X-Ray Studios

Today I will post images of Belinda Zee.



See. Told you.

Belinda is notable as she is really the only original character we introduced to the Supergirl mythos. Admittedly, our version of Lena Thorul seems to have very little in common with the original version. But still...

Obviously, Belinda Zee's name is also a take off of Supergirl's secret identity, Linda Lee. Not quite as obvious is the fact that her name was also inspired by my fiance's name: Belinda Lee.

I've also seen it mentioned that she seems to have some common elements to Grant Morrison's Zibarro. What with the non-Bizarro like speech patterns and the color scheme and the prominent "Z" in the name... Coinicedence. I won't lie. I think All-Star Superman is one of the best books out there. But I didn't read it until a few months ago. In fact, I rarely read comics anymore. That's changing a bit... out of necessity more than anything else.

The design of Belinda was partially inspired by Archie Comics character, Veronica Lodge. A little of her temperament springs from this source as well. Belinda is a fun character to write. She's not exactly evil, and she certainly isn't good. Her emotional state of being is on a hair trigger. Essentially, she's an agent of chaos. Chaotic neutral, if I must let my roots as a D&D geek show.

The images here of her as Superiorgirl are Eric's original take on the concept. But I was looking more for the mirror image feel, so we switched to classic Bizarro look, with the mask. The mask was specifically inspired by the Silver Age appearance of an evil Superman, who was indistinguishable from the good version, except for his domino mask.

I didn't really realize just how common Supergirl doppelgangers were until after we had put the Belinda Zee wheels in motion. I'm not sure I would have done it differently anywaey. Anyone who has read much of our work will know that doppelgangers are a fairly common theme. Our Tron comic has a character who deals with multiple versions of himself. Seems natural in a universe with copy and paste functions. Little Gloomy has met two different doppelgangers in the pages of Super Scary Monster Show, and Kid Gravity once met his parallel universe twin named Kid Anti-Gravity in the pages of Disney Adventures magazine.

Evil duplicates are nothing new. But they're always fun. Belinda Zee was alot of fun to work with. From her arrogant sassiness, to her vulnerable emotional outbursts. Fun.