My Rating
“The Face At The Window”
The face—it had to be there! Linda Danvers insisted that camera guru, Johnny Drew, develop the photographs again. She may spend her days pretending to be an ordinary human teenager with ordinary human flaws, but Linda knows what she saw. A little girl had stared back at her from a second-story window of the old Stanley Mansion. While the mansion’s owner confronted her coworkers from K-SFTV News, Linda seized the opportunity to snap a few photographs of the mysterious estate.
Linda waited patiently in the K-SFTV News darkroom as Johnny developed a second set of prints. This time he enlarged the photographs. There could be no mistake now. Yet both frowned when the images revealed nothing—no little girl, no face, and no evidence that anyone had been standing in the window. Johnny insisted Linda Danvers had simply imagined the whole thing. What a disappointing day. K-SFTV News had already lost its opportunity to film a documentary about the old mansion. A child potentially trapped inside, however, gave Supergirl—the Maid of Steel—a very good reason to return.
Was the inheritor of the Stanley estate hiding something sinister within the walls of his family mansion? Will Nasthalthia Luthor finally expose Linda Lee Danvers as the crime fighter known as Supergirl? Most importantly, do Kryptonians believe in ghosts?
“Invasion Of The Mer-Men”
A relaxing day at the beach finds Linda Danvers and Johnny Drew lounging in the sand and soaking up the rays. Then several strange shadows descend over them, instantly killing the mood. Bummer! Wait—are those fish people? Aliens from another star system? Whatever they are, the Mer-Men are attacking!
Johnny jumps into the fray while calling for Linda to make a run for it. If he only knew she was Supergirl! Unfortunately, the Maid of Steel’s powers have been mysteriously fading. Even weakened, however, she’s still more than a match for a bunch of creeps wearing fishbowls on their heads. Linda just needs to slip away long enough to change into her uniform. Poor Johnny—hang in there!
Are these so-called Mer-Men creatures from the ocean depths, or visitors from another planet? Will Supergirl’s failing powers last long enough for her to discover what waits beneath the blue waters of the Pacific? More importantly, why are ocean levels suddenly dropping all across planet Earth? Collect the issue to find out!
Review
I love these vintage issues of Adventure Comics because you never quite know which genre DC Comics will throw at you next. In this case, we get ghosts! What a perfect comic book to cover here at the Relic Keep. In my past reads, Supergirl has investigated the supernatural before, as have Wonder Woman and Batman. Yet there was a special charm to the way DC mixed superheroes with horror and mystery during the late 1960s and early 1970s. I like to call it the Scooby-Doo effect. Give me an old mansion, a face mysteriously appearing in an upstairs window, and a superhero determined to investigate, and I’m already sold.
The second story, “Invasion Of The Mer-Men,” shifts gears completely, replacing the haunted-house atmosphere with a bizarre science-fiction adventure. Fish-men wearing what look like bowls over their heads? Ocean levels mysteriously dropping around the world? Sure, why not! That’s part of the fun of these older anthology-style comics. One story can send Supergirl creeping through an old mansion in search of a possible ghost, while the next has her battling aquatic invaders beneath the Pacific. Neither story needs to reinvent the superhero genre. They just need to entertain, and Adventure Comics #408 does exactly that.
The notion of Supergirl gradually losing her powers also gives the plots more depth, in my opinion. Normally, a handful of Mer-Men wouldn’t stand much of a chance against the Maid of Steel. Take away the certainty of her Kryptonian abilities, however, and suddenly every confrontation carries a little more danger. It also creates a nice continuing mystery connecting these adventures: what is happening to Supergirl, and how much longer can she depend on her powers? Throw together ghosts, mysterious mansions, fish-men, science fiction, and a vulnerable Supergirl, and you have exactly the kind of wonderfully strange DC comic I enjoy digging out of the back-issue bins.
I give Adventure Comics #408 four out of five stars.
