Everybody remembers the time that Conan got crucified, and Wolverine, but what about Supergirl? Beginning in issue #397, writer/artist Mike Sekowsky brought a much harder edge to Supergirl stories of the early Bronze Age. She was often shown defeated, but never so much as in this issue, which she spends mostly being tortured on a flaming pentagram by Nightflame, the manifestation of her own suicidal thoughts. A harder edge indeed! This story was written by Marv Wolfman and Steve Skeates, very much in the dark vein Sekowsky had opened already.

The action occurs within Kara's mind; her body lies on the street, apparently dead, as her boss Geoff Anderson gives her good vibes and, when she awakens, a kiss. Sekowsky had relocated Supergirl to San Francisco and given her this love interest not long before, in Adventure #406. The real-world setting (instead of Metropolis, Gotham, etc.) was a Marvel-like feature of several early Bronze titles at DC. For instance, Wonder Woman was living in Manhattan, running a boutique.

The first panel also has Lex Luthor's niece Nasthalthia, also known as "Nasty," who serves as Linda Danvers' workplace foil. Her only pre-Crisis appearances were in Adventure Comics #397-424, but Grant Morrison brought her back in All-Star Superman many years later. She is a "tip of the hat" to the similarly bratty Nastalathia Smythe-Heatherstone from Milton Caniff's "Terry and the Pirates" comic strips of the 1940s.

Pencil writing partly cut off at the top of the page says, "Give him a few more whiskers." Accordingly, corrections were made to Geoff's face and Supergirl's hair in panel two, to the flames in panel three, and to Supergirl's right breast in panel four.

Check out those demonic grasping arms in the big panel, and the cyclops gremlin who is directly responsible for Supergirl's mental torture, as his boss Nightflame watches approvingly and laughs behind him. A two inch tear through Nightflame's torso was repaired long ago with a piece of masking tape on the back of the page. It's obvious when you're looking for it but doesn't jump right out upon casual viewing of the page.

Supergirl's romance with Geof (and employment at a TV station) ended abruptly four issues after this, when Supergirl was given her own romance-oriented monthly title written by Cary Bates, which only ran ten issues. As a side effect of the change, no letters were published responding to this edgy story.

Sekowsky's blue pencil layout is evident throughout. The back of the page has a penciled price of $65. Those were the days! It also bears two ink stamps. One is the copyright notice from National Publications Inc which I've seen on many pages. The other is a literal "stamp of approval" from the Comics Magazine Code authority, dated April 3, 1972. The issue hit newsstands on May 30, 1972 with a cover date (i.e. "remove from newsstand after") of July 1972. I would think this page flirted with the edge of what the Comics Code was prepared to accept.

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