The Supergirl Job

DC Comics initially objected to Superman: The Animated Series adapting the Girl of Steel for the show, so the creative team had to convince them by making immaterial concessions.

By now, it is common knowledge that, when Justice League was first announced, the creative team manufactured a fake background for Hawkgirl in their series bible (Allstetter, “Justice League’s ‘Starcrossed”; Eisenberg and Enstall, 00:04:13-00:04:36; “Inside,” 00:03:31-00:03:54; Rossen 58). Not wanting to tip their hand that Shayera Hol was actually a spy for the Thanagarian military, writer and Producer Rich Fogel crafted a character biography that claimed she was merely an “undercover detective” who was “pursuing some criminals who were trafficking in forbidden technology, [when] she was zapped by a dimensional transport beam.  Her molecular structure was ripped apart and sent halfway across the galaxy.  When she awoke, she found herself on an uncharted planet called Earth” (Allstetter, “Justice League Characters”). According to Fogel, this bit of subterfuge was a “disinformation campaign” intended to throw hardcore fans off their trail, as they wished for her true origins to be a surprise so as to not spoil the “Starcrossed” storyline (qtd. in “Inside,” 00:03:52-00:03:53). Of course, its success was no great surprise to the creative team, as they no doubt had demoed this tactic previously when adapting Supergirl for Superman: The Animated Series (STAS).

The Target

Debuting in Action Comics #252 (May 1959), the original Supergirl was Kara Zor-El, a cousin of Kal-El who also survived the destruction of Krypton and traveled to Earth. While she was not the first female spin-off of a popular male superhero—that honor would go to Mary Marvel in 1942—but she would be one of the most significant. Over the decades, she went from being Superman’s “secret weapon” to the star of her own series to a prominent figure in The Superman Family (1974-1982), an anthology series that consolidated her adventures in with Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Krypto the Super Dog, and even the Earth-2 Superman. At one point, DC Comics was so confident in her character that she even received her own live-action film in 1984, starring Helen Slater and Faye Dunaway but, as the company plotted to reboot their entire comics line during Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985-1986), they decided to kill off the iconic character in a one-on-one battle with the series’ big bad, the Anti-Monitor. In the introduction to the collected edition, series author Marv Wolfman provided his (and DC’s) explanation for her untimely demise:

Why did we kill Supergirl? Boy, I still get that at every convention I go to. Before Crisis, it seemed that half of Krypton survived its explosion. We had Superman, Supergirl, Krypto, the Phantom Zone criminals, the bottle city of Kandor, and so many others. Our goal was to make Superman unique. We went back to his origin and made Kal-El the only survivor of Krypton. That, sadly, was why Supergirl had to die. However, we were thrilled by all the letters we received saying Supergirl’s death in Crisis was the best Supergirl story they had read. Thank you. By the way, I miss Kara too. (Wolfman 7)

Above, left to right: the cover of Superman #21 (September 1988), Superman encountering the Matrix Supergirl in the same issue, and Supergirl in her original Matrix form in Superman #22 (October 1988).

However, even with the Kryptonian ban, the Superman creative team found a way around it when they [re]introduced Supergirl in Superman #16 (April 1988) by making her a synthetic, shapeshifting lifeform called Matrix. From a “pocket universe” (as alternate realities were a no-go after Crisis] where Superboy died young, she was created by a heroic Lex Luthor and designed to look like his late love interest, Lana Lang. Following her debut storyline, she became part of the Superman supporting cast, though more often than not she felt like a placeholder for the original Kara and, over time, her backstory became increasingly complicated.

Meanwhile, the creative team for STAS was deep into production as they adapted the aforementioned Superman cast for animation, and they ran into a problem with Supergirl, as writer and Producer Paul Dini revealed in a January 8, 1998 interview with Comics Continuum:

We wanted a take on her that was not the current version, some sort of alien who is combined with a human girl and is all confused and angst-ridden. And we didn’t want to do the blob of protoplasm who takes the shape of Supergirl’s form. We actually wanted to do the original version, which is Superman’s cousin from Krypton. We ran into a wall with DC because they insisted that Superman be the last Kryptonian. So, we did a compromise, that she’s from a small planet in the neighboring system that was colonized by Kryptonians, but they’ve evolved slightly differently.

She is sort of a cousin, in terms of being from pretty much the same race and, when she shows up on Earth, she’s a feisty 16-year-old. She loves being here, she loves being able to fly, she loves having powers. […Superman is] very protective of her because he doesn’t want her rushing into some battle with a supervillain and getting killed. He wants her to realize there’s responsibility involved in what she’s doing. (qtd. in Allstetter, “Supergirl Adventures Update”)

Above, left to right: pages from the STAS series bible, retrieved from WorthPoint, an online database for researching collectables.

