Comic Book / Last Daughter of Krypton

My old life is over. I knew it already. I knew it the moment I stepped out of the crater on Earth. I wanted to believe it was a dream. I wanted to wake up in father's lab to see him staying up late working on his latest plan to save Krypton. I wanted to wake up to see the red Sun bringing out the auburn in my mother's hair. I wanted to wake up on the morning of my graduation to face the future alongside my closest friends. But the truth is... I'm awake now. My home is gone. And I have only one place left to go.

— Supergirl

Last Daughter of Krypton is a Supergirl 2011 storyline published in Supergirl (2011) #0-7, chronologically set after Action Comics (New 52). Michael Green and Mike Johnson co-wrote the story illustrated by Mahmud Asrar.

A spaceship falls from the sky and crashes into the Siberian mountains. Instants later, a newly-awakened young girl stumbles out of the rocket, wondering whether she is still dreaming. Suddenly, the girl is attacked by Powered Armour-wearing mercenaries, and while defending herself, she learns she has somehow gained strange powers. At the end of the battle, she is surprised by the arrival of a flying man who wears her same chest insignia. When the girl introduces herself as Kara Zor-El, the — visibly shocked — man claims to be her cousin Kal-El.

Kara does not want to believe Kal's explanation that Krypton was destroyed several decades ago, so she goes back to her pod to search for answers. However, her pod has been stolen, and tracking it down leads Kara into a trap. After narrowly escaping from being cut up, Kara finds a lead to Argo City, her hometown. Kara heads towards the last remnant of her world in search of answers, but she will only find more questions, ruins... and a deadly enemy.

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Tropes:

• Act of True Love: Zor-El built a space pod specifically to save his daughter "because there is no one [he loves] more".
• Alien Sky: Inverted. Kara realizes she has arrived in an alien world -from her point of view- when a dwarf yellow Sun rises in the sky.
  Kara: And the Sun— Something's wrong— Something's wrong with the Sun! This isn't Krypton!
• Aliens Speaking English: Averted. Supergirl cannot speak or understand English when she crashes on Earth. She can only guess she is running into hostile people because they keep attacking her.
• Almost Out of Oxygen: Subverted. Supergirl believes she runs the risk of running out of oxygen while travelling across the galaxy towards Argo City. Later, Kara discovers she does not need to breathe.
• Apocalyptic Log: Kara is watching a recording of Zor-El's last words (essentially: "Our world and all of us are about to die, but I hope you survive, my dear daughter—"), when her father is suddenly shot in his chest by some off-screen attacker. Zor-El lets out a shout of pain… and the recording abruptly ends.
  Zor-El's last recorded message: On this Sunstone you will find a full historical record of Krypton, all of my research, and the truth about what happened to— Who's there? I gave explicit instructions that— You! How did you get in here?! What are you doing?! Stop! You can't—
• And I Must Scream: After being captured by Simon Tycho, Kara was imprisoned in a stasis field near a chunk of Kryptonite◊. She was feeling unbelievable pain, but she could not move away; neither to talk, scream or even cry.
  Kara: Kryptonite. A radioactive element lethal to the touch. Just being close to it — like I'm being held now — can be fatal. I'm screaming, but no sound comes out. I'm crying, but there are no tears. My skin is burning off, but there are no flames. All there is... All I am now... is the pain.
• Anger Montage: After discovering Argo City has become a ghost town, and coming to the realization that her parents, her friends and her planet are gone, Kara spends several pages venting her pain and rage by smashing buildings down and punching craters in the ground.
• Bad Boss: Simon Tycho gets his mercenary Jacobs killed off because Jacobs released an innocent girl whom Tycho planned to dissect. Later, when his men are trying to flee because his space station is about to blow up, Tycho threatens to cut the pay of whoever dares to run away.
• Badass Boast: Reign delivers one at the end of her first fight with Supergirl.
  '''Reign: "How do I know so much about the Worldkillers? Because I am one. Born to fight. Born to slaughter. Born to conquer. The desire burns in me like a million suns."
• Barehanded Blade Block: Justified. During their first battle, Supergirl grabs Reign's massive sword with one hand when it is being swung down on her and shatters the blade easily. Of course, a large chunk of sharpened metal did not wound her super-tough skin.
• Berserker Tears: After finding Argo City and confirming that her family is dead, her planet got blown up and her hometown is a ghost city, Kara cries out in pain while demolishing buildings and tearing down the deserted streets.
