50 Years After Her Debut, DC’s Most Overlooked Kryptonian Deserves To Be Bigger

After the debut of Supergirl in 1958, it seemed like the Superman Family had solidified, though a few superpets would show up in the years that followed. Still, the Last Son of Krypton wasn’t so much the “last” anymore. The Bottle City of Kandor was already around, and now Supergirl gave Superman a living blood relative. But that was for Earth-One. Over on Earth-Two, the Golden Age Superman was still all alone. Then, in 1976, creators Gerry Conway, Ric Estrada, and Wally Wood would change that and, in the process, introduce one of DC’s most mishandled characters.

All-Star Comics #58 saw the Justice Society fighting to save three cities from destruction, knowing that if the calamities that were befalling the metropolises were to reach their climax, it would cause a chain reaction that would kill all life on Earth. Hawkman and Doctor Mid-Nite show up too late to save Seattle from a terrible earthquake, and, despite the people needing a lot of help and the fate of the planet in the balance, decide to tail teen hero Star-Spangled Kid to see what he’ll do.

Meanwhile, in Capetown, South Africa, Robin, Green Lantern, and Dr. Fate fail to stop the city from being consumed by a deadly gas. Finally, in Peking, China, Wildcat and Flash are tasked with stopping a volcano, something Flash is not equipped to deal with and Wildcat really can’t stop. Lucky for them, a new hero arrives and shuts the volcano down before introducing herself as Power Girl. In the years that follow, DC managed to turn her into one of the most confusing characters in the universe.

Crisis On Infinite Earths Changed Power Girl’s Story

In the early 1980s, DC Comics knew they needed to change things up if they wanted to stay competitive with Marvel, who had taken over the comics market. The company decided that there were two primary problems that kept readers from enjoying their titles: Superman was no longer special thanks to all the other Kryptonians running around and the multiverse was confusing. To deal with it, Marv Wolfman and George Perez were tasked with creating one of the most important series in the history of American comics: Crisis on Infinite Earths.

By the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths, the endless multiverse was trimmed down to one universe that was built out of four realities, including Earths One and Two. Along with that, Supergirl was killed, and the new reality erased the existence of Superboy and the Bottle City of Kandor. Superman was back to being the only living Kryptonian. Almost.

There was still the issue of Power Girl. Since her debut, the character had become popular, and DC didn’t want to just throw her away, so the decision was made to giver her a new origin. In this new Earth, Kara was found in a crashed ship that looked Kryptonian in nature and was believed to be Superman’s cousin. Now, any past story that included Supergirl that DC wanted to keep in continuity — like the formation of the second Doom Patrol — it was Power Girl — and not Supergirl — who was there. But, as Power Girl and the rest of the heroes soon learned, she wasn’t Kryptonian at all. She was an Atlantean.

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A Second Crisis Changed It Back

As explained in Secret Origins #11 (which also tried to make sense of the even more confusing history of Hawkman), writer Paul Kupperberg and artists Mary Wishire and Albert DeGuzman revealed that Power Girl remembered her life on Earth-Two, only, her memories couldn’t actually be trusted. Ready to give up and maybe even end her own life, Power Girl is visited by the ghost of her grandfather, the famed Atlantean sorcerer Arion.

Arion explained to Power Girl — and the readers — that she is actually 45,000 years old (and the sister of a version of Hawkman) and was shot off into space and placed into a form of suspended animation to keep her safe from Arion’s evil brother, who wished to possess her body. And, if you’re wondering, Arion implanted the fake Kryptonian memories into Power Girl’s mind because he feared she would not be able to accept her true origins so far into the future, where magic no longer exists (except there are lots of powerful magical beings in the DC Universe, but whatever. You do you, Arion).

And while this new origin was, in theory, a way to ensure Power Girl wasn’t Kryptonian while keeping the old stories relatively intact, not everyone at DC decided to follow it. Two years after Secret Origins #11, Power Girl joined Justice League Europe, a book overseen by the iconic Keith Giffen. Giffen, who apparently wasn’t a fan of Power Girl being Atlantean, just ignored it in his stories, and, while he never negated any of it, he also never played into it. Giffen wasn’t the only one who wasn’t a fan of the new origin: most readers didn’t like it either.

In the years that followed, Superman’s Super Family grew. A new Supergirl was introduced, but this one was a shapechaning life form created by a Lex Luthor from an alternate reality. Then, another Supergirl was introduced, and she really was Superman’s cousin. And there was a Superboy who was Superman’s clone. And Krypto was back, too. Suddenly, it seemed foolish for DC to keep insisting that Power Girl wasn’t Kryptonian. That’s when Geoff Johns stepped in. In Infinite Crisis, with art by Phil Jimenez, George Pérez, Ivan Reis, and Jerry Ordway, Johns revealed that Power Girl was actually a surviving element from the original Earth-Two who was given false memories of being an Atlantean who was given false memories of being a Kryptonian.

All of it, in true DC Comics fashion, was confusing, but fans were just happy to have Power Girl back as an official member of the Superman Family. But, sadly, being part of the family has not helped Power Girl break out the way the character deserves. Her initial popularity died down after Crisis on Infinite Earths because of the changes made to her story, and while there have been moments where it looked like Power Girl was about to break out of the C-List, it has never lasted that long.

DC hasn’t given up hope though and even gave Power Girl her own series in 2023 as part of the “Dawn of DC” initiative. Sadly, it lasted just 20 issues, but fans of Kara Zor-El still have hope that one day soon the world will see Power Girl as the big time hero she deserves to be.