My latest JLA/JSA team-up entry featured JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #231-232 (O-N'84) which guest-starred SUPERGIRL in the second of her two major JLA appearances. She previously was in JLA #132 (Jl'76) and #134 (S'76). It's hard not to notice that neither time was she the focus of the issue. But they did get me thinking: Was there any logical reason why Supergirl was NOT a member of the Justice League in its original run? Nor it seems that she was even considered.
There were times when she crossed paths with the team like ADVENTURE COMICS #423 (S'72) and SUPERMAN FAMILY #171 (Jl'75) but the JLAers never seemed that interested in her.
But why? Even in the Silver Age, the only reasonable excuse after her public debut would have been her age but as soon as she started attending Stanhope College, she was clearly a legal adult. And please don't say that she wouldn't have been one on Krypton! And even if her being in college kept her out, she graduated college and no offer came her way. Considering the departures of both Wonder Woman (in JLA #69) and Martian Manhunter (in JLA #71) and the reduction in power of Green Lantern (in GL/GA), ignoring someone of her strength and experience borders on lunacy.
So why? Here are some reasons that I could come up with both metafictionally and creatively.
- It's possible that Mort Weisinger, the Superman editor did not want her on the team, thus giving up so authority on her as he had to on Superman.
- It's possible that Julius Schwartz, the JLA editor did not want her on the team. He had Superman, why would he need the spin-off?
- It's possible that no writer wanted her on the team. Bad enough having to think up menaces strong enough to challenger Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash and the rest without the burden of dealing with the Girl of Steel, too.
- After WW left, Supergirl would have made the other male heroes look inferior, much like her cousin did.
- Villains would have to have twice as much Kryptonite handy!
- This may be controversial but as we all should know, Supergirl was part of the Legion of Super-Heroes but was never truly a regular member. Perhaps it wasn't as rewarding an experience for her as it was for Superboy. Maybe she didn't want to join another group.
- Also, maybe she didn't want to be part of the same group as her older cousin Superman? Why be in his shadow more than she had to? That way she could be her own woman, not the Man of Steel's "kid sister".
- Could Kara have been more rebellious than we thought? Beyond the hot pants? Was the JLA too old-fashioned for her? Too stodgy?
- Or after years of not being asked, she no longer cared about being a member. And may have turned them down in an unrevealed story?
Supergirl was always in a weird position. Too young for the JLA; too old for the Teen Titans. She needed her own group in the 70s, perhaps including Batgirl.
She was both a star and a sidekick, a pivotal player and a secondary character.
But she should have been a Justice Leaguer, no doubt in my mind.
What about yours?
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I also think the age thing did mean more then than we expect now, both Supergirl and Batgirl never joined the Teen Titans OR the JLA because neither group was quite a team of there peers. That's why the LSH fit Kara better.
There never really was a "No-Same-Powers" clause to prevent anyone from joining the JLA. After all, Superman, Wonder Woman and the Flash all had super-speed as an example.
I don't think Kara "fit" with the Legion all that well. She wanted super girlfriends but never seemed that close with any of them. There was her relationship with Brainiac 5 but he could never stay with her in the 20th century nor would she commit to long spans in the 30th. I don't think that she embraced the Legion experience as much as Superboy did.
I think you answered your own question, Philip, but before I get into that, let's address a flaw in your postulate . . . .
". . . but as soon as she started attending Stanhope College, she was clearly a legal adult."
Not necessarily so, my friend, and probably not so with regard to Supergirl.
"Legal adulthood" in the United States is a malliable concept and largely left to the individual states to determine. Even within a particular state, adulthood can be set at different ages, depending on the rights and privileges covered.
To illustrate what I mean, let's take the state of North Carolina, the state laws of which I am most familiar with.
Parents are responsible for their minor children until they reach the age of eighteen. Under the law, that means that a child has no proprietary right of ownership until he reaches eighteen. (In other words, all the stuff he regards as his---even if he bought them with money he earned independently---actually belong to his parents.)
The day Junior turns eighteen, Mom and Dad can kick him out of the house. The other statutes regarding residency do not come into play here.
However, if Junior runs away from home, if he has reached the age of sixteen, then a law-enforcement officer who finds him cannot take custody of him (on the sole factor of him being a runaway) or compel him to return to his parents.
