Supergirl: Bio, Origin & History

Real Name: Kara Zor-El

First Appearance: Action Comics #252 (May, 1959)

Powers: Supergirl has an extensive list of powers. She possesses superhuman strength, speed, durability, stamina, hearing, and agility. She also has infrared, telescopic, x-ray, heat, microscopic, and electromagnetic vision. In addition, she is nearly invulnerable, can fly, has a healing factor, and possesses both freeze and wind breath.

Affiliation: Justice League of America, Teen Titans, Legion of Superheroes, Female Furies, and Red Lantern Corps.

Did You Know? Kara Zor-El is the cousin of Superman.

A Little History

The origin of Supergirl is pretty straightforward. 

Supergirl first appeared in Action Comics #252 back in 1959. She was created by Otto Binder and Al Plastino. Kara is the daughter of Zor-El and Alura In-Zee and like her famous cousin, Cal-El, she comes from the planet Krypton.

As the brother of Jor-El, Zor-El had early knowledge that Krypton was a doomed planet. Zor-El planned to save all of Argo City (his city on Krypton) by using devices of his own design disguised as power generators. Although he had a reasonable amount of faith that the devices would work, he wasn’t willing to risk the life of his daughter should they not. As such, he designed and built a pod similar to the one Cal-El was placed in. Once the pod was complete, he programmed it to orbit the Sun. His hope was that by orbiting the Sun, Kara would be A) super powered when she awoke and B) able to defend herself from anything that may have awoken her.

Kara was almost of age on Krypton and because of this, she was set to undergo a series of trials. These trials were designed to act as a bridge between adolescence and adulthood. Any who passed them would be considered a full adult in the eyes of all Kryptonians. Zor-El convinced her that he had a present (Kryptonian Battle Armor) for her in recognition of her trials. When she arrived to receive it, he told her that the gift was in the pod. She reached into the pod and quickly put the Battle Armor on. What she didn’t realize was that Zor-El had equipped the armor with a device that would render her unconscious moments after putting it on. 

As she began to lose consciousness, Zor-El placed her into the pod. Kara pleaded that she didn’t want to go but Zor-El ignored her. Even her mother was unable to help her and Zor -El launched the pod into space. 

After orbiting the Sun for years, Kara arrived on Earth in Russia. Moments after her crash landing, a group of Russian soldiers arrived and began to question Kara. When she was unable to answer their questions, they began to use force to restrain her. It was at this moment that she realized she had an impressive set of superpowers. She was easily able to subdue the soldiers and near its conclusion Superman showed up. 

And that’s it. The origin of Supergirl.

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