Supergirl Honda Special (2024 Comic Book & Graphic Novel Reading Challenge)

In 1983, Elizabeth Dole, wife of then Kansas senator Bob Dole was appointed as Secretary of Transportation for the Reagan administration. Dole's first initiative was for seat belt safety. At the time of her appointment, only about 20% of Americans wore seat belts when driving. Compared to a 2013 report that claimed almost 95% of Americans use them, Dole's efforts must have worked.

In 1984, the Department of Transportation commissioned DC Comics to release an educational comic book to school students. American Honda financed the book's publication which started the Maid of Might, Supergirl. Superman's cousin was at the time a wise choice. A highly anticipated live action film was in the works. It was slated to be a huge blockbuster hit. Unfortunately, it was anything but. Still, countless thousands of copies of the Supergirl Honda Special, as it's most commonly referred to, were made, given away to school children as part of the federal agency's driver safety program. 

Jump to 1986. Supergirl has been dead for a few months, thanks to the events of DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths at the hand of the Anti-Monitor. Not only dead, Supergirl was retconned out of existence as well. Meanwhile, the Department of Transportation is seeing some success with its highway safety campaign. A year prior, Michigan became the first state to enact seat belt safety requirements. It's limited in scope. But it's a start. A few months later, North Carolina became the first start to make it mandatory that all car riders wear seat belts. By the end of 1985, only 5 states and the District of Columbia had passed seat belt safety laws. So Secretary Dole ups the campaign with a rather unlikely duo. But to bring these characters to the public eye will once again require the services of the Last Girl of Krypton. 

In the first Supergirl giveaway, the hero must use technology from the Fortress of Solitude to enter the mind of a young man who's in a coma as the result of a car crash where he wasn't buckled up. In this issue, Kara Danvers is driving a brother and sister pair in her forest green Honda when a mysterious force plucks the siblings out of their seat belts and into the middle of Motorville.

The city of Motorville is a place of traffic chaos. Thankfully, Supergirl arrives to save the kids from an on-coming car driven by Humpty Dumpty! As the trio try to find their way home, they encounter characters from beloved nursery rhymes, all who need lessons in seat belt safety. Through their zany encounters, Supergirl and friends are made aware of a special show that might help them find their way home.

The show is a demonstration on how seat belts save lives. The highlight of the show is a car that drives into a brick wall. While the driver is wearing his safety belt, the passenger is not. And he flies through the windshield into the barrier! But don't worry about them. For the riders are Vince and Larry: those amazing Crash Test Dummies!

The 1986 Supergirl Honda Special marks the first appearance of those road safety PSA icons in comic book form. After the book's release, Vince and Larry would star in dozens of commercials preaching the need for wearing your seat belt. In 1991, Tyco toys released a series of toys based on the duo called The Amazing Crash Test Dummies. With these figures, you could place them inside a special car and crash them through playsets while delighting as the figures flew into pieces. Then kids got to build them back together and wreck 'em once more. Until their campaign was retired in 1999, a number of other products were licensed with the likenesses of Vince and Larry. Costumes, video games, dolls, a lunch box and more were among the items telling everyone that 'you could learn a lot from a dummy.' In 1993, the dummies would return to comics with a 3-issue series by family friendly publisher Harvey. 

Supergirl and the Crash Test Dummies fates are apparently forever intertwined. As the book was Vince and Larry's debut, it marked Kara Zor-El/Linda Danvers last appearance in comics for quite some time. As the Crash Test Dummies enjoyed popularity in American pop culture, a number of usurpers to the Supergirl crown would appear in comics, including the alien shape-shifter Matrix. 1999-2003 was a dark age with no Supergirl or Dummies. Then a light shone through and the planets aligned in 2004. In that year, Fox began to air a number of animated shorts starring Vince and Larry as Hot Wheels introduced it's line of Crash Test Dummies toys simultaneously as the original Supergirl was reintroduced into the DCU in issues 8-13 of Superman/Batman.

The 1986 special was written by Andrew Helfer with additional dialogue by Barry Marx. Character art by Joe Orlando. Background art by Dave Hunt. 

Completing this review completes Task #36 (An Educational Comic) of the 2024 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.