The new style of first-issue stories

Although I certainly haven't gone and counted, I would bet that if you did, you would find that more "#1" issues of comic-book series have been published during the last five years than, perhaps, in all of comics history combined.  For instance, in 2011, +DC Comics terminated almost their entire line of comics, and rebooted everything back to number 1 (the New 52).  Last fall, +Marvel Entertainment launched the "Marvel NOW!" initiative, which didn't reboot their universe but started a whole bunch of series (Captain America, Thor, etc.) back on issue 1.  In between, many series have been canceled and re-booted (such as the ending of the Amazing Spider-Man series, replaced with Superior Spider-Man, starting of course at issue 1).

Thanks to all these reboots, and to the ready availability of back-issues on +comiXology, I have therefore read an unbelievable quantity of "issue 1" series launches in the last six months, including first issues of Captain America, Avengers Assemble, Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Superman, Action Comics, Detective Comics, Batman, Batgirl, Earth 2, Worlds' Finest, The Movement, Red Sonja, Pantha, Justice League, Katana, and Justlice League of America.  What I have noticed, compared to the "old days" (pre-2000), is a dramatic shift in the style, pacing, and content of a typical first-issue series launch.

How comics used to launch a series

Years ago, a first-issue series launch was used in a very specific way.  That first issue was seen as a way to introduce the character or the team to the readers, and to establish the basic rules of the series. Let's use the 1979 series Rom: Spaceknight as an example.

In issue #1 of Rom, Rom arrives on earth and for the first few pages, seems almost evil, even attacking and seemingly killing some humans.  By page 8, however, Rom uses his translator to talk with the human woman Brandy Clark, and explains his background and origin.  He is 200 years old. He hails from the planet Galador, a peace-loving place.  The Galadorians entered an uncharted area called the Dark Nebula, and were attacked by Dire Wraiths.  Galador's armada was destroyed and the wraiths moved in on them.  To save the planet, the flower of Galador's youth would be asked to sacrifice humanity, becoming cyborg warriors (Spaceknights). Rom was the first to volunteer.  The Spaceknights prevailed, and drove the wraiths back.  But the wraiths, in defeat, scattered to other worlds. As shape-shifters, they could blend in, as they have done on our world. Rom is here to track them down and send them to the plane of Limbo.  The army, led by some wraiths in disguise, attacks Rom, and he defeats them, dispatches the wraiths, and flies off.  Word of his presence spreads to other wraiths, who now have to decide what to do about it.

This first issue of Rom accomplished everything a classic series-launching number 1 issue used to do. It established the character. It set up the dramatic tensions (in this case, between Rom and the wraiths, and between Rom and the humans who think he is killing them, as well as between wraiths and humans, though humans don't know it).  It established one of the main supporting characters (Brandy Clark, who quickly became a love interest for Rom).  And it told the backstory in enough detail that the reader knew exactly what was going on, and could easily follow the relationships between the major "sides" in the story (Rom, Human, and Wraith).  The ending leaves one in suspense, as a wraith in the local area hears of Rom's arrival and shape-shifts into a bird, flying away to warn her fellow aliens.

Now let's look at what Rom #1 did not do, relative to what #1 launches are like today.  Rom #1 did not confuse the reader.   It didn't leave the reader wondering who the heck this alien was or why he was blasting people.  It didn't leave the reader wondering who the shape-shifting guys were, and whether they were good or bad.  It didn't defer important, foundational explanations about the key elements of the series until later issues.

How series are launched today

If Rom #1 had been written in today's series-launch style, it would have been very different.  For example, no background of Galador and the Spaceknights would have been provided -- this would have been left until the 13th issue, which would have been called Rom #0.  Instead, we'd see an alien who can't speak any English, walking around blasting what appear to be humans. We'd see other seeming-humans suddenly change shapes, or whip out ray-guns, and blast Rom, and him retaliate. But we wouldn't know yet if Rom was an evil murderous robot, or an angel of mercy.  We'd probably see Rom rescue Brandy Clark from something, but there would be some ambiguity -- was he really rescuing her or just trying to kill her?

By the end of 'Marvel Now!" Rom #1, the reader would probably have no idea if Rom was going to be good or bad, or, frankly, what the hell was going on at all.  And this confusion would be purposeful.  The hypothetical "Marvel Now!" Rom writer would deliberately string the reader out, probably waiting until several issues in to reveal what a Dire Wraith was, and perhaps refusing to give Rom a translator, the better to keep things confused and uncertain.

What I've described above is, of course, pure invention -- there is no modern re-telling of the Rom story. However, my description is typical of the first-issue launches of today. Whereas in the old days, the goal of a first issue was explanation and providing a solid foundational base, these days, the goal of a first issue appears to be obfuscation and confusion.  Although I can't say for certain, I believe the probable motivation for this is that the companies believe the confusion will increase sales.  Readers of the fictitious modern Rom #1 would buy the next issue, and the one after that, because they want an explanation -- who is Rom? Where did he come from? And why is he shooting humans with a ray gun?  These questions, which were answered in the 1979 series halfway through the first issue, would probably not be answered in a modern re-telling for at least the first year, maybe more.

A major driver behind this new style is the tendency, in much modern storytelling, not just comics, to start a tale in the middle, rather than the beginning.  In the original Action Comics #1 in 1938, we saw Superman's origin told in a linear fashion - he came to earth in a rocket, and his alien body made him super-strong, able to leap buildings, and so forth.  The tale began at the beginning and worked forward.  Compare with 2011's Action Comics #1 relaunch, which starts with Superman floating in mid-air, with his Super-symbol already on his chest, apparently (somewhat) known but not yet understood by Metropolis, holding a rich white-collar criminal out over a ledge to scare him into confessing his evils.  The back-story of Superman's arrival on earth is not told until much later (issue #5), and even that is incomplete (more pieces are told later on).

But it's not just the "start in the middle" style that leads to confusion, because many movies and novels start in the middle today, but still don't leave the reader confused.  After all, the original Star Wars starts in the middle of a story, but we are given clear explanations of everything that is going on by the end of the first act (indeed, a lot of the explanation happens in the opening sequence, when the scroll of words tells us who Darth Vader is, who Princess Leia is, and that the Empire is evil, setting up the entire story for us in very clear, unambiguous terms).  So in comic-book launch issues today, it's the combination of starting in the middle, and not bothering to explain anything for several issues, that leads to seemingly disjointed, and definitely confusing, stories.

Which way is better?

Clearly, the style of the first-issue launch of a series is dramatically different today from the way it was in 1979.  Which way is better?

