1992:

action comics #676: lex luthor’s employees discover and recover a small spacecraft. after arriving to view the girl they found inside, the dismisses everyone so that he can be alone with her. he thinks ‘it is her. to think that fate has brought her to me… it’s almost enough to make a man religious.’ upon showing her his face, now youthful and very similar to her creator, she mistakes him for her creator and professes her love. he promises they will be together for a long time.

action comics #677: the first page has mae recounting her memory of her creation, with her creator (an alternate universe luthor we will be calling pocket luthor to differentiate from main universe lex luthor) saying “oh my god, it worked… you’re alive! my supergirl lives!!”. it then recounts her first meeting clark, clark meeting pocket luthor, clark defeating the kryptonian terrorists, and clark saving her. mae explains that she’s embarrassed that she mistook lex for her pocket luthor, but that he looks very very similar. mae asks for lex’s forgiveness. he says he can’t be jealous of himself— and that he should be grateful to pocket luthor for bringing him his ‘heart’s desire’. they discuss how different lex jr is from his father, lex luthor, and how despite his father’s cruelty, he is kind and charming. he asks to see a trick, and mae turns invisible and lifts him- he panics and explains he wanted to see her shapeshift. she obliges. he asks further questions about her biology, but she doesn’t have much of an answer for him. we learn lex jr is 21. lex introduces the world to supergirl via cat grant, and explains she’ll be joining the lexcorp family. clark and lois worry at home about how mae knows clark’s secret and this could be bad. mae and clark fight about this, but lex separates them, and they both feel embarrassed about resorting to violence. mae tells lex she doesn’t know what she’d do without him. lex says he’s just looking out for her best interests. mae says she loves him, and lex says he knows.

action comics #678: lex and mae go out to dinner together at an australian restaurant and are speaking to the press when they start getting shot at. mae shapeshifts out of her disguise and takes the bullets for lex. lex’s bodyguards, team luthor, arrive, and mae scoops lex up to fly him to safety.

action comics #679: mae gives lex a massage. lex invites her on a vacation to japan. mae shapeshifts into a japanese woman, and lex says “you are the delightful one, my gorgeous little chameleon! oh yes… you’re everyone i’ve ever loved.”

action comics #680: on the flight to japan, mae hears that superman is in trouble. despite lex’s protests, she leaves the plane and goes off to help him.

action comics #681: dr. happersen gives his phone to mae so lex can check on her and chastise her for her impulsive flight from the plane. lex invites her to come join him at his hawaiian complex. she says she’ll “be there on wings of love”, and sings ‘i’m in love with a wonderful guy’ as she flies off to him.

valor #1: lex asks mae to go after lar gand and persuade him to come back to lex with her. she promises to get him to lex, one way or another.

valor #2: mae says “only one man is allowed near me— and his initials are L. L.”. mae fights to convince lar gand to join her, before thinking that she wishes lex were here to help- which gives her the idea to simply shapeshift into lex and demand that he come with him. this works. mae says “and who easier to impersonate than the man that i love”.

adventures of superman #497: mae and lex watch superman fight doomsday on the news. mae says she should go and help. lex reminds her of her impulsivity from when she left the plane mid-flight to help superman (see action comics #680). she’s convinced to stay for now.

action comics #684: one of lex’s stores has been damaged in the fight. lex says he sent his news people to keep an eye on the doomsday situation— which he thinks may help keep mae from going after him.

superman: man of steel #19: lex says doomsday clearly has a grudge against superman and starts going on a rant about how he fears metropolis may not need a hero who draws this kind of attention. mae says she has to go help him— and lex agrees that metropolis has to be preserved and allows her. she goes to fight him and gets punched into her protomatter form.

valor #3: mae compliments lar gand. lex asks if he has a rival for her affections, and she says don’t be silly, you know you’re the only man for me. mae says it’s attacking one of lex’s shopping marts, and lex tells her she has to stay because when superman is gone, metropolis starts getting anxious. he insists that metropolis needs her here. she’s convinced to stay.

adventures of superman #498: mae is unconscious in her protomatter form, lying on the rubble. someone offers to help her to the hospital, but lex says “they wouldn’t know where to begin with my supergirl, mate.” he speaks to her, saying “we’ll make it all better, love.” she says she was crawling to try to get to superman to help him. lex says nobody can help him now, but she can still be helped. he gets her to his building and asks her to shapeshift into supergirl. she says it will be extremely painful- but that she would move mountains for him. he says he’s not asking her to move mountains— he just wants his supergirl back. he pours himself a glass of wine. she shapeshifts, and says that it was the most difficult shift of her life. he mentions her bruises, and she says she’ll wear them as tribute to superman.