Additionally---and a provision which I enjoyed greatly when I was a police officer---for purposes of arrest and incarceration in intake, one is considered an adult at sixteen. In other words, if Junior is sixteen and he commits a crime, misdemeanour or felony, if he is arrested, he goes to "big boy" jail, just like any other adult.
At eighteen, he can vote in state and local elections.
However, he cannot legally drink until he is twenty-one.
This is all law in the state of North Carolina, so you can see that, even within a single state, the age of adulthood varies, depending on the circumstance.
But, as this discussion applies to Linda (Supergirl) Danvers, you're also overlooking one important fact.
For most of the United States' history, the age of adulthood was considered twenty-one, and most of the rights and privileges attached to adulthood commenced at that age. (All the screwing around with varying ages in state laws tended to come later.) One couldn't drink until he was twenty-one. One couldn't enter into contracts until he was twenty-one. One couldn't vote in local, state, or federal elections until he was twenty-one.
All of that changed in 1971. On 01 July 1971, the twenty-sixth amendment to the U.S. Constitution was enacted, lowering the voting age in federal elections to eighteen. As a consequence, most of the states lowered the "age of adulthood" in most things---voting, entering into contracts, purchasing alcohol---to eighteen.
It only took about a decade for many state governments to realise that allowing eighteen-year-olds legally drink was probably not the wisest of ideas, so in most states, the legal drinking age was restored to twenty-one. That's what informed state governments that various rights and privileges of adulthood weren't tied to a single codefied age. Thus, each state started tinkering with minimum ages under which the various aspects of adulthood could be granted. That's how states like North Carolina wound up with the "age of adulthood" being all over the board, depending on the right or privilege.
At the time Linda Danvers entered Stanhope College---Action Comics # 318 (Nov., 1964)---she would have been no older than eighteen, and at the time, twenty-one was still the prevailing age for adulthood in the U.S. So, no, she wasn't a "legal adult".
However, to your more specific question, I believe you provided the real-world answer when you said:
"It's possible that no writer wanted her on the team. Bad enough having to think up menaces strong enough to challenger Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash and the rest without the burden of dealing with the Girl of Steel, too."
I believe that's precisely it. Gardner Fox had enough problems coming up with menaces formidable enough to challenge the Justice League. That's why he finally went to the "rotating membership" system---so he could bench the mightier Leaguers from time to time. Adding Supergirl to the mix would just be one more heavyweight Fox would have to find a way to suitably challenge---or tie her up on an urgent case of her own.
Within the fictional conceit of the series, her lack of membership is explained easily enough---though not without generating its own questions. The Justice League by-laws allowed only one new member to be admitted at a time, based upon the membership votes. (Under Fox, there was no sponsoring members or "hey, this hero helped us out on a case; let's make him a member!" nonsense.)
Simply, Supergirl never got enough votes to be elected into the JLA. As to why, well, a sharp writer could probably make a story out of that.
Thanks, Commander. I didn't take contemporary laws when I considered that but did the JLA even have an age limit?
Still you still have that "super-intelligence" factor to work in, not to mention that Snapper Carr was still in high school when he joined. Yes, I know as an honorary member but he went on missions!
I know that you've said that the JLA was not a social club but to them, it may well have been in some respect. Despite Wonder Woman being there, it could have that "Men's Club" aspect for the members. Especially when Wonder Woman was not participating as much then outright left.
Perhaps Superman never nominated Supergirl because the JLA was his "vacation" from his Weisingerian reality. No Lois, No Jimmy, no Kandor, no Luthor, no Red K and no little cousins tagging along. In the JLA, Kal was freed from his burgeoning mythos!
Superman did love Supergirl dearly but it took a while, I think. In the beginning, she made him uncomfortable, giving him responsibilities he did not want. Remember, he made no effort to assimilate her into his life. He, her only living relative (as they both believed at the time), slapped a wig on her and put her in an orphanage at near super-speed. He didn't want anyone to know about her. He set up a series of rules that benefited him more than her. He could have easily introduced her to Lois and Jimmy as Clark's cousin Linda but he was afraid of the questions, like having a cousin your friends don't know about is somehow suspicious.
Superman is not the nurturing type and he does believe in tough love. He has a very limited view on family bonds and has always been isolated from extended family structure. Plus he had too big of a secret to let anyone get that close.
