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“Superman Radio Show - "The K-Metal From Krypton" (Fan Audio; AI Assisted)”

Excellent audio serial in the style of the classic Superman radio shows, made by fan of the blog, DrMuttonChops. Well worth a listen.

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Why are there no good Superman/Supergirl video games?

Question: has there ever been a really successful, well respected, video game based on Superman or Supergirl?

It is often said that Superman, Supergirl, et al, are too difficult to adapt into a game format. The point has been debated online from time to time, with the main arguments going something like this: the characters are over-powered, making it hard to devise situations that challenge them; they are impervious to most weapons, making it hard to create any sense of jeopardy; and they have too many different super powers, making it hard to create balanced gameplay mechanics.

Without resorting to gimmicks like Kryptonite, is it possible to create a compelling video game based on the Kryptonian clan? The received wisdom might suggest “no” -- but perhaps a bit of lateral thinking might provide a possible solution.

What if we turned the problem on its head?

Instead of trying to fight against Superman and Supergirl's near god-like abilities, what if we lent into them? Embraced them. Made them the central part of the gameplay..!

The 80s saw the emergence of many new genres of video games -- among them a strategy sub-genre known as god games. The first example that really caught the public imagination was a 16-bit classic known as Populous. Many copy-cats quickly followed. Lemmings, Canon Fodder, Command and Conquer, Mega-lo-mania, to name just a few examples from that era. These games put the player into the role of an omnipotent god who can freely manipulate the fate of a group of autonomous mortal characters. In Populous these mortals took the form of tribespeople fighting for survival against other tribes, in Lemmings they were an ever-multiplying brood of green haired critters... Different games had different scenarios, but in every case the underlying concept in each god game was the same -- the player intervenes to save as many non-player characters as possible.

These god games were all strategy based; the player’s deity avatar generally never appeared on-screen in the game itself. Obviously that isn’t going to work for a superhero game, where the player expects to see the hero on-screen interacting with the environment directly, rather than manipulating things as a hidden-hand. But what if we took some of the mechanics of the god game genre and merged them into another popular game genre? The open world sandbox format has proven to be a successful vehicle for heroes like Spider-Man, and perhaps it could work for the Kryptonian characters too, if the rules of the sandbox were amended to make them work more like a god game.

Sure, bullets may not be able to pierce the invulnerable skin of Superman or Supergirl, but that’s far from true for any of the other citizens of Metropolis. The challenge, therefore, would rely not on placing the player’s own avatar in peril, but rather by charging the avatar (Superman, Supergirl, etc.) with protecting the other non-player characters around them. So GAME OVER isn’t when Superman’s health bar hits zero, it is when a hostage dies, or the plane crashes, or the bomb detonates, or a bystander gets killed, etc., etc.

The more successful the hero character is at preventing carnage in the city around them, the more points they earn.

But we don’t have to drop the strategy aspects of god games entirely; we just need to re-think them a little. For example, Superman and Supergirl (for all their immense powers) cannot be in two places at once, so one potential element of strategy might come from working out how to prioritise goals within each mission.

We can also weave elements of strategy around the copious super-powers that Superman and Supergirl possess. Suppose, for example, that one mission sees Superman dealing with a nasty hostage situation. The hostage-takers pose no threat to the Man of Steel, but if Kal-El smashes his way into the bank they might kill some of their hostages before he has a chance to save them. So rather than only using overwhelming force to solve the problem, Kal-El has to also mix in elements of cunning and stealth. By switching to Clark Kent, Kal can blend in with the hostages, allowing him to investigate without raising too much suspicion. Careful use of Kal-El’s super senses, including x-ray vision and super hearing, can then give the player an idea of where in the building the innocent victims are being held captive. With all this information available, the player can formulate a plan of attack, choosing when and how to act as the Man of Steel to ensure no innocent person gets hurt.

One can imagine a whole host of different mission types that allow the player to try a blend of different strategies, sometimes jumping straight into costumed action as Superman or Supergirl, other times taking a more intelligence-driven approach by first assessing the situation covertly using their super powers and/or their secret identity as a disguise. Ideally there would be more than one path to success in any given mission, with the player choosing to use a brain or a brawn centric strategy to achieve their goals. But no matter how the player chooses to play, the goal is always the same: protect the innocent non-player characters.