action comics #685: mae and lex fight guardian and cadmus for control of superman’s body. lex makes a press statement about his plans for a monument and a funeral and for the final resting place to be at a park. he says that superman may be gone, but team luthor and supergirl are there to help. mae says she’ll carry on superman’s great crusade for justice. lex smashes a table because he’s angry doomsday got to kill clark and he didn’t. mae stops some bank robbers.

superman: the man of steel #20: lex’s workers are struggling to get the memorial statue to the crypt. mae asks to be allowed to do it. lex says he can see it’s important to her, and lets her.

adventures of superman #499: mae and lex are awoken to alarms going off. mae shifts from her nightgown into her supergirl costume and goes to investigate.

1993:

action comics #686: they meet outside the tomb. lex says they lost signal once mae entered the tomb, and asks what she saw. mae mentions a cave system and some creatures she ran into with inspector turpin. lex asks if the police know superman’s body is gone. she says yes. her and lex speak to the police about a possible break in to the tomb. inside the cave system, a bomb goes off, and mae protects everyone with a psychokinetic shield. mae says she’s frustrated by all of this, and lex says to buck up, they’ll figure it out soon. she says she wishes she had his confidence.

superman #77: sasha green drop kicks lex. lois and mae enter, and lois says it’s obvious lex jr isn’t like his father, because if someone had drop kicked lex sr like that, he would have killed him. she then tells him about how cadmus stole superman’s body. she says she’s scared that if she publishes the story, cadmus will just cover it up and they’ll never get superman’s body. lex says he’ll work on this, and she says that’s why she came to him- he’s the only one with enough power to do it. lex kills sasha green. lois and mae go off to cadmus to get superman’s body. once at the vault, lex asks for a moment alone with the body. he gloats over the body about how he buried him and how he’ll blame sasha green’s murder on his ex-con janitor.

supergirl/team luthor special: opens on lex luthor promoting mae (and team luthor) as a replacement for superman (though he doesn’t phrase it as such). refers to her as a ‘beautiful young lady’ and ‘the bold young girl of steel’. note the repeated references to her youth. he recounts a story of her saving a child and her cat from a fire. this is all presented to the city council to ask for police rights. later, mae and lex (accompanied by other members of team luthor) go to stop a violent take over and hostage situation at S.T.A.R. labs. lex, overconfident, ends up with a broken leg. mae tries to cheer him up by shapeshifting into a few pop-culture references from ‘i love lucy’, ‘star wars’ and ‘male call’. that doesnt work, so she shifts into his mother, which causes him to have an epiphany. mae takes this as having cheered him up. mae helps some team luthor people who got caught in a training sequence, and happersen and lex watch from above. happersen says ‘perhaps we should simply use supergirl to greater advantage’ and lex replies ‘yes, i most certainly shall’. then, we cut to mae shapeshifted into the hellgrammite to scare someone who had called on the actual hellgrammite in an attempt to assassinate lex. lex records his fearful confession, and then goes to mae. he says ‘i never realised just how much pain this would cause you’, mae says that usually it doesnt, but the hellgrammite was inhuman and large. lex says ‘i’ll never forgive myself for putting you through such pain’ (lie, see adventures of superman #498 for the last time he asked her to do something excruciatingly painful). she says the pain doesnt matter- and he says it does, and that she should get nominated for an academy award for her acting as the hellgrammite. she says she’d do anything for him. he says ‘you are my most precious gem’ and ‘i wish i had a hundred of you’.

then, in the second story, mae and lex chat about his homeless shelter. he plays the modest and charitable capitalist and she says he’s the most perfect man alive. they see on the news that a fire has broken out and mae begs to be allowed to go help. she arrives and sees them pointing fingers. she finds out that a creature claiming to be from the underground tunnels of metropolis started the fire accidentally while being bullied by the other shelter guests. mae tells lex about what happened, saying the creatures looked so sad and hopeless. lex promises to find out what’s going on there with a smirk.