There is no objective way to answer this question, because it's largely a matter of preference.  If you like being informed, and having the overall themes and rules of the series laid out for you right away, so that you know where you stand, then you will obviously prefer the classic way to launch a series.  If you prefer being left in the dark, and don't like to be told why things are happening too quickly (maybe because you like trying to guess or figure them out yourself), then you will obviously lean toward the modern style.

My preference is for the classical style (I know, you're shocked).  Here's why:  The classical style established everything up front, which made it a snap to decide if I was going to like a series or not.  I could easily tell, by the end of the real Rom #1 (the one actually published in 1979, which established all the major rules and players of the series), that I was going to like it.  I knew where I stood relative to the comic.  The classical first issue really set the stage for me.

The modern style doesn't do that. For example, I just read #1 of Gail Simone's new series The Movement.  I have no idea if I'm going to like the series or not based on just this one issue.  The sides and lines of dramatic conflict are murky at best.   The characters are hard to tell apart (some of this is the fault of the artist). I can't tell who the protagonists are, vs. the antagonists. I'm not even sure who the major characters are going to turn out to be.   After an issue, the only thing I can say about whether I'm going to like this series or not is, "We'll see."  Compare with Rom, which after just one issue, I was easily (and correctly, since I stuck with it for 65 issues of its 75-issue run) able to say, "Count me in!"

I've never really enjoyed being confused as a reader.  I don't have to know the answer to every question (I hate mysteries where the killer is revealed to the audience at the beginning, for instance).  But I do like to understand what is going on, and I don't enjoy when seemingly random events occur for no known reason.  Too long of a separation between the event and knowing the reason for that event destroys the reader's sense of cause and effect, leading to the impression that the writer is making things happen for arbitrary reasons (although many events do occur for arbitrary reasons too, and not coincidentally, in many of the same series that are the most obfuscatory).

From what I have seen, the obfuscatory method of confusing the reader and taking many issues to clear things up, does not seem to be working.  For example, the New 52 Superman, which started out with strong sales, had a very confusing first story arc that left the reader unsure of what was going on for six issues.  If we are right in guessing that the confusing nature of the story is purposeful, because the execs at DC think obfuscation will make readers keep coming back to find out what the heck is going on, then we should see strong sales from this arc.  But we don't. Instead, Superman's sales went into free-fall, plummeting from 118,000 copies sold for issue 1, to 70,000 for issue 6 (rounded off to the nearest thousand).  That's a 41% decline, and a loss of almost 50,000 fans in six months.  Thus, 50,000 people who started out reading Superman, did not stick around to find out the explanations for all the confusing events of the first issue.  Does that sound like a win for the "make it confusing" model?  Not to me.

As a second example, Action Comics, written by Grant Morrison, is a prime specimen of a story written for maximal obfuscation.   I stopped reading this series on issue #6, and by then, hardly anything had been cleared up or explained. Morrison adds more and more complications and threads, without explaining any of the old ones, and ends up with a disjointed and very confusing story.  Again we can look at sales figures and ask, was Steve the only one turned off by this? Did the sales ploy, if it is one, of suspending explanations until much later on, work?

Once again, the answer is a resounding "no."  Although I can't say when any story threads were explained or plot elements were resolved, I can say definitively that none had been by issue 6 (when I finally gave up).  Action Comics began as a top-seller, with 183,000 print copies purchased.  Over the first six months, when the vaunted Morrison's patented obfuscation was in top form, sales of Action Comics plummeted by 47% to under 97,000 copies.  By issue 7, which is the earliest the confusing elements could have been cleared up (since they had not been as of issue 6), the series had lost fully half of its original readership.  Now I ask you: does this sound like a marketing ploy that is working?  It seems to me that at a good half of comic readers don't like stories that remain confusing for months at a time, or else these sales numbers would be better.

Now, I have heard it argued that one must read the totality of Morrison's run on Action Comics, which lasted until issue 18, to really "get" it.  Only in toto, the Morrison-apologists assert, can the whole logic of the story he crafted be appreciated.  I have no desire to read any more of Morrison's sewage, but we can look at the numbers and see whether many other fans were willing to wait eighteen months to have the events in this series explained to them.  Once again, the answer is a resounding no.  By issue 10, Action Comics had fallen out of the top 10 (remember, it debuted in the top 3 and stayed there for the first few months after the reboot), having lost another 11,000 readers since issue 7, and by number 15, Action Comics fell out of the top 20, and never recovered for the rest of Morrison's run.  By the time he left, he had lost fully two-thirds of the readers who started out with him at the beginning of the series.  I find it hard to imagine how anyone could argue that this was a successful run. And since one of Morrison's core "strategies"  is to confuse the hell out of the reader, I conclude that a majority of comic-book readers don't like to be confused for long periods of time.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I love being surprised at appropriate times in stories, and I like having explanations revealed slowly to me.  But as the story is going along, I need to understand what the hell is happening.  For example, J.K. Rowling doesn't explain how Voldemort used Horcruxes to prevent death in the first Harry Potter book. But she provides enough (although vague) explanation of how Voldemort had used magic to "cheat death" that the book is entirely comprehensible and stands on its own.  You don't have to wait until book 6 to understand what happened in book 1.  Certainly, you will have a better appreciation for the book 1 events after reading the whole series.  Going back and re-reading the books leads to many "aha!" moments.  But while you are reading book 1 for the first time, you don't feel completely at sea with the story, the way one does in both Superman 1 and Action Comics 1 (and many, many others).

I've said before on this blog, and I will say again today, that I believe the comic-book writers of today need to go back and re-read some of the old classic series, like Rom.  And they don't need to just peruse them casually -- they need to study these books, and understand what made them work, and what made them great.  Like the Harry Potter series, Rom's first issue provided a good, simple, basic explanation for what was going on -- it gave the reader a baseline -- and then slowly, over the next 30 or 40 issues, more details about the explanation evolved.  That is how to write a good series -- not giving the reader absolutely no baseline and then filling in random details in a deliberately confusing way over the course of a year or more.

Why I've given up on Superman

Since getting back into the comic-book reading and collecting hobbies, I have been playing catch-up on the +DC Comics New 52 titles.  I began with a number of series I thought I would like, based on my years-past enjoyment of the starring characters.  I began with Supergirl, who is my all-time favorite character, and Batgirl, based on the recommendation of a friend.  After I'd caught up with them, I started working on some other titles.  The next title with which I've gotten caught up is Superman, another long-time favorite of mine, and a series I collected off and on for probably 20 years prior to giving up comics in 1999.

