#scarletspider

SPIDER-MAN: Get it? Because webs are sticky? No?-

SCARLET SPIDER: Yeah, I got it. Wasn’t funny.

OKAY!

The day night before finally seeing the movie, I'm dusting off the tumblr to write the blog post I've been meaning to write for years.

See, I have been a Supergirl fan for almost as long as I can remember. Ever since seeing the Helen Slater movie when I what in the 5-7 range, she has been in my brain. I only saw the movie once back then, but we had the picture book, and I would look at it a lot. That is clearly when the spores took hold.

They took a while to gestate tho.

Don't get me wrong, I always liked Supergirl, always paid more attention when she was mentioned or around. There was a moment in second grade where I went on for a good bit about how cool she was because I saw a sticker, and when my Dad let me read The Death Of Superman tpb, the first thing I did was flip to all of the Supergirl pages (and was very confused when Doomsday punched her into purple goo, but I digress).

I can't really remember anything else significant between then and 2005. I liked her in Superman the Animated Series, read the occasional comic with Matrix Supergirl, but no big moments.

But then in 2005, I met my best online friend in person the first time. I was there to check out a house and maybe move in with him, and during the visit, it somehow came up that he had the trades of not only Linda Danvers last story as Supergirl, but the re-introduction of Kara Zor-El into the proper DC universe.

My interest was immediately piqued and I read both while there. Both were great (even if I was probably at least somewhat confused by "Many Happy Returns" at the time), and was quite excited to learn that the new Kara would be getting an ongoing series! Once the lease was signed and I was moved in, one of my first priorities was adding that to my pull list at my new local comic shop.

That's when the spores started to grow, but it's actually surprising that they didn't die out.

Because the early 2000s Supergirl ongoing...wasn't very good. At least not at first. It had a lot of ups and downs. I specifically remember saying to myself "if she gets another origin, I'm going to scream."

And not long after that, I screamed (even if only internally).

Part of the issue (heh) there was the book kept cycling through writers, but eventually, FINALLY stability arrived with Sterling Gates, and his writing legitimately turned Kara into one of my favorite comic characters, my #1 DC character easy (sorry, Azrael).

So yes, that's when the rot started to grow in earnest.

But we aren't there yet.

The next big burst was when I started writing Teen Titans fan fiction in late 2000s or early 2010s. It started simply as my take on "season 6," buuuuuut eventually just grew into its only multifaceted universe with stuff from DC, Marvel and whatever anime I was into at the time (and also Doctor Who Was there).

I typically call it my "multiverse," but it really needs a new name these days. Anyway.

One of the ideas I had for this universe is what if it was Supergirl instead of Superman. Because even though I was starting to get out of my "too cool to like Superman" phase at this point, I still thought Kara was more interesting on a base level. I still pictured her as a paragon, a hero that inspired other heroes, but had no real interest in having Clark make an apperance.

Stories stopped happening in any semblance of order pretty quickly (I get chronic writer's block), but one day I was taking toy pictures. I set up a shot of a Microman Supergirl facing down a Mavel Legends scale Doomsday, and scattered a few accessories around to represent other members of that universe's Avengers roster.

The photo is terrible, blurry as all get out, but then I wrote a short story about what was going through Kara's mind in that moment, ending in her heroic sacrafice.

And then I thought about the aftermath of that, what her friends & teammates were going through. And then I had the idea of a full-on "Regin Of The Supergirls" style story...

And just went ham for like a year. Some of my absolute best work comes from those scenes. I consider one of the few full stories I got out of it to be one of the best things I've ever written.

And it wasn't just random either. I put a lot of thought into what "my" Supergirl was like. What people would say at her funeral, how she'd react to people taking her name. I never put so much thought into my character work before or since. And as you may have guessed from the word in quotes, I feel some degree of ownership over the character. "My" Supergirl is probably my favorite of my characters, and whenever I get to write her, no matter how small the scene, my heart feels happy.

But even after THAT, we aren't at full brainrot. (But don't worry, we're almost there.)

As you might expect, the next step was the CBS then CW live action show. I was so hyped for it. I could not believe she was actually getting a show at all, let alone before her cousin. I loved it right from the pilot, and even though it eventually kind of became a mess, I still cherish it. Melisa Benoist will always be Kara in my heart.

And yes, she was an accelerant, because that brings us to

TWITTER.

Yes, like many things in the world, I believe this all TWITTER'S fault.

I avoided Twitter (I will never call it the letter) for years, but got an account to try to promote an unrelated YouTube show I was making at the time (for the My Little Pony ccg, if you're curious). But I started listening to the Supergirl Radio podcast, which lead to me folllowing the hosts. Which lead to me following the artist they used for the title cards. And then I saw Sterling Gates was there, and he talks about Supergirl a LOT. And eventually started following a comic account called "Anne Reads Comics," and apparently she's a pretty big Supergirl fan too, because she kept sharing awesome art and pages from comics I hadn't read and...

Yup. That was it. By then I was pretty much "no thoughts, only Supergirl."

I hesitate to say Supergirl is my absolute favorite comic character because Ben "Scarlet Spider" Reilly has an association with my struggles with depression, but much like David Willis of "Dumbing Of Age" & "Shortpacked!" fame was with Beast Wars Dinobot, I think you could say Supergirl is sort of my "brand."

There was more I wanted to include, but this already a lot longer than I thought it was going to be (and I knew it wasn't going to be short).