action comics #687: mae bursts in, ignoring lex’s guards. lex says he was in conference with happersen and asks if this couldnt have waited. then claims he was going to send for her soon anyways. mae apologises to lex’s guards, saying she knows they were simply doing their jobs. she points to the newspaper mentioning how superman’s body has gone missing. he says that if the newspapers are to believed, there must be at least four supermen and brushes it off as a possible hoax. she leaves, and he says ‘lord, she’s headstrong’.

superman: man of steel #23: mae decides to go searching for kon, encouraged by lex.

adventures of superman #502: mae and kon meet for the first time. lex encourages her to invite kon over for dinner. lex tells kon they have a lot in common– kon asks if that means lex is also a clone (which, yes, but obviously he doesnt say as much), and lex says that he meant that they both love metropolis, and that they’re both dazzled by her power and her beauty– while meeting mae, implyign that he’s speaking about both supergirl and metropolis. mae says the sunset is stunning, and lex says ‘pale pastels compared to you, luv.’ lex and kon and mae have dinner, with lex manipulating the conversation towards kon joining team luthor. kon flies away, leaving mae and lex together.

action comics #689: mae and kon fight stinger under a collapsed bridge. lex finds out that kon signed an exclusive contract with rex leech, enraging him. he then begins scheming about how kon isn’t a legal adult and therefore the contract may be invalid, much to mae’s dismay.

superman: man of steel #24: lex calls and arranges to have one of his planes sent to help steel without letting steel know it’s associated with him. mae says ‘that’s awful magnanimous of you, lex… especially considering the man of steel refused to work for you.’

superman: man of steel 25: mae talks to lex about going to coast city to hunt the cyborg. lex tells her it’s too dangerous, and she brings up how that was his argument during the fight with doomsday– and look where that got them. she tells him she’s going regardless- she just wanted to give him a heads up. lex conveniently gets a phone call about a giant robot coming towards metropolis- she says if this is a trick to keep her here, it’s not going to work. he references doomsday again, saying perhaps this robot itself is another doomsday. lex thinks ‘whatever happened, the robot may still be active– and through it, i will extend my control over supergirl!’ mae, worried about the scientists who initially noticed the robot, wants to help them. lex says the scientists are already dead, and it’s better to wait and be ready for the robot when it arrives. mae fights the robot with lex in her ear, advising her. the robot takes down lex’s helicopter, and mae saves him from the wreckage. steel and kon show up and help, and the robot is destroyed– only to reveal superman!

action comics annual #5: mae and lex watch a fight. lex is sitting in a purple armchair in a robe. mae is sitting on the armrest. she worries over the news, asking if this creature could be another doomsday. he says that sort of tragic thing rarely happens twice, but that they should be ready to help this new superman if and when he needs it.

superman #81: lex tells mae- ‘understand this, my pet. no matter what transpires here i expect you to stay in metropolis’ and mae says ‘but, lex! dont you think i should help them out?’

action comics #691: lex harrasses kon and demands to know where his supergirl has gone.

action comics #692: lex flies up to superman in a helicopter and demands to speak to him. clark asks if there’s something he can do for lex. lex says ‘yes, you can tell me what you’ve done with my supergirl. since she went walkabout with you people to the west coast, i’ve hardly seen hide nor hair of her! oh, she’s called and left messages, but i haven’t been able to connect with her at all. where is she?’ clark says she’s been busy– and that he’s not supergirl’s keeper, and neither is lex. mae shapeshifts into clark to help him come back to life with his secret identity intact. at the end, she says that she hopes for clark and lois to always be as happy as she and lex are.

superman: man of steel #27: at party on a blimp, mae arrives in a white princess gown. mae apologises for her disappearance, saying she had to help superman. lex thinks about how he cannot reward her or allow her to wander away whenever she chooses. so he says ‘i was worried about you. i thought you cared.’ she replies ‘i… i do, but–‘ and he interrupts with ‘you picked a fine way of showing it!’. she apologises, but lex gets distracted by the arrival of lois, who he proceeds to flirt with and salivate over, ignoring mae.

superman #83: mae and lex arrive at engine city. mae says ‘according to lex, if it crumbles into the ocean, the toxic properties could poison the entire pacific! it’s really nice of you to be concerned, lex.’ and lex replies ‘thank you, dear supergirl.’ and then thinks to himself that there’s no need for her to fully understand his ultimate plans for metropolis. unrelated but pretty much everyone else in attendance wants lex gone. mae saves lex from danger, and yet again, lex is not grateful for it but instead mad at her.

superman: man of steel #28: lex confronts a man who spoke to lois lane about lexcorp business. without revealing to mae what the man had discovered, mae is made to believe that this man is blaming lex for and threating lex over his own mistake.

