#letter column

Streaky II's first appearance, from The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #6 (1983) by Paul Kupperberg & Carmine Infantino

"She reminds me of a cat I used to own"

Even loving her tiny and cute ways, this "new" Streaky left me wondering: Where was the original Streaky then (1983)? Where's our boy? And my thirst for knowledge took me a few places...

Streaky was brought to life by Superman's creator Jerry Siegel and Jim Mooney in 1961, contextually though, I'd like to bring the attention to the then editor Mort Weisinger, he was the editor of Superman stories and books from the 1940s to the 60s, needless to say that A LOT of the Superman mythos developed under him, including the Legion of Superheroes, Lois Lane solo book, Supergirl and obviously Streaky, the supercat:

Streaky (the first) getting his powers, from Action Comics #261 (1960) by Jerry Siegel & Jim Mooney

Streaky began his trajectory as one of the most famous superpets, appearing regularly on Adventure Comics and Action Comics, until he was left aside, along with other members of the Legion of Superpets, which made their last appearance in 1970. Times were changing and these "sillier" characters vanished, but they were not erased from continuity (yet), inevitably giving opportunity for fans to wonder what had happened to characters like Streaky...

Which brings me to Maryann Farrell's letter from the reviled Supergirl first solo series (issue #2), she asks what happened to Streaky after Supergirl moved from Midvale to San Francisco, to which E. Nelson Bridwell (continuity expert) answered... Streaky was now depowered and living with Supergirl's foster parents. And that's all there is to it. Streaky disappearance was explained via fan mail, the disrespect... But I'm honestly glad I was able to find the answer to my question.

The development mentioned by E. N. B. in which all the green Kryptonite turns into iron is from a story line by Dennis O'Neil in Superman's Sandman Saga (1971), and curiously it was the first Superman story edited by Julius Schwartz after Mort Weisinger's retirement, his impact on the character was considerable

"Pasko and Maggin pointed out that Schwartz shifted Superman away from single-issue stories dependent on temporary situations and gimmicks and encouraged writers to do longer arcs and character-driven pieces, as well as back-up stories featuring the private lives of Clark Kent and his supporting cast. Schwartz' tenure saw longer, more character-driven stories instead of relying on gimmicks". — from SDCC: Remembering the Julius Schwartz Era of Superman

Paul Levitz also pointed out in his Introduction to Superman: Kryptonite Nevermore:

Which, at the end of the day, also meant Streaky: Nevermore. At least, in his supercat incarnation - because years after his editorial demise Streaky was back, in a more "mature" version (i.e. without super powers) and in a female form. Although Streaky II would not last very long (much like Supergirl after COIE, sadly), his short life was appreciated - particularly because the original Streaky did not have to die for her to exist and be a pal to Kara!

Streaky II's last appearance, from The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #22 (1984) by Paul Kupperberg & Carmine Infantino

She beat Black Lightning, Captain Comet, Supergirl, Batgirl and Metamorpho for the spot. Her prior appearances in the JLA comics were in #52, #86 and #100-102 respectively.

BL being #3 is interesting and goes to show the interest in the character even back in the late 70's.

Amusingly enough in a separate poll (seen on the same scan below), Batman was voted as the character fans most wanted to be kicked out of the League!

Link

Hi Evan, I have been reading your work for years–I came in right at the end of Rice Boy and read Order of Tales and Vattu every MWF from beginning to end. And then I got a new phone and didn’t reinstall my feed reader and was dismayed/delighted to find I’d gone for nine dang months and didn’t even know 3rd Voice existed! I’m just now catching up, really enjoying the comic, and appreciating the space you’re creating around it. To my question/pondering: the way the information gets parceled out to readers is both one of the most compelling and frustrating things to me about narrative. I see with 3rd Voice you are leaning heavily on show-don’t-tell, rather than the ponderous info dumps that plague a lot of science fiction and fantasy. The trade-off for making a better story and more believable characters is that there’s a lot we don’t know as readers. Some of what we don’t know is known by the characters (such as what "new person" means in their social context), some is not known by them (such as the existential knowledge that Navichet is seeking), and some is a mix (like Spondule and Navichet’s backgrounds that they don’t disclose to one another—or us). For you as a storyteller, how important is the revelation of knowledge in the creation of the story? Do you see 3rd Voice relying a lot on the revelation of knowledge as a way of wrapping up the story arc(s), or is there just a lot of stuff that the reader is never going to know and you’re OK with that? I don’t have strong feelings either way; just seeing you work with this in a bit of a different way and I’m curious about your thoughts. Thank you, Emily * October 2, 2023

Firstly thank you for the comment on the “space I’m creating around” 3V; I am not exactly sure what you mean but maybe I do and maybe would like to know exactly what you mean.

This parceling-of-information has become an absolutely central part of how I look at invented-world fiction; I started nailing down certain principles (all extending basically from show-don’t-tell) years ago and am trying to still work with them as smart as possible. Vattu is built with the same approach in mind! A solution in that comic to the problem of avoiding Explaining is to keep things fairly simple, iconic, self-explanatory. 3V can foreground these questions of “what the world is” a little more comfortably I think because of Spondule & Navichet’s relationship to it, and because of it being a kind of Broken place with bigger questions therefore automatically implied.

I guess mostly I want to emphasize that the details of the setting and how everything fits together isn’t necessarily what the Story is About, and the disorientation built into this sort of storytelling is something that I’m aware of and that I think is Fun. So I mean a lot of the bigger stuff has been Figured Out / is being Figured Out on my end, BUuuuut there is a reason that I am telling the story from the point of view of two marginal idiots. This I guess connects to what I was saying in a previous lettercol about “Spondule writing” and “Navichet writing” in my process for this thing…

[id: tiny bulseye against a red bg]