In an open world environment the game might use the journalistic skills of Clark Kent to unlock new missions. Instead of missions just being presented to the player on a plate as part of a pre-determined story path, or triggered randomly while exploring the game map, perhaps the game could insist that ace reporter Clark Kent uncover plots by liaising with sources inside the criminal underworld, or inside shadowy technology companies, or wherever. This might be an ideal opportunity to turn Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and other supporting roles into playable characters -- each having their own intelligence gathering skills that unlock or advance storylines hidden within the game world, leading to missions that ultimately require the skills of the game’s titular superhero.

Yes, the player can still kick-butt as the Man of Steel or Maid of Might, however these abilities can no longer be used recklessly. The game puts the focus not on the lead character’s great power, but on their great responsibility..!

Of course, the above is not a fully-fleshed out game design. But it is perhaps the starting point on a journey towards what some might have considered impossible: making an enjoyable and rewarding Superman and/or Supergirl game that remains true to the characters and their ethos.

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More Super Klenk details come to light

Does Super Klenk still exist? Did Super Klenk ever exist? The tv show is so famously obscure that one could be forgiven for believing it was just a hoax. Running for 13 episodes at the turn of the millenium, Super Klenk followed the antics of a school teacher who has a secret life as a superhero. Broadcast on primetime Sunday evenings on GMA-7, each episode lasted 90 minutes, blending action, romance, and comedy. For a primetime show running on a major network there's precious little evidence online of it ever having existed. Only one very brief video clip is available, taken from a station promo, plus a tiny number of low resolution promotional photos.

It is, very likely, one of the most obscure and undocumented superhero tv shows ever. The series appeared to have not been reshown since its original broadcast, and for all anyone knows the master tapes may have been junked. But that doesn't mean that with a bit of digital sleuthing we cannot unearth some interesting details about the series. For example, a while back a study of television listings in newspapers revealed the original broadcast details, and the tantalising possibility that there may have been far more than just 13 episodes.

In this post we outline further sources of contemporaneous information.

The Manila Bulletin

We start with a low resolution scan of an article from the Manila Bulletin (see above.) The article is conveniently written in English, yet parts of the text are hard to decipher given the low quality of the image. The following is a transcript as best can be made out. Note: passages marked in colour denote text that is unclear or missing from the image.

[START]

Tired of your usual Sunday night viewing habits? Then look up in the sky. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? It's Super Klenk to the rescue!

Although you won't really see Super Klenk in the sky once you channel surf to GMA-7 tonight at 8 p.m., their newest situational comedy entitled "Super Klenk" premieres.

Produced by Philippine-broadcasting leader GMA Network Inc., the comical super series "Super Klenk" stars sexy Ara Mina, who plays a dual role. As a normal human being she is a grade school teacher and volunteer rescuer Charito for Rescue 711, while she turns into the high flying but still fumbling heroine whenever she's needed to save people in distress.

In her new role as a super heroine, silver screen goddess Ara Mina defies the stigma of a "TF" [titillating films] actress. According to her, she doesn't care if people including the press would criticize her the way they did when she took on a singing career. What is important to her is that she remains focused on entertaining the children who will watch her show. She also emphasized that her decision to do children's show is not an indication that she will veer away from doing sexy roles. Her latest film that is slated for a January, 2000 release entitled "Laro sa Baga" will still feature her in some steamy love scenes.

According to its director Mac Alejandre, the unusual title of the sit-com was spawned after its head writer Isko Salvador, aka Brod Pete, who also plays Doctor Cortal in the TV series, took a break from their brainstorming. The creative team formed solely for this show were thinking of the show's title at Amigos Restaraunt when Isko came back with the "Super Klenk" apparently is also the middle name of Ara Mina (it is pronounced in Germany the same way as the word clench is pronounced.)

"Super Klenk" is also unusual in its length. It is a one and a half-hour sit-com, which is not the norm for television. Director Mac has no reason for this except that it was the time given them by GMA 7's programming department. He find this challenging since he knows that he has to jeep this one and a half-hour show interesting all the way.

"It is really hard to do a sit-com that's one and a half hour that's why we have to make this as interesting as possible visually, acting wise and gag wise. The truth is the pilot episode was done in more than two days because we have a big cast and it was really hard doing the special effect," Explains Director Mac.

Insiders from the show said that the "Super Klenk's" special effects budget was really financially stressful but GMA-7 shelled out just the project's success. The special effects have also been at the helm of two creative [unreadable] behind "Super Klenk" five days to decide on which special effects to develop and utilize.

