Kara-In-Ze

> I don't believe it! A Super...girl?
> "Believe it.
>
> Jimmy Olsen and Supergirl,

**Supergirl** was Superman's foster cousin.

## History

### Early adventures

 File:Kara Storage.png  Kara In-Ze was the only survivor from Krypton's sister planet, Argo. She was born 16 years before the Kryptonian Kal-El but remains younger due to her time in suspended animation. 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 her to his adoptive parents.

Eventually inspired by her adopted cousin Clark, Kara made a costume similar to Superman's and occasionally joined on missions as Supergirl. When Darkseid dispatched Granny Goodness to build a device that would pull a comet to Earth without directly intervene, Supergirl was involved in the failure of his plan and fought against the Furies.

 File:Kara's diguise.png
The Kents took Kara in for three years, isolated from the world at large under Clark's instructions, in the guise of Jonathan Kent's teenaged niece. Despite this, she frequently visited Clark in Metropolis. As Supergirl, Kara had full access to Superman's Fortress of Solitude. In her, 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. Although she was publicly Jonathan's niece in her human persona, she came to call him and Martha "Pa" and "Ma" as Clark did, and freely did so around other heroes.

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.

## 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, including superhuman strength and speed, near-invulnerability, super hearing, flight, super breath, heat vision, as well as x-ray vision, telescopic and microscopic vision.

Because Supergirl was much younger than Superman, her power isn't yet equal to her cousin's. By her 21st birthday, it was evidenced how much her power has grown, as her strength seemed to be near his. Additionally, Supergirl shared Superman's vulnerability to Kryptonite, was weakened by red sun radiation, and presumably has the same problems with ***magic***.

Supergirl's personality traits often hindered her in her early career, but she has also found ways to use them to her advantage. Over time, Supergirl also obtained hand-to-hand combat skills.

## Background information

* With regards to her origin, Supergirl is based 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 from. Bruce Timm and Paul Dini intended to use the original origin, but were denied by DC Comics, due to DC's then-present edict that Superman was to remain the only surviving Kryptonian, as Kara-Zor El had been dead in the comics at the time. Therefore, a compromise was made where Supergirl came from the planet called Argo, a sister planet to Krypton which was colonized by Kryptonians. The Superman Adventures tie-in comic series had an issue titled *Last Daughter of Argo* which paralleled her introductory episode. Kara was born to Kala In-Ze, a physician and Zor-El, Argo's chief physicist. She was the eldest of three daughters.

* Concerning her character design, the DCAU Supergirl was initially given 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 and the Supergirl persona adopted by Matrix shortly after the *Crisis on Infinite Earths*.

## Appearances

*Superman: The Animated Series*
* "Little Girl Lost"
* "Little Big Head Man" **(Cameo in Mr. Mxyzptlk's illusion)**
* "Unity"
* "Legacy"

The New Batman Adventures

* "Girl's Night Out"

## See also

* List of people who know Batgirl's secret identity

## References

1. ↑ ***Dorkin, Evan***, ***Dyer, Sarah***, ***Dini, Paul***Dini, Paul, ***Burnett, Alan*** (writers) & ***Geda, Curt*** (director) (May 2, 1998). "Little Girl Lost, Part I”. *Superman: The Animated Series*. Season 2. Episode 27 (airdate). Episode 37 (production). ***Kids WB!***.
2. ↑ ***Dorkin, Evan***, ***Dyer, Sarah***, ***Dini, Paul***Dini, Paul, ***Burnett, Alan*** (writers) & ***Geda, Curt*** (director) (May 2, 1998). "Little Girl Lost, Part I”. *Superman: The Animated Series*. Season 2. Episode 27 (airdate). Episode 37 (production). ***Kids WB!***.
3. ↑ ***Dorkin, Evan***, ***Dyer, Sarah***, ***Dini, Paul***, ***Burnett, Alan*** (writers) & ***Geda, Curt*** (director) (May 2, 1998). "Little Girl Lost, Part II”. *Superman: The Animated Series*. Season 2. Episode 27 (airdate). Episode 37 (production). ***Kids WB!***.
4. ↑ ***Fogel, Rich*** (writer) & ***Geda, Curt*** (director) (February 5, 2000). "Legacy, Part I". *Superman: The Animated Series*. Season 4. Episode 2 (airdate). Episode 49 (production). ***Kids WB!***.
5. ↑ ***Fogel, Rich*** (writer) & ***Geda, Curt*** (director) (February 5, 2000). "Legacy, Part II". *Superman: The Animated Series*. Season 4. Episode 2 (airdate). Episode 49 (production). ***Kids WB!***.
6. ↑ "We wanted a take on her that was not the current version, (where she was) 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 that takes the shape of Supergirl’s form. We 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: she’s from a small planet in the neighboring system that was colonized by Kryptonians, but they’ve evolved slightly differently. -- Paul Dini, The Justice League Watchtower: Supergirl. Retrieved on 14 September 2008.

## External links

* Supergirl at Wikipedia
* Supergirl at the DC Database