The Girl of Steel: A Complete Guide to Supergirl Across Comics, Television, and the New DCU

She arrived in May 1959 with no surname, no adoptive family, and no guarantee that DC Comics readers would accept a second Kryptonian in their universe. They did. Overwhelmingly, immediately, and with the kind of enthusiasm that launched a character across sixty-seven years of comics, animation, film, and television. Kara Zor-El, the Girl of Steel, the cousin of Superman who survived the death of Krypton and made it to Earth decades late and angrier for it, is one of DC’s most enduring and most complicated characters.

She has been killed, resurrected, rebooted, reimagined, loved, dismissed, underestimated, and ultimately vindicated at every turn. And right now, in 2026, she is in the middle of the most significant moment of her entire existence: a feature film from DC Studios, played by one of the most exciting young actresses working today, adapted from one of the most acclaimed comic book runs in recent memory, arriving in theaters June 26 as the second film in James Gunn’s new DC Universe.

This is the full story of Supergirl. Where she came from, how she grew, what pop culture made of her, what television built around her, and what the movies are finally about to deliver.

The Comics: A Character Built to Last (Except When DC Killed Her)

The Silver Age Beginning (1959 to 1985)

Kara Zor-El was created by Otto Binder and designed by Al Plastino. The character first appeared in the story “The Supergirl from Krypton” in Action Comics #252 in May 1959. She is the biological cousin of Kal-El, who went on to adopt the name of Clark Kent and the superhero identity Superman.

The reaction was immediate and definitive. Reaction to Supergirl’s first appearance was tremendous, with thousands of positive letters pouring into the DC Comics offices. Supergirl was not a marketing experiment that found accidental success. She was a character readers wanted, and DC built an entire mythology around her over the following decades.

The original Supergirl was Superman’s long-lost cousin from Krypton, introduced with the secret identity of “Linda Lee” in an orphanage in the town of Midvale. The character was popular and occupied the backup feature of Action Comics for ten years, then becoming the lead in Adventure Comics in 1969.

Kara Zor-El was born over a decade and a half after Krypton’s explosion. Before Kryptonite poisoning could claim their daughter’s life, Zor-El and his wife Allura built a space rocket and sent her to Earth where she was found by her cousin. Superman, characteristically, didn’t immediately welcome her into his life. He sent her to an orphanage, insisted she hide her existence, and called her his “secret emergency weapon” while she mastered her powers. Even in 1959, the tension between who Kara was and what the people around her wanted her to be was already the engine of her story.

That tension ran through everything she did across more than two decades of Silver Age comics. She joined the Legion of Super-Heroes. She got her own series. She became a genuinely beloved character in the DC universe, independent of her cousin, with her own relationships, her own enemies, and her own place in the mythology.

And then DC killed her.

Crisis on Infinite Earths: The Death That Defined Her (1985)

During the 1980s and the revolution of the Modern Age of Comics, Superman editors believed the character’s history had become too convoluted, thus killing Supergirl during the 1985 Crisis on Infinite Earths event and retconning her out of existence.

From an editorial perspective, the decision made sense within the logic of the time. From a fan perspective, it was devastating and has never been fully forgiven. Kara’s death in Crisis on Infinite Earths, sacrificing herself to save Superman and the universe, is one of the most significant moments in DC history, not because she died but because of how she died and what it meant: a hero who gave everything, written out of continuity specifically so her cousin could be “the last survivor of Krypton.” It was a business decision wearing the costume of a heroic death, and fans have always known the difference.

Post-Crisis, several characters unrelated to Superman assumed the role of Supergirl, including Matrix, Linda Danvers, and Cir-El. None of them ever fully landed. The readers wanted Kara. DC eventually admitted it.

The Modern Kara and the Woman of Tomorrow (2004 to Present)

DC Comics Senior Vice President Dan DiDio re-introduced the character in 2004 along with editor Eddie Berganza and writer Jeph Loeb, with the Superman/Batman storyline “The Supergirl from Krypton.”

Thirty years later, Kara’s pod crash-landed in Gotham’s bay, where she was found by Superman and Batman. Wonder Woman insisted on taking her in to train her, and Kara spent several weeks in Themyscira until Darkseid abducted her. After being rescued from the Lord of Apokolips, Kara made the choice to become Supergirl.

The relaunched series and subsequent runs by Sterling Gates and others restored Kara to her proper place in the DC mythology. But the run that changed everything, the one that is directly responsible for the film arriving in theaters this summer, came later.

Under the Infinite Frontier brand, Kara’s next series Woman of Tomorrow debuted in June 2021, written by Tom King and penciled by Brazilian artists Bilquis Evely and Mat Lopes. The arc introduces Supergirl to new character grounds as she begins the story as a young woman, celebrating her 21st birthday and helping a young alien in her quest for revenge.