"Super Klenk" was developed with children's Sunday night viewing bits in mind according to GMA's VP for Programming Wilma Galvante. [Unreadable] is a wholesome entertainment but with Ara Mina as the star. "The show [unreadable] promises young televiewers bit only fantastic special effects but also moral lessons that are interjected in every episode.

The launching of "Super Klenk" is in line with the new shows GMA 7 has [unreadable] for its viewing public for the year 2000. The culmination of all their [unreadable] released and offered this year is "Millenium Broadcast."

So how does Ara Mina become Super Klenk?

The unassuming Charito lives an ordinary life as a teacher who has to contend with mischievous students like copycat Xerox and the narcoleptic [unreadable]. As a rescue volunteer, she works with an obnoxious publicity hungry [unreadable: police?] chief, Hope Pimentel.

Her daily routine suddenly shifts to a new gear one day in some dark [unreadable: alley?] when she sees an old lady whom she thought was waylaid by street thugs. Charito tries to revive the seemingly old ago-go dancer, Tondang Xorax (Flora Gasser), who [unreadable] against the wall during a chase with her archenemy Oblada (Sandra Gomez.) Charito's attempt to breathe life back into [unreadable] Xorax proves futile but he superpowers of the aging heroine is accidentally transferred to the young volunteer rescuer. Tondang Xorax [unreadable: magically?] fades into a celestial star right before the unbelieving eyes of the [unreadable: unsuspecting?] Charito. Soon Tondang Xorax visits Charito to inform her the [unreadable: henceforth?], she will be known as Super Klenk.

Also starring Pilita Corrales, Isko Salvador, Paolo Fabregas and James Fabregas.

[END]

Philippine Headline News Online

This next piece was posted to the Philippine Headline News Online mailing list on 11th December 1999, and seems to be a standard press release announcing the upcoming show. Translations of the non-English parts, courtesy of Google, are presented in colour.

[START]

WHOLESOME ROLE FOR ARA MINA IN GMA-7 SERIES

Quezon City, Dec.11, 1999 - GMA-7 is changing the image of bold star Ara Mina via a wholesome role in the network’s newest fantasy-action comedy series entitled Super Klenk!

“Tamang-tama nga dahil ngayong naghihigpit sa bold, heto’t nabigyan naman ako ng chance to do this kind of wholesome show na puwede sa bata and for the whole family,” Ara says. ["It's right because now that the bold is being restricted, I was given the chance to do this kind of wholesome show that can be done by children and for the whole family."]

Ara plays Charito, a dedicated grade school teacher and rescue worker. One night, she witnesses the original Super Klenk meet an serious accident. While trying to give the accident victim some mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, Ara received the special powers of Super Klenk, played by Flora Gasser.

“I become the new Super Klenk, a crimebuster who is the mortal enemy of the main villain in the show, si Oblada, played by Sandra Gomez,” Ara adds. “I enjoy doing this show because para akong si Wonder Woman and I get to do a lot of action scenes while fighting criminals. Nakakalipad din ako rito at ginastusan nila ang special effects sa flying scenes to make it look really convincing on screen.” [I enjoy doing this show because I'm like Wonder Woman and I get to do a lot of action scenes while fighting criminals. I was also able to fly here and they paid for the special effects in the flying scenes to make it look really convincing on screen.]

Playing the love interests of Ara in the show are newcomer Paolo Fabregas (son of actor-musical director Jaime Fabregas) and Isko Salvador (more popularly known as Brod Pete of Ang Dating Doon.)

This does not mean, though, that Ara is turning her back on sexy movies. As a matter of fact, she has just finished Laro sa Baga.

[END]

Philstar Global

The third piece was published on 18th March 2000 on Philstar Global, marking the premature cancellation of the show. Again, translations in colour.

[START]

Ara: Win Some, Lose Some

The sad news is true, after all. Yes, Ara Mina's Super Klenk will have its final telecast (GMA 7) this Sunday. After that, her flying character will be grounded (never to fly again?).

But the good news is that Ara will topbill a new GMA sitcom, untitled just yet, which starts telecast very soon.