• BFS: Reign's weapon is a broad, double-edged sword with a hooked tip. It is almost as tall as its wielder. Good thing that Reign is super-strong.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Simon Tycho is a corrupt, arrogant and amoral businessman with a small army of scientists and mercenaries on his payroll. It sounds like a good opponent for Supergirl, especially when he gets his hands on a shard of Kryptonite... except that he is not intelligent, ruthless or conniving enough to be a real threat. He underestimates his obviously Kryptonian enemy, and he almost dies when she blows her space station up after outsmarting him. Even so, he goes after her a while later, which gets him accidentally killed.
• Black Eyes of Evil: Reign is a blood-thirsty, sentient biological weapon, wholly devoted to conquering worlds and crushing the weak under her foot. Her eyes are completely pitch-black.
• Blackmail: Simon Tycho steals a Sunstone from Supergirl's pod and threatens to shatter it to bits if she does not stop fighting and gives him a drop of her blood.
• Blackmail Backfire: After waving her ship's Sunstone in Supergirl's face, Simon Tycho says that she can have it back in exchange for a drop of her blood. Kara responds by setting his space station in fire and then taking her Sunstone from him.
• Bullying a Dragon: Simon Tycho correctly guesses that Supergirl is a Kryptonian, and even so he wants to keep her imprisoned after capturing her by sheer luck. She gets broken out and stomps all over his soldiers, and he decides to blackmail her. She destroys his space station and tells him to not bother her again, and he sends his hired goons after her. At the end, his mercenaries have been crushed, his space base has been blown up, his body has been half-burned as a result of his satellite's explosion and he is still determined to capture her and force her to work for him.
• Bus Full of Innocents: Deimax hurls a subway car full of innocent passengers at Kara, who has to pick it and put it on the ground carefully.
• Came from the Sky: Kara's space pod lands in Kansas, cuts through the Earth's mantle and resurfaces in Siberia. Kara stumbles out of her pod and is surrounded by a private-owned black corps team whose boss wants her captured and examined.
• Can't Take Criticism: Zor-El does not react well to criticism. When Jor-El warned him that his biological experiments were dangerous and could incur the wrath of the planetary Science Council, Zor-El took great offense and refused to meet or talk to his brother ever again, even though he knew their -and their planet's- days were numbered.
• Car Fu: During the final battle, Kara bludgeons the Worldkillers with a patrol car. Deimax replies by hurling a subway car at her.
• Chekhov's Gun: After being defeated, Reign warns Kara there is a fifth Worldkiller and leaves Earth. Kara would run into the final Worldkiller twenty-five issues later.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • At the beginning of the arc, Superman mentions several Kryptonian biological super-weapons called Worldkillers. Several issues later, Supergirl runs into them and fights them off.
  • In the first issue, Supergirl dismembers a powered armor but she stops upon realizing that there is a person inside. Three issues later she has been captured but she is freed by that random soldier, who realized right away that she did not want to hurt him or anybody.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: When Simon finds Supergirl writhing on the ground after being exposed to Kryptonite, he grins maliciously and says: "Don't worry. We'll take care of you. Believe me... I have your best interests at heart."
• Combat Tentacles:
  • Tycho's synthetic androids are equipped with a kind of energy tentacle-like whips which coil around Kara's arms and legs during their fight.
  • Similarly, Worldkiller Perrilus is armed with poisonous, razor green tentacles.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Played with. Supergirl against dozens of Symon Tycho's mercenaries clad in Powered Armor? She stomps all over them. Reign against a whole squad of the US Army? She tears through them with insulting ease. Kara against four Wordkillers? She is in actual trouble because each is so powerful as her.
• Contagious Cassandra Truth: Zor-El becomes convinced that his brother Jor-El is right and Krypton is about to blow up. However, he knows he will not be more successful than his sibling in reasoning with the Science Council who rule the planet, so he secretly builds a rocketship in a secluded lab, shoves his daughter Kara into it, and blasts her into space right before their planet explodes.
• Contemplative Boss: Simon Tycho spends a long time gazing down at Earth from his satellite base while his underlyings attempt to capture and subdue Kara.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Simon Tycho is a corrupt, greedy businessman who regards himself as above the law. When Supergirl lands on Earth, he gets her kidnapped with the intent of cutting her up and profitting from her alien biology and technology. When one of his own mooks considers his boss has crossed one line and sets Kara free, Tycho gets him killed off.
