Writer Paul Levitz finally gave her actual names two years later (in DC Showcase #98), with "Kara Zor-L" becoming her Kryptonian title and "Karen Starr" her civilian identity. During this time, she was merely called "girl" or "kid" by her teammates. Conway never gave Power Girl a real name, either as a human or Kryptonian, since he left the book a couple of months after her introduction. Fellow creator Roy Thomas later expressed disappointment about Conway's choice to have Power Girl be another cousin of the Man of Steel, as opposed to a daughter (which would have kept her separate from the already existing Supergirl).
The name "Power Girl" was a nod to a Lois Lane story, told in Superman #125, 18 years earlier. Power Girl was created in 1976, when a powerful new heroine was needed to join Earth-Two's premiere super-team, the Justice Society of America, as all the other active members were male (and had all lived through WWII, making DC fear that the readers wouldn't identify with them). Kara and Helena then wound up traveling between dimensions to Earth 0, where she established the superhero identity Power Girl. To protect her from Earth-2's war with Apokolips, Kara lived mostly a life of isolation before meeting Helena. Her future partner, Helena, likewise served as Earth-2's first Robin.
During the Modern Age she continued to operate with the retconned Justice Society of America and also joined the Justice League of America.Īfter Flashpoint, in DC's New 52, Kara's origin remained very similar to her original origin story, with the very notable exception that she was previously her world's Supergirl. In 2005 the events of Infinite Crisis revealed this origin to be false, and Power Girl once again became one of the last Kryptonian survivors of Earth-Two. Her retconned origin made her a direct descendant of the sorcerer Arion of Atlantis, and she had been frozen in suspended animation for a thousand years before being released in the present day. Therefore, her character underwent major changes in the Modern Age, initially transforming her heritage from Kryptonian to Atlantean. Power Girl first encountered Earth-One in Justice League of America #147 and found that in many ways she actually preferred that reality to her own.ĭue to the destruction of Earth-Two during 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths, Power Girl's existence on Earth-One became problematic. Her closest friend was the Huntress, who on Earth-Two was the daughter of Batman and Catwoman (mirroring the friendship between Supergirl and Batgirl (Barbara Gordon). When the aging Superman of Earth-Two retired, Power Girl took his place as an official member of the JSA.
Shortly afterward, Kara set forth on Earth-Two to become the heroine known as Power Girl.ĭuring the Bronze Age of the seventies through the early eighties, Power Girl played the role of the Supergirl of Earth-Two, adventuring with the Justice Society of America and adopting the secret identity of Karen Starr, computer programmer. Kal-L, who in this reality had married his longtime sweetheart Lois Lane, adopted Kara so she could have a family and a period of adjustment to life on Earth.
She then met her cousin Kal-L, who had grown up on Earth-Two as the heroic Superman. When Kara's ship finally arrived on Earth, she was in her early twenties (though in her Modern Age retconned origin, she arrived on Earth at eighteen years of age). During her long journey through space, she was able to interact with virtual copies of her parents and friends in her home city of Kandor. To ensure that Kara's mental development kept pace with her physical growth, the ship provided her with a virtual reality that gave her life experiences and education as if she had grown up on Krypton rather than in stasis. Kara’s ship was called the Symbioship and it was designed to keep her in a stasis mode during her flight to Earth. However, Kara’s ship traveled far more slowly than Kal-L’s ship and resulted in Kara arriving on Earth decades later than her cousin. This occurred at the same time that the infant Kal-L (Kara's cousin and the Superman of Earth-Two) had also been launched on a ship towards Earth. When Kara's father, Zor-L, realized that Krypton was about to explode, he placed his infant daughter on a spaceship and shot it towards Earth. Kara Zor-L was born on the Earth-Two version of the doomed planet of Krypton just before it was destroyed, and her origin story mirrors those of her famous Kryptonian relatives, Superman and her counterpart, Supergirl.