"Super Klenk was very hard to shoot because palagi kaming outdoors," [Super Klenk was very hard to shoot because we were always outdoors] said Ara when Funfare talked to her on the set of FPJ Productions' Ayos Na Ang Kasunod (to be released by Millennium Cinema), her first team-up with FPJ. "Our minimum shooting time was two days. I wore a tight costume which could sometimes be very uncomfortable. I'm looking forward to doing the new sitcom which is light and easier to do. Like Super Klenk, pambata din 'yung bago kong sitcom." [Like Super Klenk, my new sitcom is also for children.]

Ara is leaving for Las Vegas third week of April to perform in a concert with Martin and Bert Nievera.

[END]

Cast and crew

Finally, through various sources (the IMDB, actor's profiles, etc.) we are able to pull together a list of the main actors and their characters, as well as some of the key production crew.

Ara Mina as Charito and her alter ego Super Klenk.

Isko Salvador (aka Brod Pete) as Doctor Cortal, the love interest, and also one of the show's writers.

Paolo Fabregas as another doctor and possible love interest.

Flora Gasser as Tondang Xorax, the superhero whose powers are accidentally transferred to the Charito.

Sandra Gomez as Oblada, the show's main villain.

Pilita Corrales as Aunt Baby, the relative Charito lives with.

James (Jaime) Fabregas as Hepe Pimente, the police commissioner and Charito's boss at the rescue team (also the real life father of actor Paolo Fabregas.)

Dingdong Dantes, possible guest actor.

Mark Anthony Fernandez, possible guest actor.

Elizabeth Ramsey as Tiya Kirara, guest actor.

Roxanne Barcelo, possible guest actor.

Yoyong Martirez, possible guest actor.

Mac Alejandre, the showrunner and director.

Wilma Valle Galvante, GMA's VP for Programming.

Conclusion

Over the last couple of years a lot of classic pinoy television has been uploaded, legitimately, to YouTube. The good news is therefore that it is possible that one day Super Klenk may be available for the public to watch once again. The bad news is that, given the obscurity of the show, it could be a very very long wait. Worse still, assuming the episodes do still exist in an archive somewhere, the chances are any uploads will be chopped up into small YouTube friendly chunks, rather than presented in their original 90 minute format. There's always the possibility that the show in its original form may be included on a streaming platform, or re-screened on a golden hits style cable channel, but so far neither of these things have happened.

And so, in the absence of any episodes to watch, the details above are currently all we know about what is possibly tv's most obscure superheroine show (unless you know more?!?) Maybe that will change in future -- here's hoping.

(A quick thank you to DrMuttonChops for tracking down a scan of the Manila Bulletin article, posted years ago on Ara Mina's social media.)

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Is Super Ma'am worth watching?

With the release of an English subtitled version of the Marian Rivera series Super Ma'am, it seems like an opportune moment to revisit this classic Pinoy series -- a show that mixed superhero antics, sibling rivalries, monster invasions, and the supernatural.

Super Ma'am ran in an early evening primetime weekday slot on the GMA network, aimed at a family audience. Broadcast Mondays to Fridays, it racked up 95 episodes, each episode running typically 30 minutes. As with all telefantasya series, the show fused combat and action with elements of daytime soap (romance, heartbreak, relationships, etc.) At the core of its story is a the mild mannered school teacher, Minerva Henerala (Marian Rivera), who becomes the whip cracking, monster hunting, artefact collecting, superheroine known as Super Ma'am.

The premise

The story begins with Dr. Raquel Henerala taking her family to investigate some ancient markings recently discovered inside a cave. The symbols relate to mythical shape-shifting creatures known as the Tamawos that legend explains once ruled over mankind. Investigations inside the cave trigger earthquakes that open up sinkholes, releasing Tamawos from their prison deep beneath the ground. Dr. Henerala and one of her daughters, Mabelle, vanish into one of the sinkholes, which closes up making it impossible to attempt a rescue. Both are subsequently assumed to have perished.

Many years later Dr. Henerala's husband, Chaplin, her surviving daughter, Minerva, and her son, Bixby, are still living with the loss of their two family members. The adult Minerva has become a high school teacher, but she is teased and mocked by students and colleagues for her belief in the mythical Tamawos creatures. Meanwhile the escaped Tamawos have been hiding out in society by adopting the form of regular humans, and feeding by draining the lifeforce of kidnapped children.