• Crystal Spires and Togas: Kara's family wore gaudy robes and lived in cities which Kara describes as "a garden out of glass and light".
  My father Zor-El took me to see Kandor when I was a little girl. I thought it was the most beautiful place in the world. It wasn't as crowded or noisy as Argo or Kryptonopolis. It was like someone built a garden out of glass and light.
• Cue the Sun: Kara has just arrived in Earth and is being overpowered by a squad of mercenaries. Right then the Sun rises over the mountains and her powers awaken for the first time, letting her fight and defeat her assailants.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • As soon as she is away from Kryptonite, Kara pummels to the ground all mercenaries who try to fight her.
  • Reign is crushing the US Army as carving a trail of destruction across New York until Kara arrives to stop her.
• Data Crystal: Zor-El records his testament in a Sunstone so his daughter can listen to his last words when she arrives in Earth.
• Dead Man Writing: Zor-El recorded a holographic message for his daughter to watch in the event of his death as a result of failing to save Argo City.
  Zor-El: Kara. My beautiful, beloved daughter. If you can hear this, it means that my greatest hope has been fulfilled: You are alive.[...] Perhaps you have already learned the terrible truth. As I record this, Krypton is mere cycles away from its destruction. There is nothing we can do. I am so sorry.
• Dead Person Conversation: After being left to die in Argo City by Reign, Kara has a conversation with her parents' ghosts during her near-death experience.
• Death by Origin Story: Zor-El manages to blast his daughter into space and send her to Earth before he and his wife get killed by Krypton's explosion. Later, Kara meets and talks to their ghosts.
• Despair Event Horizon: Kara has a break-down after finding Argo and realizing that Superman was right: Krypton is gone, and her family and friends are dead. Shortly after she is beaten by Reign and left to die in the city as Argo drifts towards a blue star, but Kara almost relieved of dying in her hometown.
• Destructive Saviour: Supergirl manages to drive the Worldkillers away from Earth, but their battle has turned Manhattan into a war zone.
• Determinator: Supergirl faces four Worldkillers in the final battle. On top of being exhausted, weakened, outnumbered and overpowered she has to be careful about protecting civilians since they are fighting in New York. Kara is getting her butt handed to her, but she refuses to give up, so she keeps fighting on until she finds a way to win against all odds.
  Reign: Only a Worldkiller can defeat another Worldkiller. Why continue a fight you cannot win?
  Supergirl: "I guess... It's like my father always said..." (smashing Reign with a car) "I'm stubborn."
• Dig Attack: During their battle with the Worldkillers, Kara suddenly feels the ground beneath her feet shaking. One second later, Deimax bursts out of the ground, hoisting a subway car which he hurls at Kara.
• Does Not Know His Own Strength: Kara is not aware of her massive strength when her rocket crashes on Earth and she wakes up from her artificial sleep. So, she is downright shocked when she punches a robot -in reality, a soldier in Powered Armor- beyond the horizon.
• Domed Hometown:
  • Zor-El built a force field to protect Argo City when Krypton exploded. It went above and under the city.
  • Reign spreads a force field around New York as fighting Supergirl to prevent other heroes from coming and helping Supergirl out.
• Doomed Hometown: Kara arrives on Earth unaware of Krypton's tragedy. She is horrified and shocked when she meets Superman, and he reveals that their birth world blew up. Later, she finds her hometown Argo City floating in space near a blue star. Unfortunately, Argo has become a ghost town inhabited by corpses, and she can only watch while the floating city slowly plummets into the nearby sun.
  Supergirl: My old life is over. I knew it already. I knew it the moment I stepped out of the crater on Earth. I wanted to believe it was a dream. I wanted to wake up in father's lab to see him staying up late working on his latest plan to save Krypton. I wanted to wake up to see the red Sun bringing out the auburn in my mother's hair. I wanted to wake up on the morning of my graduation to face the future alongside my closest friends. But the truth is... I'm awake now. My home is gone. And I have only one place left to go.
• Dramatic Irony: Kara, who used to complain about her father and her uncle's unwillingness to sort their differences out, spends months dodging and avoiding talking to her cousin.
• Dynamic Entry: Reign is wreaking havoc in New York despite the US Army's futile efforts to fight her off. After tearing her way through another unit, Reign is about to kill off a soldier when Supergirl suddenly arrives and punches Reign from behind so hard than she goes flying several dozens of feet until crashing into a building.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: When Kara confronts Reign in New York, the Worldkiller assumes that Kara came back to Earth to conquer it instead of saving it form Reign.
