THE history of the American superheroine. The Supergirls, a cultural history of comic book heroines, asks whether their world of fantasy is that different from our own. Are the stories of Wonder Woman's search for an identity or Batwoman's battle for equality also an alternative saga of modern American women? NPR says ". . . as it delivers its clear-eyed critique of the way mainstream superhero comics have alternatively eroticized or deified female characters, The Supergirls gleefully celebrates the medium itself, in all its goofy, glorious excess."