The Queen of the Tamawos has adopted the guise of a wealthy woman called Greta Sagovia. Greta plots to overthrow mankind and once again allow the Tamawos to rule the Earth. The defeat of the Tamawos in ancient times was due to the angel Dalikmata and her gift of a magical weapon that can hurt the Tamawos. The divinely chosen wielder of the weapon -- a stingray tail (short whip) -- is known by the title of Tagachu, and its modern day holder is a woman called Ceres who has been tracking down and defeating the recently escaped Tamawos.

But Ceres needs to retire and pass the whip on to a new Tagachu, and it seems the next divinely chosen candidate is the mild mannered school teacher, Minerva Henerala. Meanwhile Greta Sagovia has been intensively training her 'daughter', Avenir, to become a weapon against the Tagachu. The young girl is desperate to win the approval of her mother by killing the Tagachu, but she fails to do this before Ceres has passed the whip on to her replacement, Minerva.

Using the immense power of the whip Minerva transforms her appearance to hide her true identity and protect her family, adopting the alias Super Ma'am. Avenir makes it her mission to kill Super Ma'am, but what Avenir doesn't know is that Greta is not her real mother -- rather Avenir is in reality the heavily brainwashed Mabelle, Minerva's sister who vanished into the sinkhole all those years before. So both Super Ma'am and Avenir become mortal enemies, neither woman realising that they are actually sisters behind their alter egos.

The verdict

Super Ma'am rattles along at quite a pace, and delivers enough melodrama and plot twists to keep the audience coming back for more. The computer generated effects are mostly fine given the limited budget, with the occasional underwhelming exception. The fight sequences are not too bad, considering how little time the production would have had to choreograph and rehearse each fight. The monsters are clearly actors in costumes, but they pass so long as disbelief is suspended just a little. The gore is limited to rather unconvincing stage blood and dubious looking painted-on bruises and scratches. And the acting is typical of this type of show: somewhat melodramatic and saturated with unsubtle emotion, but entertaining nevertheless.

Overall Super Ma'am doesn't try to offer anything too radical. It packages up a lot of familiar tropes from the superhero and telefantasya genres, and delivers them with confidence. Marian Rivera is likable in her dual roles, and the supporting cast do enough to play up to the melodrama without making the show look silly. The plots are simple, but nevertheless keep the audience guessing what will happen next, while the dynamics between the various characters compels the audience to keep coming back for just one more episode.

Super Ma'am is not deep or multi-layered, but it is a lot of fun.

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How old was Supergirl when she died in Crisis on Infinite Earths?

It has previously been established that Kara Zor-El was 15 when she crash landed on Earth at 12:17pm on 18th May 1959. But... how old was she when she died in Crisis on Infinite Earths..?

If she was 15 in 1959, then surely she would have been in her early 40s 26 years later in 1985? But a middle-aged Supergirl just doesn't seem right!

In her alter ego as Linda Danvers, Kara had grown up, graduated college, then been employed variously as a camera operator for a news channel, a college counsellor, and a daytime soap actress. She certainly wasn't a 15 year old girl any more, and she didn't look or act like she was approaching middle age, so how old was she..?

Aside from that one issue of Action Comics in 1960 when Kara celebrated a birthday, her exact age had been kept rather ambiguous. Time passes at an odd rate in the DC Universe. While some adult characters seem to never grow a day older, the junior characters are often allowed to slowly age from childhood into early adulthood. By her mid-1970s run in Superman Family, Kara was assumed by most fans to be in her mid 20s. Even though DC Comics had been careful to never verify her exact age, it was a plausible answer given how the character was depicted in her stories.

But that was to suddenly change! Supergirl was re-launched into her own title in 1982, and with it came a substantial change of policy.

The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #1 soft-rebooted Supergirl's origin, skipping over her various jobs as Linda Danvers (as if they never happened) and the rediscovery of her Kryptonian parents in the Survival Zone, resetting the character back to being a college student once more. In lieu of a letters page, the first issue featured a two page editorial introducing the new title and its creative team. In sympathy with the soft-reboot, the article's opening paragraphs definitively set Kara's age as just 19 years old!

So, after years of ambiguity, DC was now giving a specific answer -- but it was an answer that seemed to be an odd fit with Supergirl's recent adventures.

Naturally, fans took notice..!

By issues 4 and 5 of DNAOS, letters responding to the new comic were starting to be published. And Kara's sudden re-aging was obviously going to be a topic of discussion. Issue 4 contained a long answer that sought to justify the decision. The driving force behind the move was, it was explained, to ensure Supergirl didn't become too much like her cousin Superman. Having Supergirl be in her mid 20s, and Linda Danvers be a career professional, was just too close to Superman and Clark Kent -- at least that's what DC feared.