  Reign: It's good to see you again, Kryptonian. I knew you could do it. I knew you could save yourself. I'm pleased to see you seize your destiny. Come to claim this world as your own.
  Supergirl: I didn't come back to rule this world, Reign. I'm here to kick you off it!
• Evil Gloating: At the beginning of the final battle, Reign stands aside and gloats while her Worldkillers gang up on Supergirl, instead of joining, her soldiers in dogpiling the Kryptonian to kill her quickly.
  Reign: "Why am I telling you all this, Kara Zor-El? Because I want you to know... who it is that kills you today."
  Supergirl: (thinking) She keeps talking, just watching the fight like it's all for her amusement. But I stopped listening a long time ago. I'm too busy trying to stay alive.
• Evil Plan:
  • Simon Tycho's plan was simple. Step one: Capturing Kara. Step two: Cutting her up, examining her alien biology and collecting samples of blood and tissue. Step three: Profit.
  • Reign intends to conquer Earth to find answers to her origins.
• Exactly What I Aimed At: When Simon Tycho tries to blackmail Kara, she shoots her heat vision at the floor. Tycho is mocking her aim when he is informed that her eye beams blasted the space station's central core.
  Tycho: Ha! Nice shot! Might want to work on your aim, though.
  Assistant: Mr. Tycho! She wasn't firing at you! She was aiming for the central core!
  Tycho: But that's impossible! How could she possibly—?
  Kara: (thinking) I don't need to speak their language to know that I guessed right.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Worldkillers, biological weapons engineered to killing worlds.
• Exposed to the Elements: Kara's rocket crashes in the middle of Siberia. When Kara -still unaware of her powers- crawls out of her rocket and notices the frozen landscape and the falling snow, she wonders why she has not frozen to death yet, since she is only wearing a skintight suit which does not cover her legs.
• Eye Scream: During the final fight, Perrilus tries to stab Kara's eyes with its poisonous tentacles.
• Fleeting Demographic Rule: Supergirl dealing with her Survivor Guilt and "teenager stranger in a strange land" status as learning to accept Earth as her new home was previously used in "Girl Power" (2005) and would be used again in Red Daughter of Krypton (2014) and The Killers of Krypton (2018).
• Fling a Light into the Future: Zor-El records a message for his daughter where he says, among other things, that she will carry the memory of Krypton in her heart.
  Zor-El: My hope is that your mother and I have already welcomed you to a new, safe place where the spirit of Krypton can live on, and this message is unnecessary. But if the opposite is true, know that you carry in your heart the memory of your city, your planet... and your family.
• Flying Car: Zor-El used to own a sleek flying vehicle before Krypton's destruction. He often used it to take his daughter to his lab.
• Funetik Aksent: Although it is not shown in the proper dialogue, Kara notes "[Superman's] accent sounds like he learned Kryptonian from a textbook".
• Ghost Town: Kara manages to find Argo City drifting around a blue star. Unfortunately, when she lands, she finds the city seems abandoned. There is nobody alive around, and the buildings are decayed and thick with dust.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: In Supergirl #5, after realizing her home and her family are gone forever, Supergirl is upset, furious... and her eyes glow an angry red while she cries and tears the city down.
• Good Is Not Soft: Simon Tycho lured Kara into a trap, captured her, tortured her and killed the person who helped her. Kara trashed his troops, blew his satellite base up, and after manhandling him, she told him to NOT go after her again.
• Gotta Get Your Head Together: When Supergirl is getting overwhelmed by a sensory overload shortly after arriving on Earth, she clutches her head with both hands, falls on her knees and screams.
• Ground-Shattering Landing: After confirming that her parents are dead, Supergirl has a breakdown. She takes off, flies like crazy and finally lands, stomping the floor beneath her feet so hard than it shudders and cracks.
• Heroic BSoD: After listening to her father's last words and realizing her old life is gone for good, Supergirl screams, flies through a wall, lands on the street below with strength enough to detonate the ground, and starts tearing down the area while she cries.
• Heroic Resolve:
  • Supergirl has been pummeled almost to death and left to die in Argo City. Her hometown is about to plummet into a star, but Kara cannot move. She is willing to lie down and accept her death until she sees her parents' ghosts encouraging her to live on. Kara manages to free herself and escape from Argo City, and flies back to Earth to challenge Reign again despite being exhausted and almost out of power.
