Supergirl: 13 Things You Might Have Missed in “Manhunter”

This one’s an interesting episode, folks, and it’s going to start with a little bit of an introduction.

These Easter egg posts are some of our most popular items, and one of the things I try not to do is to repeatedly pound home the same points every single week. At some point, I assume if you care enough about the show to really watch it this closely, you don’t need to be reminded about the stuff that happens all the time.

This week, though, there’s a lot of deep cuts and callbacks, and it seemed like as good a time as any to take a little time out and remind readers who Hank Henshaw and J’Onn J’Onzz are in the comics, things like that.

So bear with us…and we promise there’s some new material in here, too!

So…what did we see? What did we miss?

Read on, and comment below.

HOPE AND FEAR

The idea that Supergirl’s sigil has turned “from a symbol of hope to one of fear” isn’t an entirely new idea. This is territory that often gets explored when people try to examine the real-world ramifications of Superman’s enormous powers…

…like in this weekend’s Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice.

J’ONN J’ONZZ

J’Onn J’Onzz, the Martian Manhunter is one of the most powerful superheroes in the DC Universe.

In the post-Flashpoint DC Universe, J’Onn was not a Justice Leaguer but instead a member of the secret organization StormWatch.

CHOCOS

Choco cookies are generic Oreos, which are J’Onn J’Onzz’s favorite snack in the comics.

During the Keith Giffen/J.M. DeMatteis run on Justice League International, his obsession with the cookies was a frequent source of humor.

FIRE

If Chocos are J’Onn’s favorite thing, fire is his least favorite.

While not actually deadly to the largely-invulnerable Martians, fire has left enormous psychological scars on the race, and J’Onn in particular, as he watched his world and family burn.

HANK HENSHAW

Originally a human astronaut, Hank Henshaw’s body died along with his crew when his shuttle crashed. When his mind was transferred into the shuttle, he became a cyborg, and ultimately a threat. After a brief conflict with Superman, he was forced offworld in the remains of the rocket that brought baby Kal-El to Earth…and, years later, returned.

By then, he was fully mad and blamed Superman for all of his problems, and became the villainous Cyborg Superman.

In Superman: Lois and Clark, the post-Flashpoint Hank Henshaw recently crashed and has started to exhibit similar — but not the same — abilities as his pre-Flashpoint counterpart.

DEAN CAIN

Jeremiah Danvers is played here by Dean Cain who as most fans will remember, played Clark Kent/Superman in Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman in the ’90s.

Cain is one of a few classic Superman actors to pop up again in Supergirl, including Helen Slater, the original movie Supergirl, as Kara and Alex’s adoptive mother and Jeremiah’s wife; and 

JIM HARPER

Eddie McClintock, who has appeared on shows like Warehouse 13, Bones, and Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., popped up this week in the role of Colonel James Harper.

In the comics, of course, James Harper is the superhero Guardian, a creation of Jack Kirby and Joe Simon who is closely tied to the Cadmus Project, the Newsboy Legion, and Jimmy Olsen.

Harper, a former Metropolis police officer, took on the name of the Guardian and was in some ways DC’s version of Captain America — a man with peak human abilities, a blue costume, and an indestructible shield.

After his retirement, Harper was cloned, along with the Newsboy Legion; the elder Newsboys remained on as scientists at Cadmus, where the younger Harper served as chief of security and wrangled the kids as the original Harper had with the original Newsboys.

 

MIDVALE

Midvale is the most commonly-used home base for Supergirl in most of her incarnations in the comics.

It’s where her orphanage was in the pre-Crisis era and has been established as the town where the Danvers lived in Supergirl in previous episodes.

DICK MALVERNE

One of the soldiers in the flashback sequences is credited if Dick Malverne.

In the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity, Dick Malverne grew up at the Midvale Orphanage with Supergirl (whose civilian name was Linda Lee). He always suspected that Linda was Supergirl, but never outed her.

The pair dated in college, then split up, only for Supergirl to encounter him again years later, when he was in the hospital dying of cancer. He died after professing his love for her.

CADMUS

In DC Comics, Cadmus is a research facility and, as hinted here, dabbles in genetic experimentation, particularly on aliens.

Cadmus has been name-dropped on Arrow, and a vial from Cadmus Labs has been hidden in plain sight since the pilot of The Flash, but the lab has never really served a significant purpose on any of the current crop of DC TV series. For his part, Guardian was one of a number of DC characters speculated by fans to be the costumed identity of John Diggle on Arrow.

POWER SURGE

That sequence, where Kara was overwhelmed by her senses when she first came to Earth? That’s pretty reminiscent of Man of Steel, and the way young Clark Kent used to suddenly start seeing with his x-ray vision or hearing the world around him and had to “make it smaller.”

Swan Beach

The beach where local kids would go to hang out and Kara ended up using her powers for the first time?

Swan Beach.

That’s almost certainly named not for the bird, but for Curt Swan, a legendary Superman artist who drew a great many Supergirl stories in his day as well.

NOT SAFE

In case anybody forgets how much they didn’t like the way Jonathan Kent was portrayed in Man of Steel — I loved that movie, and still can’t stand the way they made Pa act — we get a repeat performance from Dean Cain’s Jeremiah Danvers this week as he tells Kara to hide her light under a bushel for safety.