To reiterate, as DC Comics was committed to Superman being the last survivor of Krypton at the time, any Supergirl appearance on STAS would have to be somehow different from traditional Kryptonians. The recent discovery of original pages from the STAS series bible (see above) implies that there was an earlier, more traditional take on Supergirl that was rejected, which necessitated a second draft that took additional liberties with the character’s origin. Reproduced below is the official character profile for Supergirl, copied from the original, now-defunct Kids’ WB! website:

When Krypton exploded, its smaller, neighbor planet, Argos, was thrown out of its rotation and sent flying into space. Fortunately, Argos’ top scientist convinced the people of Argos that Krypton’s destruction was at hand, and together they managed to construct a force field that maintained the gravity and atmosphere of their planet. For sixteen years, the residents of Argos survived. In time, Argos’ force field began to fail, and—sensing the end of their world—the scientist placed her family in cryo-tubes to preserve them until help could arrive. Kara, however, was the only one to survive. Clark was delighted to know there had been another survivor of the Krypton system.

Superman introduced Kara to his adoptive parents, who took her in and are now helping her adjust to life on Earth. In order to blend in, Kara has taken the last name “Kent,” and Jonathan and Martha explain that she is a niece on Jonathan’s side of the family. Inspired by her “cousin” Clark, Kara has made a costume similar to Superman’s and occasionally joins on missions as Supergirl. Kara frequently visits Clark in Metropolis and, as Supergirl, she has full access to Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.

Because Argosians and Kryptonians sprang from a common humanoid ancestor millions of years before, Supergirl’s powers closely parallel Superman’s. As a result, Supergirl has powers that are similar to Superman’s (flight, strength, heat vision, super-hearing), but [she] is more resistant to Kryptonite. Exposure to the radioactive element would kill Superman in about twenty minutes, but Supergirl could hold out for several hours. Also, because Supergirl is nearly half Superman’s age (16), her powers are not quite as strong as his. She more than makes up for this in attitude, which is cocky, hip, and very independent. With Supergirl, Superman has a living link to his alien heritage and someone he can talk to about his dual lives as Superman and Clark Kent. She is a frequent, friendly ally who can be trusted with Superman’s secret. (“Supergirl”)

So, this Supergirl is not from Krypton per se, but a survivor of a neighboring world called Argo (or Argos, as it was called above and in Part One of “The Last Son of Krypton”), which was colonized “millions of years before” by ancient Kryptonians who were no longer Kryptonian, but Argosians, when they finally died out. Aside from the prospect of an ancient, space-faring Krypton only being able to colonize one additional planet over “millions of years” (and remember that our species has only been around for roughly 300,000 years; Handwerk), this profile takes great pains to differentiate the Argosian Supergirl from the Kryptonian Superman, specifically in reference to her tolerance to kryptonite. Basically, in order to appease DC Comics’ “Last Son of Krypton” mandate, the creative team created an elaborate backstory differentiating Kara from Kal-El.

And then they proceeded to completely ignore it.

The Con

Supergirl first appeared in the two-part “Little Girl Lost,” which was—by Producer Bruce Timm’s admission in a November 14, 1997 interview with Comics Continuum—the final episodes in production order (Allstetter, “Supergirl on Superman”). Though written by freelance writers Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer, the scripts were extensively rewritten, necessitating co-writing credits for Producers Paul Dini and Alan Burnett for Part One and a “story by” credit for Rich Fogel in Part Two. According a September 6, 2006 interview with The World’s Finest, Dorkin revealed that “[t]he original ‘Little Girl Lost’ plot was changed significantly fairly last-minute, and we had a significant amount of back story worked up for it as well” and “[t]he second half was changed […] and a regular series writer reworked the plot” (qtd. in Liu). Overall, the writer “like[d] the episodes a great deal” but was “pretty disappointed” by the changes (qtd. in Liu).

As for the episode, the opening on Part One is similar to the profile listed above, but here the destruction of Krypton knocks Argo out of orbit, destroying their civilization and causing the planet itself to relocate to the fringes of its solar system. Seeking to save the remnants of her family, Kala In-Ze—the chief physician of Argo City (a city that survived Krypton’s destruction in the Pre-Crisis)—cryonically froze them in the hopes that someone would detect their distress signal and rescue them. However, by the time Superman arrived, only the chamber containing Kara In-Ze, Kala’s daughter, remained intact.

Above, left to right: Kara’s nightmare, including her final moments on Argo and her first moments on Earth in the “Last Daughter of Argo,” from Superman Adventures #21 (July 1998).