Whether fans agreed with the de-aging or not, as of DNAOS #1 Supergirl's official age was 19 according to DC Comics.

So, to return to the original question, how old was Supergirl when when she died in Crisis on Infinite Earths #7..?

There's obviously a near three year gap between November 1982 when the editorial in DNAOS #1 was published, and October 1985 when CoIE #7 was published, but it is very clear that when DC soft-rebooted Kara Zor-El as a 19 year old college student they intended that she shouldn't start to drift once again towards her mid-20s. The plan seemed to be that -- just like her cousin Superman -- Supergirl's age was to be permanently fixed (at least until some later creative team might come along and decided to unfix it.)

With that in mind, we can reasonably conclude that Kara was still 19 years old when she died in Crisis on Infinite Earths #7. As such her whole career as Supergirl, from seeing the destruction of her Argo City home, to crash landing on Earth and becoming Supergirl, to sacrificing herself to save multiple universes, took place in just a four year span..!

That's quite an incredible journey. That's quite an incredible hero..!

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Superheroine detective work: Super Klenk broadcast details uncovered

Ah yes, Super Klenk! The Filipino tv series that is possibly the most well hidden show in the history of superhero television..!

Despite running in primetime on a major network, Super Klenk has left behind precious little evidence of its existence: scant details lifted from a press release, a tiny handful of low-resolution photos, and a few seconds of video footage in a promo. We're not even entirely certain how many episodes of the show were broadcast.

Until, perhaps, now...

Many many years ago Google Books began to collect scans of thousands of old newspapers. The site is somewhat neglected these days (the design has an early 2010s vibe), but the archive is still accessible and -- importantly! -- has indexes of a handful of Filipino papers.

Would there be any details of Super Klenk hiding amidst these column inches, perhaps..?

Time to turn detective...

The Philippine National Enquirer published weekly tv listings in its Saturday editions. Sure enough there's an entry for Super Klenk in its Saturday 1st January 2000 edition, showing that the show was scheduled for broadcast on Sunday 2nd at 8:00pm on Channel 7 (aka GMA-7.) Subsequent Saturday editions also have listings scheduling Super Klenk for January 9th, 16th, 23rd; February 6th, 13th; March 5th, 12th, 19th, 26th; and April 2nd, 9th, 16th. (No listings were available for February 20th and 27th, nor April 23rd -- those editions are absent from the archive.)

A short article about Super Klenk's star Ara Mina, published on April 15th, claims the series had folded, suggesting that April 16th was likely the show's last broadcast. Presumably the next Enquirer Saturday edition (23rd April, missing from the archive) would have shown a replacement series. All archived editions after this date have Super Klenk absent from tv listings.

Common internet wisdom is that 13 episodes were broadcast before the show was cancelled. But (assuming broadcasts on 20th and 27th February) the tv listings show 4 episodes each in January, February, and March, plus 3 in April, making a grand total of 15 episodes.

Unfortunately the Google archive for the Philippine National Enquirer only goes back as far as 1st January 2000. However, the one brief video clip we have of Super Klenk is from a promo that suggests its debut was set for December 12th. This might indicate 3 episodes in 1999: December 12th, 19th, and 26th. That ups the potential episode count from 15 to 18 episodes!

But we should be careful...

Tv listings can be unreliable. Guide magazines are often prepared six weeks ahead of broadcast, so don't reflect sudden cancellations or late reschedulings. Daily newspapers have a shorter lead time, but they typically only print the show title, making it impossible to know whether a repeat or original episode is being shown.

Indeed the Enquirer exhibits some contradictions within its own pages: the listings consistently show Super Klenk being broadcast at 8:00pm, yet there's a couple of brief mentions in articles that suggest the show was switched to 7:30pm during January.

The tv listings may be unreliable, but at least they give us something to work from, rather than a vacuum.

But aside from these air dates, are there any other snippets of information lurking amidst the newspaper archive?

Sadly, not many. (Although it is possible they've yet to be surfaced by the right search query.) The 11th March edition gives a brief synopsis of the next episode, mentioning a plot that sees the heroine putting up with a house guest and fighting a villain known as Bingo Man. There's some profile pieces on actors who appeared in the series, but they only mention Super Klenk as a line item on a list of credits.