Tom King’s Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow is, without exaggeration, one of the finest superhero comics of the last decade. It presents a Kara who is not her cousin’s optimistic mirror but her own complicated person: someone who watched Argo City die slowly, who remembers Krypton in a way Clark never could because Clark was an infant when it was destroyed, and whose heroism comes from a place of grief and rage rather than hope and sunshine. She is harder than Superman. She is also, ultimately, exactly as good, which is the point King makes across eight extraordinary issues.

In May 2025, a new Supergirl series was launched under the DC All In line, written and drawn by Sophie Campbell. Her arc now brings back pre-Crisis aspects and characters from her Bronze and Silver Age in DC Comics. The character has never had more creative momentum.

Pop Culture: What the World Made of the Girl of Steel

Supergirl has existed in pop culture’s periphery for decades, appearing in animated series ranging from the Super Friendsera to the DC Animated Universe and beyond. She has been a fixture of merchandise, video games, and animated films that have consistently treated her as a major character in the DC lineup even during periods when live-action projects couldn’t figure out what to do with her.

The animated version of Supergirl in the Justice League Unlimited series, voiced by Nicholle Tom, is particularly beloved: a teenager with enormous power and genuine emotional volatility, trying to find her place among adults who have been heroes for years. That animated portrayal captured something the live-action projects of the era largely missed: Kara is not just Superman’s female cousin. She is a specific person with a specific history, and her difference from Clark is the source of her interest, not an inconvenience to be explained away.

In gaming, Supergirl has appeared across multiple DC titles, most notably as a playable character in the Injustice 2 video game, where her story mode gave her one of the most emotionally compelling arcs in the game: a young hero navigating the aftermath of a corrupted universe and trying to hold onto who she is when the people around her have given up on who they were. It was, notably, very close to the spirit of the King and Evely comic that came five years later.

IGN ranked Kara Zor-El as the 94th greatest comic book superhero, noting: “for a character born of the Silver Age that saw everything from a Super Baby to a Super Monkey, Kara Zor-El grew into something much more than simply another marketing ploy to slap an ‘S’ on.” That assessment captures the character’s trajectory perfectly. She was introduced as a concept and became a person.

Television: From Smallville to National City

Smallville (2007 to 2008)

Laura Vandervoort brought Kara to Smallville for Season 7, introducing a version of the character that felt genuinely fresh: more confident than Clark, less burdened by the weight of Kansas and the Kents, and frankly better at the superhero thing in several respects. Vandervoort’s Kara was fun, capable, and compelling, and her episodes remain some of the more memorable of Smallville‘s later seasons. It was a taste of what a proper Supergirl series could be.

Supergirl on CBS and The CW (2015 to 2021)

CBS and The CW brought Melissa Benoist’s version of Kara Zor-El into the Arrowverse in six seasons of her own solo Supergirl series from 2015 to 2021. And Benoist is, to date, the definitive live-action Supergirl. That is not a qualified statement. It is a fact.

Benoist brought everything to the role: warmth, wit, physical commitment, and an emotional intelligence that made Kara’s struggle to be both a superhero and a person feel genuinely meaningful. The show’s early seasons, particularly its debut on CBS, demonstrated that a Supergirl series could work as something distinct from its Superman counterpart: optimistic without being naive, feminist without being didactic, and genuinely funny without undermining its own emotional stakes.

The program also proved the character can play well with other DC heroes like The Flash and the Legends of Tomorrow. The Arrowverse crossovers gave Benoist’s Supergirl some of the most memorable moments in the entire shared universe, and her chemistry with Grant Gustin’s Barry Allen produced one of the great superhero TV pairings of the era.

The show had its weaknesses. Teen-esque drama is a staple for The CW, and Supergirl was no exception, as the DC series cooked up a disastrous romance between Kara and Jimmy Olsen that has no precedence in the comics. The later seasons struggled with the expanded mythology and some variable storytelling quality that characterized much of the Arrowverse’s later years. But Benoist never wavered. Her performance across six seasons was consistent and committed, and when the show ended in 2021, it left behind a version of Kara that fans will carry with them for the rest of their lives.

Helen Slater, who played Kara in the original 1984 film, would later go on to portray Kara’s adoptive mother Eliza Danvers on the series, a lovely piece of franchise continuity that honored the character’s history while welcoming a new generation into it.

Film: From Helen Slater to Milly Alcock

The 1984 Film: Ahead of Its Time, Behind Its Resources

Helen Slater’s Supergirl (1984) arrived at a moment when superhero films were still trying to figure out what they were, and it suffered for it. The film had charm and Slater had genuine screen presence, but the production couldn’t support the ambition, and the story never found a villain or a threat that felt equal to the character carrying it. It underperformed at the box office and was not remembered kindly by critics.

