Free Comic Friday: DC SuperHero Girls (Halloween ComicFest 2017)

DC Super Hero Girls 2017 Halloween Comic Fest Special Edition #1
“Intro to Prehistory”
Writer: Shea Fontana
Artists: Yancey Labat and Agnes Garbowska
Colorist: Monica Kubina
Letterer: Janice Chiang
Cover: Labat and Kubina
Associate editor: Brittany Holzherr
Group editor: Marie Javins
Published by: DC
Released: Oct. 28, 2017

Just like last October, I'm planning to populate this month with multiple #FreeComicFriday and #DollarTreeCinema posts to coincide with the spooky season. And I can't think of anything more bone-chilling and spine-tingling than a reimagining of DC's most popular female characters as relatable high school students.

Obviously, that's not true. Middle schoolers,* though? That would be terrifying.

No, I selected this one to get things started because it was released in 2017 as part of Halloween ComicFest, the little brother to Free Comic Book Day, and this month is, if Wikipedia is to be believed, the 10^th anniversary of the premiere of the YouTube shorts that launched DC SuperHero Girls. It featured teen versions of not just DC's female stars but also the guys, attending a school to meet their general education needs and train them in the use of their powers. The main characters were Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Batgirl, Bumblebee, Katana, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn.

Not everybody was a youngster. Superman, I believe, was an adult, and the faculty and administration consisted of Principal Amanda Waller (I can see it), Commissioner Gordon (forensics teacher, makes sense), Crazy Quilt (design teacher, OK) and Gorilla Grodd (vice principal – what?!?).

The primary appeal to me was it was something I could share with my oldest daughter. She enjoyed the shorts and the straight-to-DVD features, comics and novels that followed, but her favorite merchandise was the dolls. If we didn't get all of them, we got most of them. Her favorite activity was to mix up their outfits and accessories and have us redistribute them among the characters. So, for example, Wonder Woman would end up wearing Bumblebee's top and Batgirl's pants while wielding Harley's mallet. She also conquered a pretty involved Lego set.

Like many promotional issues tied to DC Super Hero Girls, this one offered one chapter of a full graphic novel, often featuring punny titles, the best of which has to be “Finals Crisis.”

This entry, entitled “Past Times at Super Hero High,” features the kind of field trip you could only take at a superhuman educational institution, or if your teacher has a magic school bus. Super Hero High's bus seems to be largely science fiction-based and driven by another adult among the super-teens, Liberty Belle. I just assumed this was the version I knew best, the former Jesse Quick, daughter of Johnny Quick and the first Liberty Belle. But her dated dialogue - “This newfangled bus doesn't handle anything like my ol' Model T. That car could 23 skidoo!” – makes me think she's supposed to be the original?

Most of the Super Hero Girls gang is here, although Bumblebee sits out the time-traveling excursion due to motion sickness. Along for the ride with the rest of the girls is Beast Boy, who was voiced in the movies by Greg Cipes, just like in “Teen Titans Go!” and a host of other projects and is certainly written in his voice here.

The field trip is to the Jurassic era, much to the delight of the brilliant Batgirl, who is rather shocked to find out the rambunctious and flighty Harley Quinn claims to know as much about dinosaurs as she does. They're starting to grate on each other's nerves even as a pack** of allosauruses charge the bus. But it's a wayward diplodocus tale that splits the time machine in half, totally ignoring the non-interference shield Liberty Belle switched on to avoid butterfly effects.

Batgirl and Harley are conveniently stuck in the front of the bus with their teacher, who quickly gets carried away, no doubt setting up the duo to learn a valuable lesson about friendship and cooperation and whatnot.

Despite being warned to stay on the bus and not risk messing with the past, the other students decide to evacuate the back half when those hungry allosauruses come back. Beast Boy transforms into a dinosaur himself to try to blend in. His ruse appears to be working until he crosses paths with a grumpy stegosaurus. And that's where the chapter ends.

I still have positive memories of watching and reading DC SuperHero Girls with my daughter, but without her... yeah, it's not really my thing. Then again, I'm not the target audience. I still recognize and appreciate aspects of it kids would enjoy, and the character bios in the back do a good job of bringing curious youngsters who may have heard the names but don't know much about the characters, or these versions, up to speed.

Some of the pacing and dialogue just feels awkward. I found out my kids did have the full “Past Times at Super Hero High” graphic novel, so I checked to see if anything had been altered, but it all looks pretty much the same. That includes this exchange, for which I can't find context in either version:

So, no, this would not be a compelling read for me by myself. But I do have nieces who will probably want to give it a try in the next couple of years, and I look forward to reading it with them.

Trying to get these characters appeal to a different demographic without being subject to decades of continuity was a great idea by DC, although it doesn't appear to have been too successful. Despite a blitz in print and video, and all those dolls, the concept got rebooted in 2019. My oldest lost interest and we never tried the new one, although my youngest did snag a crossover comic with that incarnation and “Teen Titans Go!” that is... sitting in her own to-read box. I'm so excited when they follow in my footsteps!

* - I'm so old we called it “junior high” when I went.

** - Or is it a herd?