A new version of Kara was introduced in 2004 in a six-part story published in Superman/Batman titled “The Supergirl From Krypton”. Kara was sent to Earth by her parents as Krypton was about to be destroyed (not 15 years later as in the Silver Age). Her escape rocket was programmed to follow the trajectory of her infant cousin Kal-El, but her ship became trapped in a meteor formed out of the exploding planet. Kara was kept in suspended animation for three decades before crashing to Earth, where she found that her baby cousin had outgrown her and become the world famous Superman. (This is similar to Power Girl’s origin story.)
DC brought Kara back in order to have a less complicated Supergirl character than Linda Danvers, however her origin story was been revised a number of times under various writers. Her personality also fluctuated depending on the creative team. (DC had a difficult time finding writers who wanted to write Supergirl, until Sterling Gates campaigned for the book. The series experienced a notable improvement in quality following Gates’ debut on Supergirl #34.)
To reconcile the contradictory details of her origin story and personality, Supergirl #35 provided an explanation for the changes in Kara’s personality and memories, in a story titled “The Secret Origin of Supergirl”. In this issue Kara is reunited with her parents, who have been discovered to be alive and living in the bottled city of Kandor. Her parents realize that Kara’s ship being encased in the Kryptonite meteor for so many years had caused her to develop Kryptonite poisoning, which affected her memories and perceptions of certain events. They are able to cure her of this poisoning and restore her “true” memories, thus retconning away certain plot elements from Supergirl #1-19, namely her mission from her father to kill Superman.
Sterling Gates explained his method of reconciling the contradictory elements of the series by stating that everything in the prior issues had happened, just not necessarily the way Supergirl perceived them: “Just some of the things that happened — Phantom Zone ghosts, “kill Kal-El” — those sorts of things are going to be seen in a different light. All those stories still happened to Supergirl…it just didn’t necessarily happen the way Supergirl thought it happened.” (Source: Newsamara interview.)
- Issue summaries: The Supergirl From Krypton Parts 1-6, SUPERGIRL #1
- SUPERGIRL Comics Reviews
- My guide to Supergirl’s origin story revisions
The Many Faces of Supergirl
Kara as portrayed by throughout the series and in Supergirl & the Legion of Super-Heroes (full list of creative teams)
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| Artist: Jamal Igle Supergirl #34+ |
Artist: Ron Randall Supergirl #28-30,32-33 |
Artist: Drew Johnson Supergirl #23-26,28-29 |
Artist: Renato Guedes Supergirl #20-22 |
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| Artist: Alé Garza Supergirl #16-19 |
Artist: Barry Kitson Supergirl/Legion #16-30 |
Artist: Ian Churchill Supergirl #0-5,7,9-10,13-15 |
Artist: Michael Turner Superman/Batman #8-13 |