skip site navigation and go to content

Kara, the Modern Supergirl

“Sent in a rocket from Krypton as a teenager, Kara Zor-El was trapped in suspended animation for years before she arrived on Earth following 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”.

First appearance: March 2004. Twenty years after the original Kara died and not quite a year after Linda Danvers retired from being Supergirl, a new version of Kara from Krypton was introduced into the modern DC universe. The original Kara still died in the Crisis on Infinite Earths, but following Infinite Crisis in 2005, the history of the pre-Crisis timeline and characters like Kara are remembered once again. The modern Kara is from the current timeline of “New Earth”.

DC’s intention in bringing back Kara was to introduce a less complicated Supergirl character than Linda Danvers. However her origin story has been revised multiple times under the many different writers and her personality has fluctuated depending on who writes her. In an effort to reconcile the contradictary details in her history, SUPERGIRL #35 establishes a reason for the changes in Kara’s personality and memories under different writers. The story, entitled “The Secret Origin of Supergirl”, reveals that being encased within a Kryptonite meteor during her 30 years in suspended animation caused Kara to develop Kryptonite poisoning. This affected her memories and perceptions of certain events. As writer Sterling Gates explains in a Newsamara interview: “Everything [in previous 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…Everything else happened in-story; it still exists within continuity. But it just didn’t necessarily happen the way Supergirl thought it happened.”

Summaries, Reviews

My reviews/summaries of this series are patchy, due in part to the way I’ve followed the series.

The many faces of Supergirl: Kara as portrayed by the various creative teams (full list here)

Artist: Michael Turner
Superman/Batman #8-13		 Artist: Ian Churchill
Supergirl #0-5,7,9-10,13-15		 Artist: Barry Kitson
Supergirl/Legion #16-30		 Artist: Alé Garza
Supergirl #16-17,19
Artist: Renato Guedes
Supergirl #20-22		 Artist: Drew Johnson
Supergirl #23-26,28-29		 Artist: Ron Randall
Supergirl #28-30,32-33		 Artist: Jamal Igle
Supergirl #34+
Improve the web with Nofollow Reciprocity.