It is entirely possible that there are other archives, with magazines and newspapers that give further details on this series, but for now we'll have to make do with a list of potential broadcast dates and a brief plot synopsis of one episode.

The detective work continues...

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Where was Wonder Woman's Paradise Island?

According to an episode of the 1970s Wonder Woman tv, namely The Feminum Mystique Part 2 (about 12m 30s in), the coordinates of Paradise Island are [...drum roll...] 30°22' N , 64°47' W. While nothing appears on any chart, and despite the Amazons fiercely protecting the location of their secret island home, the Nazis nevertheless discover its location in the episode and set out to invade it.

When this happens Wonder Woman is in Washington DC in her guise as Yeoman Diana Prince. While we don't know where Yeoman Prince's apartment was located in the USA, the location of her work office is a matter of historic record. Before 1947 the Washington DC home of War Department was the State, War, and Navy Building (now known as the Eisenhower Executive Office Building) positioned at 38°53'51.24" N, 77°2'20.93" W. Right next to the White House.

Armed with that information we can how work out a few further details.

The distance between these two points is 908.83 miles (or 1462.63 km if you're European), which means that every time we see Lynda Carter's (@reallyndacarter) Wonder Woman in her invisible plane flying between her Amazon home and America, she's travelling just over 900 miles each way.

According the NASA's history of aviation, the top speed of a propeller based aircraft during the 1940s was around 450 mph. (In the first season of the tv show Wonder Woman's plane is shaped like a typical propeller plane of the era, but the model used has no actual propeller. The 40s comics that the show is based on does feature a propeller however.) This would mean that the trip would take around two hours, although obviously it is possible Amazon technology was advanced enough to create faster planes and significantly reduce that time.

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Thunderbolts of Jove! More rare bootleg Wonder Woman comics posted online!

A further batch of Argentinian Wonder Woman comics has been tracked down, scanned, and translated by Dr. Muttonchops. And they're all waiting to be read by fans over on his Tumblr blog. Along with the previous five, that makes a total of eight out of the nine issues known to have been published that are now accessible to English-speaking audiences thanks to his efforts. Only issue #1 is missing.

Here's the links to each issue's post -- don't forget to comment and like if you appreciate his efforts.

Issue 3 : The Space Fugitive

Issue 4 : Wonder Man!

Issue 9 : The Adopted Boy

Published back in the 1970s to capitalise on the popularity of the @reallyndacarter tv show, the comic was entirely unofficial and in no way (as best anyone can tell) endorsed by DC Comics, Warner Bros., or anyone connected to the tv show. These types of comics were popular in Argentina, with Planet of the Apes, Starsky and Hutch, The Six Million Dollar Man, and countless other American shows getting the bootleg comic treatment.

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Supergirl, but not as we know her!

In 1973 Pinky Montilla played DC's Supergirl in an unauthorised movie from The Philippines that mixed superheroes with the supernatural. Thanks to a magic ring the titular character is able to transform into her heroine form to fight a wave of villains including local thugs, giant frogs, and zombies.

The movie poster claims it was shot in "Eastman color", but it is uncertain whether that means the whole movie or just a few scenes. Movie distributor Solar Films claims to legally own the film today, and they have uploaded a black and white copy to YouTube, devoid of any colour footage, for fans to watch free of charge.

Supergirl's costume in the movie is based on her early 70s comics outfit, with a min-skirt and belt made of linked discs. Pinky doesn't appear to wear the over-the-knee boots or gloves however. Supergirl started wearing this costume circa Adventure Comics #398, at the end of 1970, so it would presumably have been current during the production of this movie.

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Merciful Minerva! A stack of rare tv Wonder Woman bootleg comics uncovered, and translated!

Just like London buses, you wait forever for ultra rare Wonder Woman comic scans to show up online, then several arrive at the same time..!

@muttonchopsalley has done it again, folks! He's tracked down more of the super-rare Argentinian bootlegs, and translated them from Spanish to English for our reading enjoyment. These comics were (as far as anyone can tell) totally unauthorised by DC Comics and Warner Bros. They apparently attempted to trade off of the popularity of the @reallyndacarter tv show in Argentina, featuring stories that are heavily inspired by the tv show's adventures -- indeed issue two's plot is basically a rehash of the tv episode, The Pluto File.

The comicbook lasted for eight issues, and now -- at last(!) -- five of them are available to read in English at the links below, thanks to the hard work of @muttonchopsalley..!

