{"id":4693,"date":"2026-04-18T09:41:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T13:41:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opendoor-comics.com\/unbagged\/?p=4693"},"modified":"2026-04-18T09:41:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T13:41:11","slug":"paneling-superman-family-221","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opendoor-comics.com\/unbagged\/2026\/04\/18\/paneling-superman-family-221\/","title":{"rendered":"Paneling: Superman Family #221"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today is Superman Day, but because of her upcoming movie, it’s also Supergirl Day<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given that the Maid of Might is having a moment, and I recently made a reference to her Bronze Age acting career, I thought I’d take a look at a panel that has stuck with me throughout the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It comes from the penultimate issue of The Superman Family<\/em>, which wraps up a two-part adventure that brings the Girl of Steel into conflict with one of her cousin’s enemies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Superman Family <\/em>#221<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The story by Paul Kupperburg, with pencils by Win Mortimer, inks by Sal Tapani, colors by Jerry Serpe, and letters by A. Kubert – I don’t know which one – opens with Supergirl, in her secret identity of Linda Danvers, watching a news story about her encounter with the Master Jailer, who managed to escape becoming the Master Jailed<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Because she has the night off from her day job on a daytime soap opera, she decides to switch to her costume and head out in search of the villain. However, despite having a super-memory, she forgot that she had plans to go shopping with a friend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But her super-resolve wavers in the face of her friend’s insistence, and so she sets aside the never-ending battle to pursue neither truth nor justice, but just the American Way: spending money!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When the working day is done, Supergirls just wanna have superfun<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After finishing the shopping spree and walking out onto the sidewalk, her friend Marilyn steps away to hail a cab, and while she’s doing that, a woman approaches Linda, asking her if she is Margo Hatton from Secret Hearts<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Linda replies that she does indeed play that character and thinks about how nice it is be recognized in her civilian identity for a change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that nice feeling only lasts until the third panel of the fourth page, which is when this moment that has always stuck with me happens:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Trollop! Flibbertigibbet! Strumpet!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You see, Linda’s character is a villain on the show, and she apparently plays her so convincingly that this woman cannot distinguish between the show and reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She especially abhors the way Margo mistreats her nice old aunt, and she wants her aunt to know that Emily Finestein is on her side!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I seem to recall this sort of thing happening in real life fairly regularly back then. Not that it doesn’t happen now in the modern era of parasocial relationships, but I just remember it being something that made the news a lot, particularly whenever it took an even darker turn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were just a lot of stories of stars who had to keep their marriages a secret so as to avoid enraging their fans – and lowering their shows’ ratings – and threatening letters, and people breaking into celebrities’ homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So this stuck in my mind because it was sort of “ripped from the headlines” years before Law & Order<\/em> was around to do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the rest of the story, another run-in with the Master Jailer ends with his escape once more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later, we get to see Linda on set, vamping it up as the villainous Margo…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

…but shooting is interrupted by someone on the set listening to the radio too loud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, fortuitously, the radio was broadcasting a breaking news story about a Master Jailer sighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Linda decides to play the diva – which is the sort of thing I suggested should have been part of her adventure with Blade<\/a> – as an excuse to slip away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

She quickly finds the Master Jailer, who is actually lying in wait, ready to spring a trap! He hits her with an energy beam that somehow turns her into a ray of light and sends her shooting off into space, unable to slow down or change direction!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, she does manage to slightly alter her course just enough to fly towards the sun and use its gravitational pull to slingshot her towards a space warp that she happens to know about, which leads to another memorable panel just because of her face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Faaan-tastic, indeed.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

She quickly heads back to Earth and finds that the Jailer had taken advantage of her absence to rob a jewelry store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the element of surprise on her side, she’s able to make quick work of taking out the villain, and even manages to get in a pun to accompany the punch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Presumably, after this she headed out to settle Emily Finestein’s hash.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Superman Family<\/em> was one of my favorite comics as a kid, though I must admit it wasn’t because of the Supergirl stories. Not that I didn’t like them, it’s just that the Mr. and Mrs. Superman and, of course, Lois Lane features were the biggest draws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond that, an issue of the series is the first comic I remember looking at<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I bought this as a kid, I had no idea it was the second-to-last issue, and I didn’t actually pick up the final issue, though I do have it now, as part of my complete run of the series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Superman Family<\/em> ended, Supergirl got her own title, with Lois Lane as a back-up feature, and the other characters who had been featured in the anthology book were left in limbo or limited to their appearances as supporting characters in Superman’s other books.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I still think the idea of Supergirl playing a villain on TV is a lot of fun, and I hope it’s something that gets revisited in her current series, though that tends to focus more on callbacks to the Silver Age rather than to the Bronze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, and a fun thing about Secret Hearts<\/em> is that it had been the title of a Romance comic that DC put out back when those were still a thing. I thought it was clever to revive the name as an in-universe soap opera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of my favorite little details in the live-action Doom Patrol <\/em>TV series was the frequent references to – and clips from – a daytime soap called, you guessed it, Secret Hearts<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadly, I never caught any references to Margo Hatton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
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Born and raised in the sparsely populated Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Jon Maki developed an enduring love for comics at an early age.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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