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white pgs; DC Silver Age Classics REPRINT
Origin & 1st app of Supergirl (Kara Zor-El); 1st app of Zor-El, Supergirl's Father; 1st app of Metallo; Curt Swan cover; Al Pastino art; COMIC BOOK IMPACT rating of 8 (CBI)


Action Comics #252 made comics history with the first appearance of Supergirl — although the notion of a female version of Superman had been tried a few times before this debut appearance from Kara Zor-El. That included a few imaginary stories and one-off's published as attempts to keep the flagship title thriving while the original Superman TV series brought in merchandising dollars. None of those characters ever really found a place in pop culture. That all changed when longtime Action scribe Otto Binder teamed with regular Superman artist Al Plastino to expand the Man of Steel's family tree with a teenage cousin from Krypton.

Supergirl's first appearance in Action #252 (20 years after Superman's own debut!) was an immediate smash with the readers. Copies were quickly being passed along, borrowed, and read heavily, That would result in a surprisingly low number of surviving issues of this major DC event, even by the usual standards of tough-to-find DC books from the '50s. Action #252 continues to remain among the top-three toughest DC Silver Age keys to track down.

DC's creative staff took advantage of those strong sales to keep trying out new ideas and themes,. The character of Supergirl would end up going through extensive revamps over the decades. Kara would keep busy with six seasons of her own television series from 2015 to 2021. Today, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow (based on a hit 2022 Limited Series) has already been announced as the second movie in the new DC Extended Universe film series, set to follow the company's big-screen 2025 Superman. The heroine's free-spirited first appearance continues to be a prime investment for serious comic collectors.
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Artist Information

Swan was a house artist at DC working on titles like Tommy Tomorrow, he began gravitating towards Superman and his related books, Superboy, World's Finest and Jimmy Olsen, he would eventually leave DC thanks to his personality issue with Editor In Chief Mort Weisinger. He would eventually return and go on to be the artist that defined the look of Superman in the Silver Age, eventually becoming the editor of the title, but after thirty years of keeping up standards of all things Superman, Swan was given the boot in favor of John Byrne's Superman reboot, Swan's comic work began to taper off after this dismissal and he eventually retired, but will forever be recognized as the Silver Age Superman's finest artist.