Supergirl

"I don't believe it! A Super...girl?"

- Jimmy Olsen

Supergirl was the last Argoan, and Superman's foster cousin.

Early adventures
Kara In-Ze was the only survivor from Krypton's sister planet, Argo. While exploring the sector of space once occupied by Krypton, Superman discovered a hidden cryogenic facility which had sustained heavy damage. Only one chamber was intact, containing the last survivor of Argo: Kara. Taking the young woman back to Earth, Superman introduced Kara to his adoptive parents. The Kents took her in under the guise of Jonathan Kent's teenaged niece. Inspired by her "cousin" Clark, Kara made a costume similar to Superman's and occasionally joined on missions as Supergirl. Kara frequently visited Clark in Metropolis and, as Supergirl, she had full access to Superman's Fortress of Solitude. In Supergirl, Superman found a living link to his alien heritage, and someone he could talk to about his dual lives as Superman and Clark Kent. She became a frequent friendly ally who could be trusted with Superman's secret.

Before joining the Justice League, Kara had little interaction with other heroes. Her first official team-up was with Batgirl. When Livewire teamed up with Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, Batman, asking for Superman's help, inadvertently gets Kara instead. Together Batgirl and Supergirl defeat the trio of super-villains, and form a close friendship. The two stayed close friends; a few years later, Barbara and Kara went skiing together for Christmas.

When Superman went missing, Kara took to the Fortress of Solitude to dispatch his robots in order to convince the world that he was still around. When Superman returned to Earth under Darkseid's control, Supergirl stood against him but was defeated. She was placed under the care of Professor Emil Hamilton, something that would come back to bite her in subsequent years.

Missions
Kara was living in Kansas for three years, under Clark's instructions, until she was finally recruited into the new Justice League. Her first assignment was to go to Chong-Mai, alongside the Green Lantern, Captain Atom and, against his will, Green Arrow, to deal with a possible radioactive accident. Supergirl's juvenile and playful spirit charmed Green Arrow and the two became friends. Her somewhat immature nature made her act impetuously, which was frowned upon by some members of the League, especially John Stewart. However, despite her rushed judgment, she was goodhearted and well-intentioned.

When Amazo returned to Earth, Supergirl and Steel went after Lex Luthor to take him into protective custody. After Luthor escaped into a refuge of his own, Supergirl aided the League's second line of defense against the android. She bravely attacked Amazo, but his cosmic power knocked her out with one strong impact. Sometime later she participated in the battle against the Dark Heart but she, like many of the others present, had a hard time against it until it was shut down by the Atom.

The Doppelganger mystery
At one point, Supergirl started to have disturbing dreams in which she chased and incinerated men she had never seen before. She contemplated the possibility of those so-called dreams being in fact suppressed memories while she was under the government's custody. Supergirl, Green Arrow, and the Question set off to investigate this strange occurrence. They went to S.T.A.R. Labs, where Professor Hamilton assured her that she was under their care and vigilance the entire time, and that her dreams may be an expression of her traumatic experience. While leaving, the trio got attacked by robots and soldiers that linked them to the U.S. Army, and more specifically to General Hardcastle. They confronted him and he admitted to having being in charge of government experiments in metahuman and mutant studies, but he couldn't explain Supergirl's dreams. The Leaguers connected Hardcastle to Nuvo-Gen, so Supergirl and Green Arrow went there to investigate. They ascertained that Supergirl's DNA was used to create a clone, whom they trained to be a living weapon. Supergirl deduced that they shared some sort of psychic link that made her see her clone's actions. Supergirl and Green Arrow were lured into a hologram-training room, where the clone, referred to only as 'Tea', attempted to kill Supergirl and thus wipe out their psychic link, which was holding her back. Supergirl fought her off, until the entire facility blew up, seemingly destroying Galatea.

When Supergirl found out that it was Hamilton who cloned her under Cadmus's sanction, she was set to take them down. However, when trouble arose and the JL core members turned themselves over to the government, Supergirl was left in charge of the League. While the heroes where struggling to get the power back online, Galatea and an army of Ultimen invaded the Watchtower. Supergirl tried to stop Galatea from overloading the reactor, but she was overwhelmed by her clone's slightly superior strength. Supergirl stalled Galatea long enough for the reactor to reboot, whereupon she used one of its cables to electrocute her doppelganger, finally defeating her.

