so odd that this is a tie-in to Crisis on Infinite Earths, where the future of the entire Multiverse was at stake and we cut to a tie-in and Superman is helping a ship look for oil? It was such a weird time for tie-ins) and he got a signal that ostensibly only Supergirl should know. He raced to the Fortress of Solitude and discovered…some alien guy seemingly stealing some keepsake of some sorts from Supergirl’s section of the Fortress!?!?
By the way, what an unusual page layout by Swan, right? Very Gene Colan-esque.
Superman was obviously not a fan of this guy seemingly stealing from his dead cousin’s belongings, so they had a brief tussle and then the guy seemingly teleported away, but Superman tracked after him and they tussled some more before the guy ultimately decided that he would just use his telepathic powers to explain why he wanted this keepsake so badly…
As it turned out, Supergirl had been on a mission in outer space when she encountered a bunch of green kryptonite that enveloped her and left her near death before she was rescued by these friendly aliens, led by Salkor. They rescued her from the krypotonite, but the after effects still left her with amnesia…
They gave her the name Jasma, after a beautiful flower on their planet and she and Salkor fell in love and eventually married…
The keepsake is a device that records your thoughts. Well, there was a terrible battle and some bad guy was defeated but then, soon after, Jasma just vanished.
The keepsake was then used recently and it allowed Salkor to track Jasma down to Earth, only to arrive just in time to learn that she had tragically died in battle. He felt that he should at least get the keepsake so he could treasure her thoughts…
Of course, what Salkor didn’t know is that he was tracked here by the villain that he and Jasma had thought died before. He had transported his mind into a robot and he was now attacking Salkor and Superman on Earth. They defeat him and they are then surprised to see that the keepsake was still active! Supergirl had recorded on it soon before her death. It turns out that when she was removed from Salkor’s world and her memory retuned, it had a sort of revere amnesia and she had forgotten about her life on Salkor’s planet but her memory had returned right before she tragically died…
Superman and Salkor parted as friends and this whole marriage deal was promptly never spoken of again.
Thanks to my pal Martin Gray for suggesting this one! If anyone else has a suggestion for a future If I Pass This Way Again, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com
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