Just a week ago, I reviewed the first year's worth of New 52 Superman issues.  I said then that I had mixed feelings about the title, and that I was still not sure, after 13 issues, whether I was going to be with it for the long term.  The first two story arcs had been problematic, and I felt that the re-told story of Superman had been too fragmentary, broken up between two different books (Superman and Action Comics), and told in a confusing and non-linear fashion within each title.  Character personalities were inconsistent from writer to writer, and the tone of the stories was variable from arc to arc.  Still, last week I was reserving judgment on Superman until I saw what the next creative team was able to do.

I have to say that the new creative team of Scott Lobdell (writer) and Ken Rocafort (artist) made my decision very easy.  I bought digital versions of Superman 13-16, their first four issues, from ComiXology on Tuesday.  Here it is Friday, and I've already made my decision.

I'm done with Superman.

Given that Superman is right up there as one of my favorite classic superhero characters, and that for much of my collecting life I have at least casually read comics involving Superman, you might think that ditching Superman from my pull list would be a difficult decision.  And for sure, that nostalgia for the character kept me with the series for the first 12 issues, despite their decided mediocrity.  However, I don't think I've ever had an easier time dropping a comic-book to which I had previously been attached than I have saying so-long to Superman after issue #17 concludes the H'el story arc.  I have Scott Lobdell to thank for that.

Since returning to reading comic-books, I have read some 100 comic books (ouch, have I really spent that much money in under 3 months?).  Without question, the absolute worst comic-books I have read of the bunch -- even worse than the mess that Grant Morrison created over in Action Comics -- have been the Lobdell/Rocafort Superman issues.  I can't recall when I have seen worse writing in a comic-book than Lobdell's Superman, and Rocafort's art, although perhaps not "bad," is certainly weird.  Indeed, Lobdell's writing is so bad it led one friend of mine to wonder if the guy secretly has some sort of anti-Superman agenda.

If you're wondering why I look with such contempt upon Lobdell's writing on Superman, I will list just a few problems I have with issue #13.  First, the beginning shows Superman at the center of the earth (which incidentally should be solid iron, though it's drawn as if it's regular rock, and which by the way is over 4,000 degrees C). He's being tested by a scientist friend, Dr. Veritas. She tells him that for five days, he has been doing the equivalent of lifting the mass of the earth.

Where do I begin with all the things wrong with just this first couple of pages? How the hell is Veritas' lab in the center of the earth? How did Veritas and whoever built the lab get through 3,000+ miles of molten magma and liquid iron to build it? How does Veritas get in and out?  Why the hell would she build a lab down there in the first place? And why isn't all her equipment in her lab being turned to melted slag from the temperature?  And even assuming such a lab existed, how is she able to determine that Superman can lift the mass of the earth from inside the earth?  I realize that comic-books often play fast and loose with science, but come on.

Worse, even if we allow for all the science mistakes in just that first scene, it wouldn't make the scene any less objectionable, for one reason:  the power level Superman is stated to have.  For many years before the 1985 Crisis series, Superman was a wildly overpowered character. He could move planets around, among other things.  When he was reinvented after Crisis, +DC Comics wisely (yes, I know, using "DC" and "wise" in the same sentence seems an oxymoron, but they were in this rare case) de-powered him.  Sure, he could still lift battleships or juggle 747s, but that's way less powerful than moving planets around.  For decades this more reasonably powered Superman was one of DC's signature heroes -- still the most powerful on Earth, but at least not more powerful than the Earth.  Apparently, DC has decided, of all the "Silver Age" concepts out there (many of which are wonderful), to go back to the "Superman is stronger than a planet" model.  With that very first line of dialog on the very first page of the very first regular issue of Superman that he wrote, Lobdell basically broke Superman as a character.

But if you think that is the end of the problems Lobdell created in this one issue (#13), think again. Because the next thing that happens in the story is that Metropolis is attacked by a giant monster.  And I mean giant. You think Godzilla is big at 30 stories (300 feet) tall? Well, Scott Lobdell is not to be outdone. This creature is a mile long.  Suck on that, Godzilla "king of the monsters." Anything you can do Scott Lobdell can do 10 times better, Godzilla baby.

Honestly after reading this issue, I could not figure out what Scott Lobdell was thinking, or if he was even thinking at all.  One of the supposed hallmarks of modern comic-books is their "gritty realism."  We keep being told that "gone" are the days when superheroes perform silly, Silver-Age style, over-the-top feats like pushing planets around or punching someone into orbit.  And yet, here we have Superman, able to "lift" the earth, fighting a monster that is one mile long, and being hit by the monster so hard that, from Metropolis (USA), Superman lands in Ireland.  These events would be quite at home in Acton Comics from the 1950s... but do they really have a place in Superman of the 2010s?

And yet, the over-exaggerated power level of Superman and the monster in this book pale in comparison to how poorly the characters themselves are written. For example, no sooner does Clark Kent return to his newspaper than he has an argument with Perry White and Lois Lane, and then with the owner of the Daily Planet (Mr. Edge).  In the space of a few panels, Clark erupts with completely unjustifiable rage, ranting about how the news is being confused with entertainment, and how he's not going to take it anymore. He turns to his colleagues to convince them to rise up, to show management who's really in charge, and take back their newspaper.  Leaving aside how badly written the speech itself was, the entire situation was contrived.  If Lobdell wanted to get Superman off the paper and into a different job, fine.  But the way he executed it was simply absurd.

Clark Kent is not Scott Lobdell's only characterization bungle, either.  His portrayal of Lois is ridiculous, making her seem like a petulant child.  And he has completely ignored Jimmy (who is mentioned but never shown). And by the way, when is the last time Jimmy's partner, Miko, was seen in this comic?  Lobdell's not the only one who ignored her (Jurgens and Giffen did in #7-12 also).  I thought comics were serialized fiction. If so, characters shouldn't vanish without explanation (no matter how much the new writer might not "like" them), and they shouldn't change personalities from issue to issue.  Whatever problems I may have had with George Perez's plot in the first Superman story arc, at least the characterization was impeccable.  Lois might have been news director, but she was recognizably Lois, the same Lois you can read about in my early 1980s issues of The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl, or that you can watch in re-runs of the Lois and Clark TV show.  Lobdell's Lois Lane is unrecognizable -- but then, so is his Clark Kent/Superman (and his Supergirl, and just about every other character).

I've read a lot of comic-books in my day (by my estimate, well over 2,000), and many of them were poorly written (some were down-right terrible).  I remember many awful stories, like the Armageddon 2001 crossover, and I've seen many stupid things done to the Man of Steel (like watching him be killed by a mindless brute in a battle where the two of them basically punch each other to death).  But Scott Lobdell, in record time (by the end of his first issue) has vaulted to the very top (or perhaps I should say "bottom") of the pile as the absolute worst writer of Superman I have ever seen.  What the hell he is doing on DC's payroll, let alone writing for their flagship character, I honestly cannot fathom.