Acceptance and popularity
During one mission in Japan, Stargirl, S.T.R.I.P.E. and John Stewart were working together to ward off a mutated turtle, when Supergirl stole the limelight as she swooped in, sporting her new uniform modeled off after that of Superman's. She saved the day with great ease and was received with overwhelming reverence from the eyewitnesses. Stargirl didn't take this lightly. En route through the North Pole, the team was suddenly sucked into a portal and arrived in Skartaris, a hidden land at the center of the Earth where the sun was red. Consequently, Supergirl's powers were quickly depleted, which left her considerably vulnerable. However, this didn't hold her back; Supergirl joined the battle against Deimos' army, and engaged them in hand-to-hand sword fight. Then, despite her feebleness, Supergirl intercepted Metallo when he was trying to obtain the Great Stone. She bluffed, claiming to be immune to Metallo's Kryptonite heart. However, Metallo engaged her and she attacked him with Stargirl's rod, and was forced to retreat. She attempted to thwart Metallo by all means available ― she tilted a giant statue over him, and tried to shoot him down with a blaster. When Metallo finally snared Supergirl, she managed to cut out his battery with a dagger, leaving him immobilized. This display of bravery and endurance finally earned Supergirl the respect of Stargirl, who intervened in the nick of time to get rid of the chunk of Kryptonite, before it could kill Supergirl.

30th century
By her twenty-first birthday, Kara — now with a few years' League experience under her belt — was truly beginning to come in to her own despite the perception some might have had of her as being in her cousin's shadow. Even Stewart was forced to admit that there was little more he could teach her. Supergirl, along with Stewart and Green Arrow, was transported to the 30th century by members of the Legion of Super-Heroes. The three Justice Leaguers aided Legionnaires Brainiac 5 and Bouncing Boy in freeing their teammates from the mental domination of the Fatal Five — a mission from which, historical records of the era claimed, Supergirl would not return, with most fearing she would not return because she would die. After teaming with Brainiac 5, Bouncing Boy, and Green Arrow to stop the Fatal Five, Supergirl elected to stay behind in the 30th century as a Legionnaire—a position in which she could truly make a difference. Her decision was further influenced by the fact that the 30th century was more like the world she had known on Argo as well as her growing romantic attraction to Brainiac 5. Supergirl sent a final farewell message to her cousin Kal-El wherein she expressed her love for Ma and Pa Kent and subtly expressed her desire to make a name for herself separate from Superman. She presumably lived out the rest of her days in the 30th century.

Powers and abilities
Because Argoans and Kryptonians sprang from a common humanoid ancestor millions of years before and both lived on planets orbiting a red sun, Supergirl's powers closely parallel Superman's. Kara was born 16 years before her Kryptonian "cousin" but remains younger due to her time in suspended animation.

As a result, Supergirl had powers that are similar to Superman's (flight, superhuman strength and speed, invulnerability, heat vision, super hearing, x-ray vision, telescopic and microscopic vision, and super breath.) and she shared his vulnerability to Kryptonite. She was also weakened by red sun radiation and presumably has the same problems with magic. Because Supergirl was much younger than Superman, her power is not yet equal to her cousin's, though on her 21st birthday, it was evidenced how much her power has grown, as her strength seemed to be near his. She was cocky, hip, and very independent; though these traits often hindered her in her early career, she has also found ways to use them to her advantage. She also had over time, obtained hand-to-hand combat skills.

Background information
With regards to her origin, Supergirl is based loosely on Kara Zor-El, the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Supergirl and biological cousin of Kal-El. Her parents were Jor-El's brother Zor-El and Alura In-Ze, from whom the surname of the animated Supergirl is derived. She was killed during the Crisis, but was reintroduced in 2004's Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, where (interestingly enough) she was targeted by Darkseid for leadership of the Female Furies. In between, several others used the name Supergirl, but none of them had any real connection to Krypton.

Concerning her character design, this version of Supergirl was a initially a new design that would later be adopted in the comics by the post-Crisis Linda Danvers, a human who had herself become Supergirl after Matrix fused with her to save her from dying. It was not until "Chaos at the Earth's Core" that she would adopt a look more akin to classic Supergirl comics (without the tiara on her hair, and wearing an outfit looking more like a female version of Superman's own uniform), which looks like a blend between the modern-day Supergirl (whose uniform has the midriff exposed) and the Supergirl persona adopted by Matrix shortly after the Crisis on Infinite Earths.

Appearances

 * "Little Girl Lost"
 * "Unity"
 * "Legacy"


 * "Girl's Night Out"

Feature film

 * Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman


 * "Hereafter, Part I"
 * "Comfort and Joy"


 * "Initiation"
 * "Fearful Symmetry"
 * "The Return"
 * "The Greatest Story Never Told"
 * "Dark Heart"
 * "The Once and Future Thing Part One: Weird Western Tales"
 * "The Once and Future Thing Part Two: Time, Warped"
 * "Flashpoint"
 * "Panic in the Sky"
 * "Divided We Fall"
 * "Chaos at the Earth's Core"
 * "Patriot Act"
 * "Far From Home"