Issue 2 : Man Made Earthquakes

Issue 5 : Sabotage!

Issue 6 : Espionage!

Issue 7 : The Rescue of Major Trevor

Issue 8 : Ghost Pirates?

Enjoy!

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HI，can you tell me which comic said :Supergirl wore very plain clothes, long-sleeved blouses and long skirts to hide her muscles.? this from pre crisis supergirl wiki,but I just cant found this anywhere in pre crisis comic,can you found it?

I don't know about hiding her muscles, but the very early adventures of Supergirl, before her Linda Lee secret identity was adopted from Midvale Orphanage, saw her repeatedly wear very long plain dresses and her hair (wig) in pigtails.

The Danvers adoption story line was used by DC to revamp Supergirl, giving Linda (Lee) Danvers a more adult hairdo and teenage clothes. From that point on she usually followed the fashion of the day, which in the 60s meant very short skirts and tight tops. This is how Linda was dressed during much of her Adventure Comics run. But when 70s fashions shifted towards longer flowing dresses and more Bohemian themes, Linda very occasionally wore those too, for example once or twice during her Supergirl Volume 1 run.

It wasn't until her second comicbook volume in 1982, named The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl, that Linda again started to consistently wear longer sleeves and dresses, and again that was largely due to women's fashions in the early 1980s with their piecrust collars and billowing multi-layered skirts..

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At last(!), rare Wonder Woman bootleg translated and posted

Suffering Sappho! An entire issue of a rare Argentinian bootleg Wonder Woman comic (inspired by the @reallyndacarter tv show) has now been translated into English and posted online. All thanks to the fine sleuthing and polyglot skills of @muttonchopsalley.

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Bootlegging Wonder Woman

We're all very familiar with the idea that our favourite movies and tv shows are sold around the world and adapted into local cultures, but we occasionally forget that other media, such as comic books, sometimes also have a life outside of their domestic markets.

Marvel occasionally founded subsidiaries to control its overseas publishing, such as the famed Marvel UK, but DC was happy just to license its artwork to foreign publishers where they could be edited and adapted to fit the local market. Because of this DC characters like Superman and Batman could find themselves frequently switching from comic-to-comic, publisher-to-publisher, every few years, even sometimes sharing space with non-DC superheroes in anthology titles.

Of course, not every foreign publisher necessarily went through the legitimate licensing route. If you scour the pages of various Indian comics, for example, you'll find sly cameos by the likes of Superman, Spider-Man, and various other American heroes lurking within their stories. But some foreign publishers went a step further. Not content with merely restricting themselves to just cameos, they created their own entire line of unauthorised comics focused on American characters.

Which brings us to Mujer Maravilla -- a short run comic from Argentina that based itself heavily on the Lynda Carter (@reallyndacarter) Wonder Woman tv show.

Spanish translated versions of Wonder Woman had been legitimately published in Mexico under the title Marvila, La Mujer Maravilla for many years before the Lynda Carter show appeared on US screens, but the Argentinian version was (as far as anyone can tell) entirely bootlegged. The stories, the artwork, the whole comic from cover-to-cover was produced by local talent, without any input from DC Comics or Warner Bros., and without using any art from the US comic strips.

The stories followed the style of the tv show pretty closely, with some stories borrowing ideas from the ABC season World War II setting and some from the later CBS modern day setting. Each issue had 20 or 22 pages of Wonder Woman in black and white, presumably split between a couple of stories, with a 12 page cartoon strip entitled Mini Maravilla rounding off each issue. What scant online references there are for this comic suggest that Jorge C. Morhain scripted each story, with Mario Morhain and Gene Quinterno providing the artwork.

With an alleged run that lasted just eight issues, original copies of Mujer Maravilla are extremely rare and pricey. There's not a lot of material online about these comics, and even the Grand Comics Database doesn't seem to document them (unless, perhaps, they're hiding under a different title.) There's some suggestion on social media that the strips may have been reprinted in the 1990s as part of a book or collection of bootleg superhero comics (including the now famous Bat-Manga), but the details of these reprints -- if they ever existed -- remain stubbornly obscure. Certainly there are copies of specific issues described as "reprints" floating around on eBay, but the provenance of these comics is hard to trace.

I'm indebted to @muttonchopsalley, who managed to track down some page scans so fans can at least get a taste of what they're missing.

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