Oh, and in case you're tempted to leave a comment to complain that I have made this snap judgment in only one issue (#13), I have read the rest (#0, #14-16) -- 5 issues total by Lobdell -- and it's not gotten any better.  His stories are disorganized. His dialogue is stilted. His characterizations are wildly inaccurate (no, it's not OK to take over a comic book that has gone 13 issues already and just make a character act completely different -- comic books have something called continuity that is supposed to be respected by writers and editors).   And his insistence on using throw-back Silver Age over-the-top power levels for Superman and the villains is indefensible -- it would only work if the New 52 reboot had made the entire universe return to a Silver Age setting (which is not the case).

And so, less than a week and five issues after Perez, Jurgens, and Giffen left me saying "I don't know" about Superman, Scott Lobdell has caused me to wave good-bye, and good-riddance, to the Man of Steel.  I may check back one day when Lobdell leaves the title, but until he does, there is no way in "H'el" that I will ever buy a Scott Lobdell-written Superman again.

The good news is, with Superman off my 'pull list,' I will have room for something else.  DC has screwed their universe up so much, I think it's time to look at some indies...

The Many Faces of Supergirl - Part 1: The Original

Preface

Ever since I read about her exploits in the early 1980s version of the Legion of Super-Heroes, starting with her pivotal role defeating Darkseid in the "Great Darkness Saga" (LSH #294), I have been a fan of Superman's super-powered Kryptonian cousin, Supergirl.  I'm not sure exactly when she rose to the top of my list of favorite superheroes, but for many years, the original Supergirl, as she appeared in the 1970s and 1980s, has been up there, and today, she is without question my favorite character.

Since her first appearance, Supergirl has worn many costumes, and had many incarnations.  She's died and been brought back to life, and she's been "rebooted" and re-envisioned over and over again.  Over the next couple of months, I am going to write a series of articles, starting with this one, called "The Many Faces of Supergirl."  In these articles, I will review the different incarnations of Supergirl, and discuss the good and bad points of each.  I hope these articles will be informative to the reader, and that they will, perhaps, help a few comic-book fans come to appreciate this wonderful, and all-too-frequently under-appreciated, superhero.

Supergirl arrives on earth

Just about everyone knows Superman's origin.  He was born on the planet Krypton, which has a red sun and many times the gravity of Earth, to a scientist named Jor-El.  Jor-El discovers that Krypton is about to be destroyed by a cosmic event (sometimes the planet blows up, sometimes the sun and the planet -- the exact details vary with each re-telling), and he has a baby son he wants to save.  So Jor-El puts his son, Kal-El, into a rocket ship and sends him to our primitive planet.  Here, under our yellow sun and in our atmosphere, a Kryptonian such as Kal-El has astonishing powers, including super-strength, flight, invulnerability, heat vision, x-ray vision, and super-speed.  Kal-El is raised on earth by the Kents, taking the earthly name Clark Kent, but when he grows to adult-hood, he learns how to use his powers, and fights crime and protects the innocent as Superman.

That story was told in the late 1930s, and for two decades, so far as anyone knew, the one and only survivor of the planet Krypton was Kal-El... i.e., Superman.  Then in 1959, DC comics decided to add a second survivor.  In the feature story of Action Comics #252, a fifteen year old blond girl lands on earth in another rocket ship much like the one that brought Kal-El to earth, wearing a dress that looks an awful lot like Superman's costume, and having all his powers. She claims to be Kryptonian, and to be his cousin on top of that.

Supergirl's 1st appearance.

In Action Comics #252, the young woman tells her story as a flashback.  When Krypton exploded, her city, Argo City, survived intact, having been thrown out from the planet as a single chunk of rock.  The girl's father, Jor-El's brother Zor-El (also a scientist) quickly helped create a force-field around the planet to protect it.  Argo City thus survived the destruction of Krypton, and the people of Argo lived there for many years.  Zor-El and his wife Alura had a daughter, Kara, and she grew to the age of 15, never knowing any world but her home city of Argo.  Then when she was fifteen, a swarm of giant meteors destroyed the city.  To save her, Zor-El, like his brother before him, created a rocket, clothed Kara in a suit that would help Superman recognize her, and sent her to Earth to be with the only other surviving member of their race.

And so, Kara Zor-El arrived on earth at the age of fifteen, and in doing so, gained all the Kryptonian-derived powers that Superman had -- she could fly, bend steel, race airplanes through the sky, boil water with her gaze, and see through walls.  Because she was young, and he couldn't take care of a teenager, Superman placed Kara into an orphanage in the nearby town of Midvale, under the secret identity of Linda Lee.

Over the next ten years, Supergirl made many guest appearances in Action Comics.  At first, Superman employed her as a secret weapon -- the crooks might be ready for one Superman, but they had no way of knowing there were effectively two of him to fight (since she had all the powers Superman did).  Eventually, as Linda Lee, Kara was adopted by a middle-aged couple, Fred and Edna Danvers.  This couple decided to take a teenager into their home, rather than a baby, because they saw how vulnerable she was, and how much she needed a home.  Over time, Linda came to love them in return, and they helped her adjust to life on earth.  She eventually took the name Linda Danvers as her secret identity, which she kept until the day she died (see below).

Supergirl in Adventure Comics

By 1969, Supergirl had been in print for 10 years, but had not ever had her own full-length comic-book, one devoted just to her own adventures.  DC changed all that with Adventure Comics #381.  That month, and for several years following, Supergirl headlined Adventure Comics, much as Superman headlined Action Comics.  It was time for the Girl of Steel to fly solo, and she enjoyed many issues as lead character on this title.

The first full-length feature starring Supergirl

As with many comics in this time period (at the tail end of what would later be called the "Silver Age"), Supergirl's adventures in this series are not what one could describe as sophisticated.  The stories are perhaps best described by a modern reader as campy, perhaps corny or even silly.  This is not really a knock against Supergirl or her stories -- that's the way Silver Age comics were written.  Good and evil are black-and-white; the heroes always win; they usually win in a single issue; whatever the villain's plot, no innocents are usually harmed; blood, gore, death, grievous injury are never portrayed. As a typical example, in one issue of Adventure Comics, Kara, in her secret ID of Linda Danvers, signs up for a college course on Supergirl.  The class is taught in an auditorium-sized lecture hall to a packed house of students, all taking a class about their favorite local hero.