Unfortunately, due to time constraints, the episode skipped ahead an indeterminate length of time to get to the main plot of “Little Girl Lost,” specifically Kara’s first time in Metropolis and her conflict with the forces of Darkseid. Plot points removed from the story include Kara’s last days on Argo, her first encounter with Superman, and the lingering trauma after discovering how she is the only survivor of her world. However, much of this material was recycled in the “Last Daughter of Argo” story, published in Superman Adventures #21 (July 1998), which was also written by Dorkin and Dyer. Originally intended to be a one-shot (Allstetter, “Supergirl Adventures Update”)—most likely as a counterpart to Batgirl Adventures #1 (February 1988)—the story repurposed a lot of backstory cut from the original script (Liu).

Top row, left to right: examples of Supergirl not being affected by kryptonite in Superman Adventures #21 (July 1998), including Kanto’s kryptonite dagger and fending off Phantom Zone criminals Jax-Ur and Mala by herself. Bottom row: Supergirl being affected by kryptonite in the STAS episode “Legacy,” the Justice League Unlimited episode “The Return,” and the Justice League Unlimited episode “Chaos at the Earth’s Core.”

In addition to fleshing out Supergirl’s backstory, Superman Adventures #21 (July 1998) also features some questionable scenes regarding her relationship with kryptonite. According to her aforementioned character profile, the Girl of Steel is described as “more resistant to Kryptonite,” but in the “Last Daughter of Argo” story Kara is depicted as not being affected by kryptonite at all, which is immediately contradicted by later appearances in STAS and Justice League Unlimited (JLU). Despite the fact that the story was written by a writer for the series, elements of this issue must be considered apocryphal and out-of-continuity.

I bring up this incongruity as an example of a larger tapestry. At the end of the day, the STAS creative team wanted to use Supergirl, but DC Comics did not want them to introduce a second Kryptonian as per the policy at the time. I propose that the creative team gave lip service to DC Comics, promising them that Kara would not be a Kryptonian by way of technicality but, after she was approved, they went ahead and wrote her as they intended, and any reference to such material in “Little Girl Lost” was left on the cutting room floor. After all, consider how neither STAS or JLU ever referred to Supergirl as an “Argosian” once on either series, and her powers and weakness to kryptonite are virtually identical to her adopted cousin. And finally, in my opinion, rather than being “millions of years” removed from Krypton, I suspect that her people were probably Kryptonians who colonized Argo a few generations prior. Just like Hawkgirl years later, the creative team pulled a fast one, but this time on DC Comics itself and, either by intention or tactful omission, Supergirl was permitted to join the DC Animated Universe in a form nearly identical to her Pre-Crisis incarnation.

Works Cited

Allstetter, Rob.  “Justice League Characters.”  Comics Continuum.  19 Oct. 2001.  <http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0110/19/jlindex.htm>.  Accessed 22 Dec. 2022.

---.  “Justice League’s ‘Starcrossed.’”  Comics Continuum.  27 May 2004.  <http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0405/27/index.htm>.  Accessed 8 Jan. 2023.

---. “Supergirl Adventures Update.” Comics Continuum.  8 Jan. 1998. Accessed 31 Dec. 2003.

---. “Supergirl on Superman.” Comics Continuum.  14 Nov. 1997. Accessed 31 Dec. 2003.

Eisenberg, Susan and James Enstall, hosts.  “Starcrossed.”  Justice League Revisited, featuring Maria Canals-Barrera, Phil LaMarr, and Rich Fogel.  Apple Podcasts, 21 Jan. 2025.  <https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/starcrossed-with-maria-canals-barrera-phil-lamarr-and/id1709910091?i=1000684841957>.  Accessed 27 Jan. 2026.

Handwerk, Brian. “An Evolutionary Timeline of Homo Sapiens.” Smithsonian Magazine. 2 Feb. 2021. <https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/essential-timeline-understanding-evolution-homo-sapiens-180976807/>. Accessed 16 Jul. 2026.

“Inside Justice League.”  Justice League:  Season One.  Warner Bros. Animation, 2006.

Liu, Edward. “Evan Dorkin & Sarah Dyer.” The World’s Finest. 6 Sept. 2006. <https://dcanimated.com/WF/superman/backstage/interviews/dorkindyer.php>. Accessed 24 Aug. 2022.

Rossen, Jake. “An Extraordinary League.” ToyFare: The Toy Magazine.  Nov. 2005: 46-64. Print.

“Supergirl.” Internet Archive. 16 Sept. 2010. <https://web.archive.org/web/20101018013249/http://batman-superman.com/superman/cmp/supergirl.html>. Accessed 12 Jul. 2023.

Wolfman, Marv. Introduction. Crisis on Infinite Earths: 35th Anniversary Deluxe Edition, by Wolfman. Illustrated by George Pérez. DC Comics. 2019: 5-7. Print.

Images courtesy of Warner Bros. Discovery, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, Warner Bros. Animation, and DC Comics.