And yet. Go back and watch it now, and you’ll find something genuinely interesting: a film that understood Kara was different from Clark, that her story was worth telling on its own terms, and that the audience for it existed. It just didn’t have the tools to prove it convincingly in 1984.

The Flash (2023): Sasha Calle’s Brief, Brilliant Moment

Sasha Calle was one of the real highlights of The Flash, and embodied a similar grit to the recent comic book version. Her appearance in the film was brief and operated in a different continuity from the current DCU, but Calle demonstrated in limited screen time that there was a version of Supergirl who was rougher, angrier, and more traumatized than the television incarnation, and that that version was compelling. It was a proof of concept for exactly what the current film is attempting. That’s a bit of a shame, as she was one of the real highlights of the movie.

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow (2026): The One That Changes Everything

Supergirl is a 2026 American superhero film based on the eponymous character from DC Comics. Directed by Craig Gillespie and written by Ana Nogueira, it is the second film in the DC Universe. Milly Alcock stars as Kara Zor-El alongside Matthias Schoenaerts, Eve Ridley, David Krumholtz, Emily Beecham, David Corenswet, and Jason Momoa.

This is the film the character deserves. Not because it will necessarily be the greatest superhero film ever made, but because it is making the right argument about who Kara Zor-El is and why that matters.

Milly Alcock portrays the cousin of Superman who was raised on a chunk of the destroyed planet Krypton and watched everyone around her die, making her a more jaded person than her cousin, who was raised on Earth by loving parents.

Gunn believed she had the “edge, grace and authenticity” for this interpretation of Supergirl, which he wanted to distance from the more earnest portrayal of the character by Melissa Benoist in the Arrowverse series. That’s not a criticism of Benoist. It’s an acknowledgment that there are multiple valid versions of this character, and the Tom King version, the survivor who is harder and angrier and more complex, is one that deserves its own cinematic moment.

Based on what fans saw in the first Supergirl trailer, this movie’s tone is expected to lean toward the angsty and fantastical side of DC storytelling, showing Milly Alcock’s version of the heroine celebrating her 23rd birthday by partying on another planet with Blondie’s “Call Me” playing in the background, complete with her new DCU costume, as well as plenty of exotic locations and the extraterrestrial life with whom Kara entangles herself in the story.

Jason Momoa joining as Lobo is a casting choice that makes immediate sense: Lobo’s particular brand of anarchic, ultra-violent humor is the perfect counterpoint to Kara’s specific brand of traumatized dignity. Their dynamic in the film, however brief Momoa’s role turns out to be, promises some of the more interesting comedic and tonal contrasts the DCU has attempted.

Instead of setting up shop in any city, the DCU’s Supergirl is leaning into her displaced, lonely nature by swerving Earth altogether in favor of a journey across the galaxy. That choice is thematically bold and creatively right. Kara does not need to be in Metropolis. She needs to be in the stars, processing what she lost, discovering what she is when nobody from Earth is watching and nobody has expectations for how she should behave.

Why Supergirl Matters Right Now

Here is the truth that the editorial history of DC Comics almost buried and that sixty-seven years of reader devotion kept alive: Supergirl is not Superman’s backup. She is not his female counterpart. She is not his echo or his reflection or his emergency weapon.

She is a person who lost everything twice, who carries the memory of Krypton in a way her cousin cannot, who has had to build an identity in the shadow of someone the entire world treats as the definitive version of what she also is, and who has somehow managed to be extraordinary anyway. Her heroism is not inherited optimism. It is chosen resilience. There is a difference, and that difference is what makes Kara Zor-El one of the most compelling characters in the DC mythology.

The comics understood this eventually, most completely in King and Evely’s eight issues. Television understood it in Benoist’s six seasons. Now the movies are getting their turn, and if the casting of Milly Alcock and the choice to adapt Woman of Tomorrow are any indication, they understand it too.

In November 2013, the character placed 17th on IGN’s list of the Top 25 Heroes of DC Comics. A character who was killed, replaced, and retconned in 1985 ranked among the greatest heroes in DC’s history in 2013. That is not the trajectory of a marketing gimmick. That is the trajectory of a character who survived everything the editorial decisions could throw at her and came out the other side with her story intact.

Kara Zor-El arrived on Earth late, angry, and alone, with powers she hadn’t asked for and a mantle that already had someone else’s name on it. Sixty-seven years later, she is the second film in the most anticipated new DC universe in a generation.

The Girl of Steel endures. She always has. She always will.

Supergirl arrives in theaters June 26, 2026.

Who is your favorite version of Supergirl across comics, TV, and film? Drop your thoughts in the comments.