Supergirl enjoyed an impressive run in Adventure Comics, headlining the title for 43 issues (until #424).  Indeed, this run in the early 1970s would be the longest run Supergirl would have in this incarnation, and in fact the longest any version of Supergirl would have until the turn of the century.

I don't have most of those issues (just #381 and #393), so I can't really say for certain, but based on the fact that the very month after Supergirl stopped appearing in Adventure Comics, she got her own title, I suspect that this run was highly successful, and that it produced enough sales that +DC Comics must have thought Supergirl should be given her own title.  If that's what they thought, they were sadly mistaken.  It would later turn out that this 43-issue run of Adventure Comics was the only time the original Supergirl successfully headlined anything, in any medium, not just comics.

The first Supergirl series - a flop

Presumably based on the success of Adventure Comics (above), in late 1972, +DC Comics decided to give Kara Zor-El her own title, called, of course, Supergirl.  This title is now known as "volume 1" of Supergirl.

Issue #1 of Supergirl's first series

Unfortunately, the series was not very successful.    Written by Cary Bates, Supergirl (volume 1) ran for less than a year, and was canceled by issue #10.  Again, I don't have these titles (they were printed before I was old enough to read, and 10 years before I became a Supergirl fan), but the quick move to cancellation of the title was probably caused by a lack of sales.  This began an unfortunate pattern throughout the 1970s until the mid-1980s, which was that Supergirl worked great as a guest star or back-up character, could even headline something with another name (such as Adventure Comics), but DC couldn't sell products that just had her name on them.  This pattern ultimately cost Supergirl her life.

The second Supergirl series - another flop

Throughout the 1970s, Supergirl continued to appear regularly in many titles as a backup character, a guest-star, even a temporary headliner.  She would appear frequently alongside her cousin in the pages of titles like Action Comics.  She guest-starred often with the Legion of Super-Heroes.  And she appeared regularly in the title Superman Family.  As usual, Supergirl was quite popular with the fans when she appeared in these titles, and so, eventually, +DC Comics decided to give her another chance at a series.  In late 1982, almost exactly 10 years after the last time she was given a series, Supergirl again debuted in her own title, this time called The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl (aka. Supergirl volume 2).  This title was written by longtime Superman Family scribe Paul Kupperberg, and drawn by Carmine Infantino.

The first issue of Supergirl's second series

Unfortunately, the pattern I can only call, at this point, "the curse of Supergirl" once again occurred, and this series flopped. For once, I have every issue of this title, so I can venture some guesses as to why.

I collected this series as it was being published, and although it was a long time ago, I recall that my impression of it was mixed.  I never was a fan of Infantino's art, and that always harms one's enjoyment of a series.  But for me the story is always paramount, and here I had (and still have) mixed feelings about this title.  On the one hand, Paul Kupperberg's characterization of Kara is perhaps the best ever written (to this day).  He portrays her as strong, confident, reasonably cheerful, and generally well-adjusted to Earth (at the age of 19).  It is his personality of Supergirl that I fell in love with in the early 80s.  Additionally, the supporting characters (Joanie, Mrs. Berkowitz, Dr. Metzner, etc.) are excellent and given plenty of "air time" to flesh out the stories.

On the other hand, the plots of this title leave a lot to be desired. Most of the villains are, to put it bluntly, silly, and some of the things he has Supergirl do, like flying from California to Chicago in 10 seconds, are simply ridiculous -- she'd have to fly over 620,000 miles per hour in the atmosphere to get there. That's Mach 815, folks. I won't even get into the silliness of having Supergirl fly from "the center of the universe" back to Earth in 1 day (a trip that would traverse, presuming you could even find such a point in space, billions of light years, meaning that Supergirl can travel something like a trillion times the speed of light).  I doubt I did these calculations in 1982, but I do know that I thought the stories were far lower in quality than, say, the work Paul Levitz was doing over in LSH.

I really can't say, for sure, exactly what caused Supergirl volume 2 to crater, but clearly the stories and the art had something to do with it.  Unfortunately, Kupperberg was writing classic Silver Age material, stuff that would have worked just fine in the late 1960s, for a more sophisticated Bronze Age comic audience, and perhaps that is why Paul's stories couldn't get any traction.  Similarly, Infantino was part of the "old guard," and with artists like George Perez, Kieth Giffen, John Byrne, and Paul Smith coming to prominence at the same time, Infantino's flat, angular art was no longer satisfying to the fans.

I will say, the creative team certainly tried. They even gave Supergirl her first new costume in years, and had a special issue commemorating her 25th anniversary in print.  But none of these things seemed capable of boosting sales enough to keep the series going.

Supergirl's 25th anniversary

In the end,because most fans would have summed this title up by saying "the series wasn't very good," this second Supergirl series was canceled.  In addition, although fans didn't know it yet, this also put the Supergirl character on the chopping block for the next big thing from +DC Comics .  After just under two years, this second Supergirl title was once again canceled due to lack of sales, on issue #23.

Supergirl - the movie

Following the popularity of the Superman movies, +DC Comics and the Salkinds (who produced Superman I, II, and III), decided to try and capitalize on the franchise by creating a movie about Supergirl.  The movie starred a pretty young blond named Helen Slater, and included some big-name stars, such as Peter O'Toole.  Given the cast and the production team, one would expect good things from such a movie, and I went to the theater eagerly with my friend +Stuart Johnson the week it came out.  By now, after a couple of years collecting her title and reading about her in LSH, Supergirl was probably my favorite female comic-book character (although there were lots of male characters, like Batman, whom I still liked better).

Unfortunately, the Supergirl movie was a disaster.  The only two good things that can be said about it are (1) that Jerry Goldsmith's score was excellent, making the music sound enough like John Williams' Superman score to recall it, while still making it sound somehow "feminine"; and (2) that Helen Slater perfectly looked the part of Supergirl, and played her creditably well.  The rest of the movie, however, was a train wreck.  Apparently they could not get Christopher Reeve to reprise his role as Superman, so that character never appeared (except in a poster hanging on the wall of Linda's school).  Supergirl starts out in Argo City, but the nature of that city is never explained.  When she arrives on Earth, she explains to her new friends that she is Superman's cousin, but the audience is not told how Kara even knows who he is.  She magically speaks English, and knows human traditions without having to be taught.  But worse than all that, the villains and their goals are just silly.  Once again we have a plot like something out of the campy 1960s Batman TV show.

There have been a lot of superhero movies over the years, and far more of them have been bad than good.  Among this morass of creative sewage, the Supergirl movie sadly bears the distinction of being just about the absolute worst superhero film ever made.  And therefore, unsurprisingly, just like the first two comic-book series bearing her name, the Supergirl movie was a complete flop.