But he did grow to love Kara once he realized that her love was unconditional and that happened fairly quickly. The problem was that he was super-set in his ways and resisted any change that he did not initiate himself.
Commander Benson said:
All of that changed in 1971. On 01 July 1971, the twenty-sixth amendment to the U.S. Constitution was enacted, lowering the voting age in federal elections to eighteen. As a consequence, most of the states lowered the "age of adulthood" in most things---voting, entering into contracts, purchasing alcohol---to eighteen.
It only took about a decade for many state governments to realise that allowing eighteen-year-olds legally drink was probably not the wisest of ideas, so in most states, the legal drinking age was restored to twenty-one.
I remember that in California those of us involved in conducting elections were very concerned about having a Federal voting age of 18 while the State voting age was 21. We would have had to separate the 18-20-year-old voter registrations from the rest and develop side-by-side programs and physical files so that 18-year-olds could vote for U.S. Senate, U.S. Representative in Congress, and President ONLY and everybody else could vote for everything. We were very relieved when the State changed its law to adopt the voting -at- 18 standard. Because of the expense and difficulty of separating everything this way, I'd be surprised if any state didn't adopt 18 for all voting.
As for drinking, when I turned 20 at Fort Knox, Kentucky in 1968, I had my first beer on post. It was legal at the time because they had a huge sign posted saying you had to be 18 1/2 to drink. Since this was my Basic Training post and my first time away from home, I didn't leave the Post and go into any town, so I'm not sure if this was Kentucky's drinking age or the Army's. I believe the adoption of a uniform drinking age of 21 was accomplished by the Feds arm-twisting the states by threatening to withhold highway funds if they didn't do it.
I figured that Kara just wasn't a joiner. When I look at her book I see her bouncing from place to place, job to job and city to city.
Supergirl? Join the JLA? THOSE LOSERS? Hah. : )
Let's see, when Schwartz first started the Justice League, it was his baby and he seemed to have trouble with the other editors who "owned" those characters.
With the original seven, you have two from Schwartz--the only ones he had (other than the freshly introduced Elongated Man and Kid Flash)--unless you count Adam Strange as a super-hero (I don't). Two from Weisinger--Superman and Aquaman. Two from Schiff--Batman and Martian Manhunter. And one from Kanigher--Wonder Woman (about the only super-hero that Kanigher had at the time).
Weisinger and Schiff put up a fight and restricted use of Superman and Batman. Pretty soon Schwartz added Green Arrow (who was kind of a joint Schiff and Weisinger property). But GA wasn't getting much love (had lost his spot in ADVENTURE and had to settle for keeping a spot in WORLD'S FINEST).
Schwartz was eventually able to get his way and use Batman and Superman more. But after Green Arrow, Schwartz only added heroes that he owned. Atom, Hawkman. He flirted with adding Metamorpho, but that was probably never a serious option--because he didn't own the character.
By 1964 Schwartz had become a Batman editor--and Green Arrow had lost his feature. So that makes five Schwartz properties--Batman, Flash, GL, Hawkman, Atom--plus one Weisinger (Superman), one Schiff (Martian Manhunter)--a free agent (Green Arrow)--and Aquaman now a George Kashdan property (who gets less page time in the JLA).
Note that Schwartz didn't even give a lot of time to the partners of the regular members (even the ones he owned), but when he used guest stars they tended to be from his other books--Adam Strange, Zatanna, Elongated Man, Hawkgirl, Batgirl.
I'm sure he was just trying to avoid conflict by using characters he controlled rather than dealing with other editors.
In the '70s you could argue that Schwartz should've had more control over Supergirl, when Schwartz took over some of the Superman books. But Supergirl was usually appearing in books from other DC editors.
When Schwartz added more members, they were Black Canary, Elongated Man, Red Tornado--all characters he controlled. The one oddity was Phantom Stranger--a Joe Orlando property at the time. However, Schwartz had been PS's original editor (in the '50s) and Len Wein was writing both JLA and PS at the time that the Stranger became a member. And, in any case, the Stranger rarely ever showed his face at a meeting.
After Schwartz leaves the JLA, I think you do see Supergirl guesting more often. But you see a lot more new members and guest stars in general by then, as the Justice League becomes desperate for new blood. But Supergirl isn't actually a big draw--so there probably wasn't a lot to be gained by featuring her in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA.
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