“Sent in a rocket from Krypton as a teenager, Kara Zor-El was trapped in suspended animation before she arrived on Earth years after her cousin, Kal-El. Now the most powerful girl on our planet, Kara Zor-El fights for truth, justice, and the Kryptonian way as SUPERGIRL”.
A new version of Kara, the original Supergirl, was introduced in a six-part story published in Superman/Batman in 2004. The original Kara still died in the Crisis on Infinite Earths, but following Infinite Crisis in 2005, the history of the pre-Crisis timeline, including Kara, are remembered once again. The modern Kara is from the current timeline called “New Earth”.
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 is programmed to follow the trajectory of her infant cousin, but her ship becomes trapped in a meteor formed out of the exploding planet. Kara is kept in suspended animation for three decades before finally crashing to Earth, where she finds her baby cousin has outgrown her and become the world famous Superman (similar to Power Girl’s story).
DC brought back Kara to have a less complicated Supergirl character than Linda Danvers, however her origin story has been revised a number of times under various writers, and her personality has fluctuated depending on the creative team. (DC had a difficult time finding writers who wanted to write Supergirl, or keeping them, until Sterling Gates campaigned for the job. The series has been outstanding since his debut on Supergirl #34.)
To reconcile the contradictory details of her previous issues, Supergirl #35 provided an explanation for the changes in Kara’s personality and memories, in a story titled “The Secret Origin of Supergirl”. Kara’s parents, who have been discovered to be alive and living in the bottled city of Kandor, realize that Kara’s ship being encased in the Kryptonite meteor for so many years 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 (in other words, retconning certain events seen in Supergirl #1-19). Sterling Gates explained in a Newsamara interview that everything in prior issues happened. “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.”
- Issue summaries: The Supergirl From Krypton Parts 1-6, SUPERGIRL #1
- Comic Reviews
- 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 |