"The last minutes are fading...My life is ending! It would have been wonderful to live my own life...But it's over..."
The Condemned Legionnaires is a Legion of Super-Heroes story published in Adventure Comics #313 (October, 1963). Created by Edmond Hamilton and Curt Swan, it provided one of the few Supergirl recurring rogues, and it was reimagined in Girl Power and other stories.
The female Legionnaires -Saturn Girl, Lightning Lass, Triplicate Girl, Shrinking Violet, Night Girl- have fallen sick and been sent to a quarantine world. While their male teammates are trying to come up with ways to cure them, an enigmatic masked figure called Satan Girl introduces herself and announces she has come to replace the Legionnaire girls.
When the Legion turn her down, Satan Girl reveals she was the one who caused the sickness affecting the Legion girls, and since she has been rejected, she will just kill them in payback. Before the Legionnaires can stop her, Satan Girl wrecks their ship and takes off, revealing her very versatile powerset. Superboy and Mon-El are off on a mission, so the Legionnaires ask Supergirl to help.
Supergirl makes it to the quarantine world just in time to stop Satan Girl from finishing her female teammates off. When fighting Satan Girl, though, Supergirl learns several disturbing facts: the masked villainess is just as powerful as her but has zero weaknesses; she knows all of Supergirl's secrets; and, for some reason, she hates Kara more than anybody and anything in the world.
Satan Girl would become the forefather of all Supergirl's evil twins, as well as one of her few recurring villains, being reinvented in her Supergirl (2005) book and referenced in modern DC media as the Justice League Action episode "Speed Demon".
Tropes:
- Air Jousting: During their first battle, Supergirl and Satan Girl repeatedly fly towards and smash into each other.
- Alliterative Name: As hiding from Satan Girl, the Legion arrives in a strange world named Puppet Planetoid.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: The race of giant aliens seen in the Puppet Planetoid are blue-skinned.
- Androcles' Lion: In the past, Supergirl saved one alien animal species from extinction by stopping a toxic cloud from engulfing their planet. When Supergirl and the Legion hide from Satan Girl in their world, the super-team is welcomed by the animal species saved by Kara. And when Satan Girl shows up and fights the Legion off, they willingly dogpile the dangerous villain so the heroes can escape.
- Another Dimension: The Legion visit a faraway, unknown world which is used as a playground by the children of a giant alien race from another dimension.
- Anti-True Sight: Since her X-Ray Vision cannot see through Satan Girl's cowl, Supergirl reasons her mask is lead-lined.
- Artistic License – Space: Supergirl and Lightning Lad call the "Puppet Planetoid" "planet", "planetoid" and "asteroid" indistinctly, despite those names not being synonymous at all.
- Auto Doc: In the quarantine world, where people with dangerous illnesses are sent to get cured or spend their last days peacefully, the patients are treated by large robo-nurses.
- Big Bad: Satan Girl attempts to kill the Legion girls in order to prolong her existence.
- Big Damn Heroes: Satan Girl has landed on the Quarantine World, fried the circuits of the robo-nurses and is using red radiation to kill the Legion girls when Supergirl comes along and engages her.
- Bizarre Alien Locomotion: The Legionnaires meet one alien species whose large limbless bodies are completely spherical. They move around and attack by rolling and bouncing.
- Born as an Adult: Satan Girl is spawned as a fully adult woman.
- Captain Obvious: When Satan Girl shows up in the Legion's last-resort hideout carrying a massive load of Kryptonite to kill Supergirl, Kara's inner dialogue superfluously comments that her evil counterpart "is carrying a massive load of Green Kryptonite to drop on [her]".
- Cephalothorax: Supergirl introduces the Legion to a friendly alien species whose bodies are weirdly colored, furry spheres with two eyes, one nose and one mouth.
- Crack in the Sky: When the Legion visit a strange world called the Puppet Planetoid and notice the rift across the sky, Supergirl -who had previously discovered the planet-, explains that it was opened by a race of giants from a parallel dimension so their kids could use the uninhabited world below as a safe playground.
- Dog Pile of Doom: Satan Girl is beating the Legion when she is suddenly dogpiled by a group of spherical aliens who owe their lives to Supergirl. Satan Girl cannot at all shake them or blow them off, and by the time they voluntarily and suddenly withdraw, the Legion is long gone.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: Mentioned. Superboy and Mon-El are not around to help stop Satan Girl because they are busy preventing two inhabited planets from colliding with each other.
- Empty Piles of Clothing: When Satan Girl's body vanishes, only her outfit is left behind as the only evidence that she ever existed.
