THE SUBSTITUTE BENCH

Superman has powers and abilities that are far beyond those of normal men. Not, you'll note, slightly beyond those of normal men, but far beyond. Superman can stop three natural disasters, halt an alien invasion and speed-type the whole thing up as an article for the Daily Planet in the same time it took you to read this sentence, all without breaking a sweat. He can bend steel in his bare hands, change the course of mighty rivers, fly faster than a speeding bullet and, occasionally, turn back time to remedy a poor movie plot point. In short, he can do pretty much anything.

When his cousin Supergirl was introduced to the world, there was a scene with Supergirl and Superman flying through a tickertape parade in Metropolis, while a crowd member shouts, "It's Supergirl! She's just as good as Superman!"

"Just as good". Not "better". Not "preferable". Simply "just as good". So, if Superman, who can do pretty much anything, is dealing with something in outer space, Supergirl could step in to handle your earthbound crisis. If you have a disaster involving shoes or lip gloss, Supergirl would be a safe bet to turn to for help. Otherwise, really, Superman has the job covered. And if he doesn't have it covered now, he'll use that turning-back-time trick to cover it later.

To really spell out how unnecessary a character Supergirl was, somewhere in the 1960s she started sharing Superman's Fortress of Solitude. She got her own wing of the fortress where she would store her trophies. She even had her own door for a while...

... It's a Fortress of Solitude.

Not a Fortress of Share-itude. It's the one place where Superman goes to be alone, away from it all. Superman's there, a six pack in the fridge and some b-movie DVD he's borrowed from Batman, and suddenly Supergirl is doing the vacuuming, or she's watching "What Not to Wear" so he can't use the super-television.

Supergirl shared the same abilities as Superman - flight, super-hearing, super-strength - but my favourite of her powers is super-ventriloquism. In the comic books, she would use this to contact Superman from across the globe and arrange a rendezvous in outer space, unknown to the people around them. During the lean years of the 80s, when Supergirl fell out of favour with comic book audiences, I believe she fell back on her super-ventriloquism for an act in Vegas...

"Do we have anyone in the audience from Texas? Wooo, yeah, I see ya! How about anyone from Kandor the Bottled City? Anyone?"