1994

supergirl #1: opens on lex performing some tests on mae with fire and other attackers. afterwards, he sends her to gretchen, who begins to do her own tests- first making sure to cover the cameras lex has installed, much to his chagrin. she asks mae about her age, and she speaks about her origin with pocket luthor, and how she’s actually not sure of her own age. after she leaves, kelley chastises lex for exploiting an innocent child, before lex mentions being tired and kelley drops the subject. mae escapes lex’s surveillance to visit ma and pa, until they question her relationship with lex and she gets too upset to stay. at the end, we see lex and happersen looking up at many egg-shaped things containing naked supergirls.

supergirl #2: mae arrives in singapore for testing and comes across someone selling dolls of her. believing these to be unofficial, she takes them to the facility and mentions them to an employee, who points out the official lexcorp tag that says ‘distinctive likeness trademark of lexcorp, all rights reserved’. confused, she interrupts a meeting where lex is on video call and questions him about it– he tells her it was meant to be a surprise, and that the licensing fees would go to charities of her choosing. she mentions seeing a picture in a newspaper that made him seem ill, and he reassures her otherwise– she says if he were, she’d rush home immediately. then, as a test, they tell her she can have a break. during her ‘break’ they gas her and attack her. she takes an actual break in disguise, and gets stopped by elizabeth perske. perske reveals herself to be an ex-wife of the original luthor, lex’s father. she talks about how luthor had treated her– and mae tells her that her lex is nothing like his father. perske then tells her she’s being followed, and shows her photos of her being followed through singapore by the same man. mae is incredulous, and leaves the car– but then, when she sees the same man at lexcorp, she becomes suspicious. she listens in on a conversation between the head of the singapore lab and happersen, and after the call ends demands to know everything the man knows about operation protomatter.

new titans #108: lex and roy harper meet. mae shows up and meekly asks to talk to lex. lex brushes her off to speak to roy.

supergirl #3: mae goes to meet happersen in the form of the head of the singapore lab, and waits to reveal herself until she’s alone with happersen and the clones. happersen releases the clones and mae has to fight them off, leaving all but one, which releases to reveal a clone of lex. speaking to lana after all this, she begins to realise the depth of lex’s manipulation and lies– that he’d likely been working on all these clones since the last time she ended up in her protomatter form, just after the death of superman.

supergirl #4: mae begins visiting different properties of lex’s and destroying them. she arrives at his property near houston, one that they’d clearly used often, and begins destroying it too, especially a portrait of the two of them. she then travels to an island estate, and meets a hologram lex that tries to convince her that all of this was simply to try to find a cure for lex’s illness. when that doesnt work,he sends team luthor (who believe that they’re attacking a cadmus project creature) to firebomb the building with her in it. mae plays dead, and then after they’ve left returns to her revenge form. she finally finds lex, and she doesn’t recognise him at first– which he leverages along with his sickness to try to convince her that this was all some big misunderstanding, and that it truly was just to find a cure. while she’s confused and worried, he gasses her again– she begins to hallucinate her family and friends telling her that they told her so about lex being nefarious. lex tries to get to his battle suit from team luthor in the meantime, but mae recovers quickly enough to stop him. she says ‘i loved you! i looked up to you– lex luthor, the philanthropist, the civic hero! some hero– it was all for show! you’re as hollow as your armor!’ she asks him to stop pretending to be sick– lex desperately tries to tell her it’s not a lie, but after all the lies and gaslighting, mae doesn’t believe him. it’s only when clark arrives and defends lex that she relents. gretchen arrives to care for the sick luthor, and clark tells him ‘no matter what you hoped to gain from her through all your plots and schemes, it can never match what you’ve lost.’ mae asks perske to help her get back on her feet and then goes home to be comforted by ma, pa, and lana.

action comics #699: concurrent with supergirl #4.

action comics #700: mae helps the rest of the superfam fight team luthor. gretchen kelley betrays lex and goes to lois and the media with the truth about lex luthor ii and his crimes. happersen sends missiles to attack metropolis.