- Enemy Without: Supergirl's inner darkness is drawn out and given shape by exposure to a Red Kryptonite meteor. Kara's evil duplicate names herself Satan Girl, puts a black suit on and attempts to kill the female Legionnaires to prolong her existence.
- Evil Costume Switch: Satan Girl wears a black bodysuit, a black cowl and no chest emblem.
- Evil Gloating: After infecting the female Legionnaires, Satan Girl cannot resist the temptation to go to the Legion -who did not even know of her existence- and brag about her actions, so initiating a chain of events which would lead to her defeat and disappearance. Additionally, she gloats as telling Supergirl she will reveal her identity when she destroys her.Satan Girl: "Ha, Ha...So you thought I'm an android? Supergirl, you'd be amazed if you knew who I really am! I'll tell you as I destroy you!"
- Evil Laugh: Satan Girl indulges in malevolent laughter as gloating about destroying Supergirl.
- Evil Wears Black: Big Bad Satan Girl wears a black bodysuit, cape and cowl.
- Failed a Spot Check: Supergirl X-Ray scans Satan Girl's mask and notes it protects her enemy's identity because it is lead-lined...but she fails to notice Satan Girl's entire suit is lead-lined, which should have clued Kara in on her mysterious enemy being Kryptonian after all, since Satan Girl took steps to protect herself from radiation.
- Fainting: Lightning Lass is repowering an electric generator when she begins feeling weak, sick and dizzy before passing out.
- Fearful Symmetry: When fighting for the first time, Supergirl and Satan Girl clash against each other using identical powers and maneouvers.
- Flashback: When she is finally defeated, Satan Girl tells her story via a flashback.
- Flashback Effects: The panels for Satan Girl's flashback have rounded corners and wavy borders.
- Gondor Calls for Aid: Satan Girl has found the Legion's hideout, has disabled Supergirl and is finishing the Legion girls off. As a last resort, Lightning Lad uses the Time Bubble to go to the past ask the Legion of Super-Pets help. Krypto, Streaky, Comet and Beppo answer and gang up on the villain.
- Healing Shiv: The quarantine world's robo-medics use healing laser rays to try to cure their patients.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: When Satan Girl builds a pair of bracelet-like devices to draw the Red Kryptonite from her and into other humans, she decides to target the female Legionnaires to scare Supergirl into believing she is meant to be another victim...inevitably informing the Legion of her existence, alerting them to her scheme, and providing them a personal motivation to stop her.
- Human Aliens: The Legion finds a race of giant aliens from another dimension who are completely human-looking.
- Humans Need Aliens: Or "Non-Kryptonians Need Kryptonians". Upon finding out that Satan Girl has a Kryptonian powerset -and since Superboy and Mon-El are off-world-, the Legion calls Supergirl to help them out. Kara is indeed the only one who can fight her evil duplicate to at least a draw, whereas her teammates cannot even inconvenience the villain.
- Kryptonite Factor: Subverted. Supergirl reasons Satan Girl must be Kryptonian given her powerset, so Kara borrows a box of Kryptonite powder to weaken her; though, Satan Girl shrugs it off completely, and later it is her who dumps a heap of Kryptonite rocks on Supergirl to get rid of her. Also, the female Legionnaires get sick because of involuntary exposure to Red Kryptonite.
- Kryptonite Is Everywhere: One thousand years after Krypton's explosion, Kryptonite is so easy to find across the galaxy that it is used in specific medical procedures. Likewise, Satan Girl has no difficulty in finding a bunch of Kryptonite rocks to use against Supergirl.
- Kryptonite-Proof Suit: After Satan Girl's death, the Legion discover her outfit is really an armor suit made of lead and painted to look like clothing, thus explaining how she could resist and handle Kryptonite.
- Literal Split Personality: Satan Girl is Supergirl's evil side given shape -and black clothes- by red Kryptonite.
- Mirror Match: When Supergirl fights Satan Girl, it is clear both women have the same powers and are evenly matched.
- Mundane Utility: Lightning Lass uses her lightning bolts to power up a machine as the generator is getting repaired.Technician: "By radiating lightning into the high-tension wires, she's providing powerful electric current until we repair the generator that broke down."
- No-Sell: Satan Girl has Kryptonian-like invulnerability, and since Supergirl is unaware of her true nature, she cannot find a way to stop her sinister foe. She laughs Kryptonite off, shrugs lightning bolts and solar-powered fire streams off, and guffaws when Supergirl -believing her to be a humanoid robot- shoots an anti-android weapon at her.