The death of Supergirl

Our story has now reached the middle of the 1980s, and probably the single most significant comic-book series ever printed by +DC Comics -- the Crisis on Infinite Earths.  This was a story in which DC decided to "clean up" its nearly 50-year-long continuity.  Before the Crisis series, there were "infinite" alternative realities.  Whenever a story happened that DC didn't like or wanted to "edit," they would declare it had happened on "Earth-17" or something, and wipe it out of their continuity.  But then the writers would go back and farm that content, and eventually characters started crossing over from one Earth into another, and the stories became very messy.  As part of the Crisis, the editorial decision was made to "reboot" most characters, and to kill off some of the most important characters in the DC universe.  Among the characters +DC Comics decided to execute, the most prominent, and the one they thought would most shock the readers, was Supergirl.

And so, in the now-famous (or infamous) Crisis #7, as all the supeheroes from a dozen different earths battle against the negative-energy monsters of the "anti-earth" universe -- monsters powerful enough to hurt even Kryptonians -- Supergirl meets her untimely demise.  The event was, at least, done well. Penned by Marv Wolfman and drawn by George Perez, two of DC's best creative minds at the time, Supergirl hears the Anti-Monitor, the most powerful uber-villain ever to grace the pages of any DC comic, killing Superman.  She knows if he can kill Superman, the Anti-Monitor could kill her too, but she doesn't hesitate, because, as Wolfman narrates, "Supergirl is a hero."  She flies to Superman's side and starts pounding the Jim-dandy out of the Anti-Monitor. In fact, she gets him onto the ropes, almost has him beaten. But then she turns and yells at the other heroes to get Superman out of there. And in that moment, when her back is turned, the Anti-Monitor strikes with a killing blow, and slays her.

The death of Supergirl is one of the better-done death scenes in the history of comics.  Her death is meaningful and heroic, rather than simply tragic.  She dies as she lived -- a hero, a young woman who sacrificed her own safety time and time again to help others, usually people she didn't even know, from a planet that was utterly alien to her.  Make no mistake about it -- I hated that they killed her off.  But I've never been able to find any fault with how they did it.  Supergirl's death scene was worthy of her in a way few comic-book death scenes are (sadly, they are usually blatant sales ploys).  And so after 26 years and hundreds of stories, including two short-lived comic series and a movie, the tale of Kara Zor-El, the original Supergirl, came to an end.

Why Supergirl was killed

At this point in the story, we have come to the end of the first chapter of the Supergirl saga.  This character, the original Supergirl, Kara Zor-El of Argo City, daughter of Zor-El and Alura, niece of Jor-El, cousin of Kal-El/Superman, who first appeared in Action Comics #252, made her final appearance in Crisis #7.  Before concluding, it's valuable to ask ourselves just exactly why she was killed. What made the creative team on Crisis decide to kill her off, and why did the editorial staff at +DC Comics agree to it?

There are really two factors that contributed to the death of Supergirl: all the flops with her name on them, and her Kryptonian origins.   Of these two, I maintain that it was the repeated nose-dives taken by anything with Kara's name on it that really did her in.  If she'd been a popular character who out-sold Superman and Batman combined, +DC Comics would have kept her around. But because her titles (and even movie) always flopped, that lack of success made her vulnerable to the second (much more arbitrary) argument about her Kryptonian heritage.  Let's look at these two arguments separately.

As we've seen above, since 1972, anything with the name "Supergirl" in the title turned out to be a lead balloon in terms of sales.  The original Supergirl series sold so poorly that they canceled it after 10 issues, and never let her headline anything again for nearly 10 years.  Then, when DC gave her a second chance, the second Supergirl series flopped in just a few months longer (after 23 issues).  Kara now had two strikes against her. The third strike came the same year in which her second title was canceled, in the form of the Supergirl movie.  Here was a title created by the same people who made block-buster successes out of Superman, and they couldn't give away tickets to Supergirl.  Two comic series and a movie with Supergirl's name on them, and three straight bombs. The conclusion DC comics reached seems to have been that Supergirl isn't very well liked by the fans. After all, if people liked her, these things would have sold.

The flops, and the conclusion that Supergirl was unpopular, left her vulnerable a few months later when Marv Wolfman suggested killing her off.  Surely the editors at DC must have said to each other, "Well, she's not that popular anyway, since anything with her name on it bombs, so it's probably safe to kill her off." Indeed, I bet DC thought they had in her the perfect kill-off character -- one so "big" and important to the DC Universe that no fan would ever believe they could kill her, yet unpopular enough that they didn't have to worry about a huge fan backlash when she died.

But there was also another reason -- the very aspects that gave her powers, that made Kara into Supergirl, had become a problem for DC.  The editorial thinking at the time had shifted.  Rather than having a Superman "family" (Supergirl, Superboy, Superman, Krypto the Wonder Dog, and so forth), DC decided that Superman must be the one and only survivor, the true last son of Krypton (and no last daughters). DC often stated that Superman was the "most powerful" of all heroes in the DC Universe, but this was not true after 1959, because Supergirl was identical to him in power in every single way.  Superman and Supergirl were tied as equally powerful, and DC didn't want that status to continue.  There was no (believable) way for them to make her weaker than Superman, so they needed to get rid of her -- to erase her from the universe.

The Crisis proved to be the perfect venue at the perfect time.  DC wanted Superman to be the last and only survivor of Krypton, so they needed to get rid of Supergirl.  The Crisis writer wanted to kill her off. And as an added bonus, the conclusion of the Crisis was a time-traveling event that ended up rebooting the entire continuity, and letting DC re-tell every single origin.  Not only did Supergirl die in the Crisis, but by the time it was over, in the DC universe, she had never existed.

DC must have thought this was the perfect solution. They killed off an important but (as far as they knew) unpopular character, one that had been troublesome for their continuity for years, and then erased her from the continuity, and made the (at the time "permanent") editorial decision that there would never, ever, be any other survivors of Krypton besides Superman. Thus, not only was she gone, but she would never be brought back to the DC Universe.

Aftermath and reader backlash

DC's "perfect solution" turned out not to be so perfect, however.  In a turn of events that completely shocked +DC Comics and caused a backlash that went on for almost 20 years, of all the characters DC killed or erased during their Crisis event, the one who received the largest groundswell of support and the loudest protest of anger was the one DC had thought was the most unpopular: Supergirl.  To be sure, lots of people were unhappy with the death of Barry Allen, and his replacement as the Flash by Wally West.  And plenty of folks were displeased with the disappearance of whole alternate realities from the DC continuity.  But the backlash against all these things paled in comparison to the vitriolic response to not just the death of Supergirl, but her complete and (at the time) permanent erasure from the continuity.  From almost the moment Crisis #7 was published, and for two decades thereafter, DC kept hearing from a large, determined group of fans in letters, at conventions, and eventually by e-mail: Bring back Kara.

