Matrix Monday (On Wednesday): Jerry Ordway's Matrix Design

As a long time reader and a longtime Supergirl fan, I really enjoy peeking behind the curtain of the creative process. 

After the Crisis, we went a while without a Supergirl. And then Matrix came around, a sort of stand-in Supergirl. Matrix was the protoplasmic creation of Lex Luthor in the pocket universe, based on Lana Lang. I was a little skeptical of Matrix when she first arrived but her character journey was fantastic (one I chronicled about 4 years ago with Matrix Mondays).

I assumed that the plan was always to have Matrix become Supergirl (even though she pretended to be Clark and sort of disappeared for a while). 

But over on X/Twitter, I read this Jerry Ordway tweet and his ideas about Matrix. I figured this was Supergirl adjacent and therefore worth re-posting here. See the pic above and then his thoughts on this 'new character'. 

Here’s a sketch I drew of Matrix, the sole survivor of the Byrne “pocket universe” conclusion. Matrix eventually became Supergirl, before and after the Death of Superman storyline. I had hoped she could become her own character at the time.

It was my design, but then the character took a turn, adopting Clark Kent’s look in Exile in Space. Then Roger Stern kind of adopted her in Action Comics, so I never pushed that idea. Roger did a nice job writing her. I always regretted passing on writing the Supergirl comic.

No, I felt like she was a blank slate, reborn on Superman’s earth. Clark leaves her with Ma and Pa Kent because he knows they will nurture her, and love her.

Pretty wild that Ordway wanted to basically think of her as a new character, no S-shield, and hanging out with the Kents. I suppose ideas like this get pitched and pushed aside a whole bunch. But it is interesting to me that everything that happened to that Supergirl, from Brainiac dupe to Earth Angel, might not have happened if DC okay'd this.

I asked about how his pic looked more like Lana than the classic Kara look she ultimately took. Here was his response.

Yes, I was thinking she would revert to Lana since that’s who she was modeled after when Lex built her. It was a long time ago, but I have a vague memory of mentioning to Byrne that it’d be cool if she was the only survivor of the Pocket Universe. And yeah, I did want to develop her, but plans change. I think what Roger Stern did with the character later was interesting too.

And, I was not going to do her as Supergirl, mainly to honor the reboot, which was to keep Superman unique. But I also think it wound up as an organic way to introduce a Supergirl to the continuity the way we did it. Anyhow, we had lots of ideas, many never came to fruition.

I also think it would have been wild to have Ordway write a Supergirl book! It probably would have been very different from the Peter David book, a book that I love. But I wonder how much of the classic Supergirl Ordway would have brought to the table. He certainly wrote Mary Marvel wonderfully.

As always, you have to wonder what might have been.