- Our Giants Are Bigger: The Puppet Planetoid is a playground for the children of a race of humanoid, blue-skinned giants. Whereas their puppets are as large as multi-storey buildings, the kids tower over the clouds.Supergirl: "We're on the Puppet Planetoid! This world is the playground for the children of a fantastic race of super-sized giants! To them, we are as puny as ants!"
- Paint It Black: When she is split from Supergirl, Satan Girl wears a black outfit. Said suit has a cowl and no S-symbol to mask her identity.
- Pietà Plagiarism: Supergirl kneels down to hold Satan Girl in her arms as her doppelganger dies.
- The Plague: Subverted. Satan Girl claims she has infected the female Legionnaires with a pathogen called the "Crimson Virus", but she eventually reveals she caused their sickness by secretly exposing them to lethal doses of radiation.
- Planetary Romance: The Legion visit weird and uncanny worlds during their quest to save their teammates: a quarantine world where medical robots take care of people who suffer from rare diseases, a planet hidden inside a humongous cloud of dark matter inhabited by spherical, bouncy aliens, a faraway planet used as a playground by the children of a race of giants from another dimension...
- Race Against the Clock: Villain example. Since she is an artificial construct created by Supergirl being exposed to Red Kryptonite, whose effects are reverted after forty-eight hours, Satan Girl has only two days to transfer the Red-K radiation to someone else or she will vanish.
- San Dimas Time: Since they need Supergirl's help, the Legion wonders whether she will be available to travel to the 30th century...even though they can choose when she will receive their distress call, and Kara can take as much time as she wants before departing and still arrive in time. When Supergirl makes it to the future, a narration box notes she has taken an incredibly short time, even though she logically should arrive as soon as the call was sent.
- Sickness Equals Redness: The first sign that the Legion girls are falling sick with the Crimson Virus is their faces turning a bright, sickly red.
- The Slow Walk: Lightning Lad and Sun Boy hurl lightning bolts and streams of flame at Satan Girl, who simply chuckles, keeps walking slowly towards them as ignoring their energy barrage, and literally blows them out of the way.
- So Long, Suckers!: As grappling with her evil twin, Kara tries to melt her mask to find out her identity. However, Satan Girl slips out of her grip easily and flies off as taunting Supergirl about being unable to catch her.
- Speed Blitz: Satan Girl moves so fast when infecting the Legion girls that nobody ever saw her around until she revealed herself.
- Split-Personality Merge: When her time is over, Satan Girl is reabsorbed back into Kara.
- Spoiler Cover: The cover is an enlarged panel which reveals all Legion girls plus Night Lass will get sick and be shipped to a quarantine world.
- Starfish Aliens: Before the start of the story proper, Supergirl meets a race of sapient aliens whose bodies are furry spheres with faces.
- Story-Breaker Power: A sudden emergency across the galaxy suddenly ensures that Superboy and Mon-El will be away and out of reach before Satan Girl makes her move, prompting an undermanned Legion to call Supergirl, their only left member who can deal with a Kryptonian-level enemy. Should Kal and Lar have fought together with Kara, Satan Girl would have been outnumbered and easily overpowered.
- Superdickery: The cover leads to believe that Superboy is thoughtlessly and forcefully exiling his female teammates to some lost world where he expects them to simply die.
- Sympathy for the Devil: The story ends up with Supergirl feeling sorry for her evil doppelganger and considering she was just trying to survive.
- Time Travel: Supergirl travels to the 30th century to help the Legion stop Satan Girl.
- To the Future, and Beyond: At one point, Kara briefly mentions one prior adventure where she travelled beyond the 30th century.
- Tunnel King: When Supergirl follows Satan Girl to a lonely asteroid, her mysterious enemy slips into a cave. Supergirl waits for her coming back out during some few minutes as Satan Girl drills on through the asteroid to the other side and flies off.
- Vehicular Sabotage: Satan Girl tears off the Legion Cruiser's engine so the the Legionnaires cannot follow her and stop her from killing their companions.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: When Supergirl and Satan Girl first square off, the latter attacks the former with murderous intent. Nonetheless, Satan Girl cannot overpower her due to their powers being evenly matched. When Kara tries to melt her mask as grappling with her to find out her true identity, Satan Girl decides to cut her losses and beat a strategic retreat.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Satan Girl's powers cannot affect animals, what with her being a construct created by Red-Kryptonite which has no effect on animal life.
- You Are in Command Now: Since they are dealing with an emergency and most of members are sick or unavailable, Supergirl is appointed as temporary leader in order to protect the Legion girls.