To say that this backlash surprised the editors at DC is probably a wild understatement.  I'm guessing they were flabbergasted.  Surely they looked at each other in confusion and said, "Where were all these Supergirl fans when her comics were being published? Where were they when the movie came out?"  Unfortunately, DC had made the understandable, but gargantuan, mistake of equating the sales of products titled "Supergirl" with the popularity of the character.  It's a reasonable conclusion to draw -- that her books and movie tanked because people didn't like her.  After all, the constant among all of them is the character - Supergirl.

What DC missed, however, was the other constant -- that the quality of the products they were putting out under Supergirl's name was inferior.  The Supergirl comics were below average compared to other titles being published at the time (see, for comparison, Supergirl vol, 2, no. 1-5, and LSH #290-294, which were published more or less concurrently).  Similarly, by any standard, the Supergirl movie was vastly inferior to the first two Superman movies, and somewhat inferior to the third.  Thus, the one constant that was driving all things Supergirl to flop wasn't Kara -- it was the fact that the products weren't any good. (And I say this as one of the character Supergirl's biggest fans).  I mean think about it. I adored Supergirl (and I had the hots for Helen Slater on top of it) , and I could barely bring myself to sit in the theater for the entire movie.

In the end, it was DC's abuse of Supergirl that finally did her in.  By slapping her name on garbage and seeing that it didn't sell, DC got the mistaken impression that Supergirl didn't have very many fans, that it would be relatively "safe" to kill her off. Oh, sure, they knew some fans would get angry and complain. But they had no idea of the scale with which the backlash would occur. When it did, they were caught rather flat-footed.

And so the cry went up: "Bring back Kara!"  Every week, in their letter office. Every time they went to comic conventions. Every time the fans had any chance to say it, they said it loudly and clearly. We loved Supergirl, and we wanted her back.

For several years, DC resisted. Then, finally, in the 1990s, they tried to have their cake and eat it too. The strangest and most convoluted chapter of the Supergirl story was about to begin.

Next Article - Part 2  >>

DC's New 52 - another messy reboot

Every once in a while, it seems like the DC comics company decides to "reboot" their continuity.  In 1985, they collapsed their multi-universe of alternate "Earths" into a single one, killing a bunch of characters (like my favorite, Supergirl) in the process, in a series called Crisis on Infinite Earths.  When the series concluded, the DC continuity had a single universe -- one timeline without alternate earths -- and all the previous stories were (or should have been) erased.  All the signature characters (Superman, Wonder Woman, etc.) had their origins re-told, and many of the DC comics were re-numbered starting on #1.  Because the Crisis story involved the characters going back to the beginning of time and preventing the single Earth from splitting into many alternates, logically, none of the stories people had read from Action Comics #1 in 1938 until 1985, could ever have happened.  This allowed DC to completely restart their universe.

Unfortunately, DC did not do a 100% "clean" reboot.  Some of the characters in the universe remembered the previous timeline, even though they shouldn't have.  The Spectre, who in a way lives "outside" of time, remembered the old continuity, even though under the new continuity the old one was supposed to have never existed.  The character Harbinger, who was invented for the Crisis series, continued to exist (even though, since the heroes had changed the past, in the new continuity the Crisis had never happened). And many past events from before the Crisis still supposedly "happened" in some form. For example, in the post-Crisis limited series Hawk and Dove, Hawk explicitly remembers his brother Don (the first Dove) dying "when the skies turned red" (the Crisis events). Thus, as the years progressed, DC's writers kept making references to pre-Crisis events.  These references confused everyone, as people were left to wonder, "What stories that I read before 1985 are still canon, and what stories aren't?"

To make matters worse, over the years, DC's writers and editors repeatedly made decisions that confused and screwed up the new continuity.  They could not resist eventually adding alternate versions of Earth (not surprising because this is a very common comic-book trope, and I can't imagine any company with as many titles per month as DC going very long without the need for alternate realities).  And the fans kept clamoring for pre-Crisis characters to return -- most notably Supergirl and the original Flash (Barry Allen).  DC tried to appease folks with substitute versions of these characters, such as the shape-shifting artificial being "Matrix" which could take the form of a female character that people called "Supergirl." But the fans were not satisfied.

Over the years, DC has screwed their universe up enough times that they have had to have more "Crises" to try and correct the continuity -- such as Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis.  I wasn't reading comics as these course corrections were attempted, so I don't really know exactly how they proceeded, but I do know that they must not have done the job, because in later summer 2011, DC Comics once again decided that their universe was such a complete and utter mess, and so incomprehensible to new fans (or returning folks like me), that they needed to completely restart their universe over again, with new, fresh stories. Because there were (originally) 52 titles being put out per month, they called these titles "The New 52."

When I decided to get back into comic-books, after learning about this, it seemed to me that the #1 issues of The New 52 were the logical place to start.  I had no idea what I would like, or dislike, so I began with a few of them.  It became immediately apparent to me that DC comics had again made a mess of its reboot. Once again some events from before the reboot are still remembered by some characters (for example, Barbara Gordon still remembers being shot by the Joker back in the 1980s). But they've made it even worse by having the comic-books take place at different points in the timeline relative to each other.  For example, the two main books about Superman, Action Comics and Superman, take place 5 years apart, even though they are being published concurrently. And Justice League #1 takes place some time after the events of Action Comics but before the events of Superman.

What DC is left with in the mish-mash that is The New 52, are three types of comic-book titles: true reboots, reboots with backstory, and a third category I can only call complete messes.  Below, I will outline each of these categories.

True Reboots

 What I call "true reboots" are comic-books like Justice League, Action Comics, and Supergirl, where absolutely no stories we've ever read about the characters have ever happened, and everything is completely new.  Supergirl #1 has Kara Zor-El arriving on earth for the first time in her life. Justice League #1 has Batman meeting Green Lantern for the first time ever.  Action Comics #1 has Superman wearing street clothes and a cape, and still not quite able to fly yet.  These comics all start completely from square one, and move forward only.  There are no real flash-backs (nor any need for them): it is the clear start of a totally new set of characters.  In my opinion, quite apart from how good the individual plots are in these comics (Supergirl's is excellent; Action Comics' is a disaster), this is the category into which DC should have placed all 52 titles.  Unfortunately, it seems to be occupied by the vast minority of books.

