Thursday, November 24, 2016

Mike Maihack Supergirl And Batgirl Political Comic


Happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans celebrating!

I have long been a fan of Mike Maihack and his Supergirl/Batgirl one page comic strips. They are whimsical, poking fun at the optimism of Supergirl and the faux grittiness of the Babs Batgirl. Neither have escaped being the object of some simple teasing. But always ... always ... the core of these characters as friends and heroes comes out.

It has been a while Maihack produced one of these so I was thrilled when one came across my feed last week. And given the biggest current world news story, I wasn't surprised to see this one have a political angle.

Either playing on Donald Trump's victory or riffing back to actual comic continuity from the late 90's, Lex Luthor has one the presidential election. Babs can't believe the bad guy has won ... even joking about if this is an aftershock from some Flashpoint event. That alone is a killer joke, especially given the current Flash TV show.

Supergirl seems to take it in stride. Lex is Lex and will eventually show he is a villain and get ousted. After all, everyone loves Superman and Supergirl. When Lex attacks, the people will side with the super-cousins.

But If it was the Joker in the Oval Office, people wouldn't care if  he went after the Bats. No one likes them. The country wouldn't remove the Joker from office. The United States would be doomed!

This again teases Babs for how 'oooooh scary' the Bat family tries to be. I think Kara's over the top response in the last panel shows me this is pure razzing in her part, poking Babs a bit.

I love these Maihack strips. The art here is just delightful. I like Kara being in her show costume, This was a fun retort to the election and a welcome Thanksgiving treat.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So fun!

I am not sure Kara was poking Babs in the last panel. I have the feeling most of time Kara doesn't notice when her partner-in-crime-stopping is getting annoyed or doesn't get why Babs takes everything so seriously.

I loved the "When -not if- Lex goes after my cousin and me again he will be done because like us, but if the Joker goes Batman or my bestie no one will care because bats are scary" part. I have nothing against the Bat-Family but sometimes it is incredibly tiresome listening to the same trite garbage about Superman being bored because he is overpowered and has no character flaws and Batman is just SO awesome because he knows everything, can do everything and beat everything... Oh, and Thor, Hulk, Green Lantern, Flash and Captain Atom can be so obscenely overpowered as they want.

Now I think about it... Has someone ever called Babs "Batman with boobs"? Or they save that put-down for the Maid of Might?

Honestly, we have to thank the New 52 reboot for one thing: it PROVED beyond any reasonable doubt that listening to the "Superman is bored because is perfect and invincible and he needs to be more flawed and more grim to be relatable and cool" group does NOT increase sales. They are a VOCAL MINORITY who will NEVER buy a Superman book no matter what (it is pretty obvious they have never read a Superman book if they think Clark is perfect and invincible). They must not be listened and they must not be catered to.

Anonymous said...

Off topic, but in "Nightwing #9" Supergirl shows up in the background during a dream sequence in which Dick conjures images of his friends. I wonder if he is remembering subconsciously something from the Pre-Flashpoint universe.