I have somehow managed to misplace all of my old Supergirl comics. I had them up in frames for a while, and now I have no idea what's happened to them. Very odd.
The New Doom Patrol really are very mediocre. I've read a few bits and pieces of interviews with Paul Kupperberg of late, and even he acknowledges that he completely missed the point of the Doom Patrol. They were never just another superhero team, as the new DP are, but a support group that occasionally acted pretty heroically.
Today's issue is no exception. I really like Josh Clay (Tempest) in his role as team support in Morrison's Doom Patrol - here, unfortunately, he is a pretty bad stereotype, sporting many of the hallmarks of the Blaxpoitation movies that were de rigeur a few years before this comic came out. I had a similar problem with Val in the Showcase issues, in that she was little more than a cardboard cut-out Soviet defector. I have no problem with using some of these tropes, but that's not all the character should be. There is some attempt at development in the budding relationship between Josh and Val, but Josh's overtures verge on creepy (at least from a contemporary point of view), and Val seems only mildly interested in returning them.
I did realize as I was reading this issue that I made a chronological error. DC Comics Presents #52 comes before this story, and explains why Val is now bandaged like Larry Trainor was. I'll finish off this story and then jump back in time and read that one!
Another interesting thing I found out today is that in the wake of Crisis on Infinite Earths, the New DP's adventures with Supergirl are retconned to feature Power Girl instead. She shows up late in Paul Kupperberg's Doom Patrol, and represents one of the few changes to Doom Patrol history that is changed by the Crisis.
"The let's not just sit here like we was watchin' reruns of 'Star Trek'!"
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