Reboots with Backstory

What I call "reboots with backstory" are comic-books where the character has been rebooted, but some elements of the backstory from as far back as the 1986 era right after Crisis, still "happened," or perhaps there is a longer backstory that is not part of the past continuity, but still happened for some years before the publication of issue #1.  Examples in this category are Batgirl #1 (in which the title character remembers being shot by the Joker and paralyzed, but not all the many events of her life as Oracle after that), or Wonder Woman #1, where the title character seems to have been around in the world for a while (people in issue #1 already know to call her "Wonder Woman"), but none of the previous stories people read about in her earlier comics seem to have happened.  Another example is Superman #1, which takes place five years after the events depicted in Action Comics #1 (although they were published the same month -- see how confusing it is?), and repeatedly references events that are in the comic-book's past, but have never been printed by DC comics before (they're not referencing past issues of Superman or any other title).

Complete Messes

Finally, there are the comics I can only call (from a reboot/continuity perspective) "complete messes." These are comics that are an utter Gordian knot of confusion, mixing old printed stories from the past continuity, with "backstory" that is fictional (never printed but still in the "past" of the current storyline), and total reboot material (new stuff that assumes no prior story).  Examples of this include Green Lantern #1, which clearly references a whole variety of events that took place in earlier published comics, Batman #1, Detective Comics #1, and Hawk and Dove #1.  For instance, in the Hawk and Dove series (which only lasted 8 issues), Dove repeatedly makes reference to her relationship with a character named Deadman, with whom she got involved during a story-line that existed in the previous published (pre-New 52) continuity.  But ask yourself -- how is that possible? Some of the characters who were completely rebooted, such as Superman, were involved in that previously published storyline. So how can Dove remember something that involved Superman, but Superman be rebooted and not remember it?  You can get migraines trying to unravel these messes.

And after 5 issues... in many cases I still don't know what is going on

The upshot of all this mish-mash with some characters being given a "clean" reboot and others a messy one, is that DC has made a complete hash of The New 52.  One of the main goals of their company-wide "reboot" was supposed to be to make it easier for new readers to jump into DC's titles, to make it less intimidating to read Superman, who before 2011 had a multi-decade continuity.  It presumably was supposed to make lapsed readers like myself have an easier time getting back into things.  For some titles, like Supergirl and Batgirl, this has absolutely been true.  For other titles, like Detective Comics and Green Lantern, I gave up after the first issue, being so utterly and completely confused that I could not follow them enough to bother with further installments.

And it's not just whether the series got a complete reboot or not that is confusing (although complete reboots, or near-reboots, did help a lot). It's that the comics are taking place all over the history of the DC universe.  Some titles (Superman, Supergirl) take place today.  Others (Justice League) take place five years ago. Still others (Action Comics) take place even earlier (perhaps 5.5 or 6 years ago... it's hard to tell). Even others (Wonder Woman) take place in an indeterminate time period.  This was true in issue #1, but I figured it would be cleared up after a few months.  So far I am on #5 of the titles I am currently collecting, and nope -- it has not been resolved. Worse, a friend of mine is current (on #15 or so) with these titles, and he's still not sure whether Justice League takes place before, after, or concurrently with Wonder Woman.

I think I understand what DC tried to do with the early issues of The New 52. They tried to make them exciting, maybe a little confusing to draw readers in, and complex.  They wanted to slowly reveal the relationships between the titles and between the present and the past.  And perhaps those goals were admirable. But the problem is, with 52 different titles, all with different levels of "reboot," all taking place at different time periods, while being published the same month (or even week), DC has just produced a massively confusing universe.  I'm not at all certain that it would have been any harder for me to just jump into ongoing comics that had 13 years of continuity that I'd missed, than it has been to jump into series that claim to be "rebooted" but often have vestiges of stories I haven't read, and that have incredibly confusing connections to one another.  And my confusion, which is high in many cases, is partially mitigated by the fact that I am buying these early New 52s as back-issues, so I have been able to read #1-#5 in a very short time (about 5 weeks, instead of 5 months). I can't imagine how confusing it must have been for people to read this stuff "live" -- and wait more than 5 months (in most cases) to figure out what the hell is going on in each series.

Comic-book collecting is a slow hobby, not for the impatient, and I know that.  You can't expect, and in most cases don't want, a story to wrap up in one or two issues. But, it seems to me when a company is rebooting its whole universe specifically to make it more "user friendly," they shouldn't then turn around and make the interrelationships between the various rebooted characters so incomprehensible that even an old hand at it can't figure out how the titles connect to one another.

Now, that said, I am enjoying a few titles, and if you are new to comics, I can definitely recommend four that will not confuse you too much (other than not knowing whether they all take place at the same time or at different times).  Supergirl and Justice League are true reboots, and one can easily read these titles without having ever read any stories about the characters before.  Wonder Woman has been cleanly rebooted but has an indeterminate backstory that occurred "before" issue #1.  Up to #5, we know the backstory is there, and see hints of it, but it isn't confusing at all, and the story moves forward in a comprehensible way.  Finally, Batgirl has been rebooted with a somewhat involved backstory, but it's entirely possible to read the Batgirl series (up through at least #8) without knowing the past story -- or with knowing it, because there are references to what you might already know, but they are vague enough not to be continuity-twisting.

I'm afraid I can't really recommend any of the other series I am currently reading (or that I tried to read).  Although Action Comics is a "clean reboot," the stories in it are a mess, and there is no sense of plot or continuity to them.  The story hop-scotches around, with the story in #4 not being picked up again until #7, and with the Superman of the far future making a sudden appearance at the end of #5. Although, as an old-time reader, I understand the Legion of Super-heroes references and the appearance of Steel, a new reader would surely go "wtf" and probably give up the series by #5. I know I'm on the verge of it myself, but I will give it a few more issues.  Similarly, although it pains me to say it because the series is written by a favorite of mine, George Perez, I can't recommend the Superman comic either.  The story is not as much of a mess as Action Comics, but the references to the (so far unpublished) "five year backstory" of Superman are highly confusing, and the storyline in which Superman finds himself (basically having a mental breakdown) is not appropriate for the first few issues of a new series with a "new" Superman -- the character needs to be established first, George, before you "break" him!

I think DC could have had a great idea on their hands with a clean reboot. I believe that the Justice League, Supergirl, and Wonder Woman comics prove this. They are among the best-written comics of all the ones I've tried so far, and they work very well as truly restarted titles.  If only DC had done this clean a reboot with everything, The New 52 would have been a great deal better off.  Because they didn't, I hate to say it, but I would not be shocked at DC having to do yet another reboot some time in the next 5-10 years, to untangle the whole mess they have got on their hands already, 1.5 years into the current continuity.