  • Kara squares off against the Worldkillers, but she is weakened, outnumbered, hurt and losing badly. Nonetheless, Supergirl refuses to back down and give up because she is a member of the House of El, so she fights on until she finds a way to win.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Supergirl gets rid of Simon Tycho's organic android and starts searching for her pod. Guessing it is stored somewhere in her enemy's space base, Kara tries to figure out how to use her X-Ray vision to scan the place swiftly.
  Supergirl: Now... Where is my pod? Try to relax... feel that tingling behind my eyes... peel back the layers. See past it all. See inside... There.
• Invulnerable Knuckles: A plot point. Kara has just arrived on Earth when she is attacked by an armored squad. Instinctively, she punches one Powered Armor-clad soldier far away, and is stunned to see she has not crushed her own hand or bruised her knuckles. That is her first clue that she has become invulnerable.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: Simon Tycho constantly refers to Kara as a "product" or a "find".
• The Joy of First Flight: Subverted. Kara learns she can fly when Superman hurls her upwards, and she finds herself floating above the clouds. Her reaction is a mix of shock, panic and wonder.
  Kara: My mouth goes dry. My heart gets loud. I'm floating. I'm flying.
• Kid Hero: Kara is only sixteen when she arrives in Earth and in quick succession foils a villain's plans and saves New York City from an alien invasion.
• Killer Bear Hug: During the final battle, Deimax manages to grab Supergirl and tries literally to embrace her to death by giving her a spine-crushing hug.
• Kryptonite Factor: Kara's attempt to retrieve her pod from Tycho's base fails when she gets knocked out the bits of Kryptonite stuck to the hull.
• Large Ham: Reign is prone to overdramatic speeches.
  Reign: "Yes, my child. Let the universe bear witness to your pain. Grieve the life you knew."
• Leave Me Alone!: Superman wants to help his cousin when he meets her, but Supergirl -who could not be even sure that man was really her baby cousin- asks him to leave her alone.
• Let's You and Him Fight: When Superman introduces himself as her cousin, Supergirl attacks him thinking he might be one Zod's minion, since Kal is a baby, and she has just been attacked by hostile forces.
• Long-Lost Relative: After growing up believing he was his family's sole survivor, Superman meets his long-lost fist cousin, who took several more decades to crash-land on Earth.
• Made of Indestructium: After capturing Supergirl, Simon Tycho gets her suit tested and finds out it can put up with unholy amounts of damage, to the point he considers it to be armor.
• Make Me Wanna Shout:
  • While experiencing Sensory Overload for the first time, Supergirl lets out a cry of pain whose sound blast throws Simon Tycho's armored goons away.
  • After confirming that her parents are dead, Kara lets out an anguished, grieving scream whose explosive soundwave overturns furniture, blows machines away and cracks walls.
• Meaningless Villain Victory: Supergirl defeated Simon Tycho's private army, beat him up, got her stolen Sunstone back and blew his space base up. As for Simon Tycho himself, he lost the lower half of his body because of the explosion. Still, because he got a sample of Supergirl's blood completely by accident, he thinks he came out on top.
• Missing Mom: At the beginning, Kara does not want to believe her mother is dead. She only accepts Alura is gone after finding the ruins of Argo City.
• Mook–Face Turn: Kara is captured and tortured by Simon Tycho, who looks to "examine" her. One of his henchmen called Jacobs is not comfortable with the idea of his boss eviscerating a young girl and breaks Kara free. Sadly, he gets gunned down straight after.
• Mugging the Monster: Simon Tycho sends his private troops to retrieve a space rocket which has crashed in Siberia. When they arrive at the place and come upon a girl stumbling dazedly out of the pod, they attempt to capture her. The black ops squad barely have time to catch a glimpse of her S-shield before she throws all of them away.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Kara discovers she is invulnerable when she gets hit with a laser blast and, to her surprise, does not get even scratched.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Reign insists that she and Supergirl have more in common than what Supergirl is willing admit, what with being aliens with little recollection of how they lost their homeworld and became strangers in a strange land. Nonetheless, Supergirl refuses to believe she may have something in common with a world-conquering, blood-thirsty monster.
  Reign: But you remain blind to what we have in common.
  Supergirl: We have NOTHING in common!
  Reign: No? We both seek answers to our origins. Like you, I awoke with my memory fractured. [...] But for both you and I, the full truth of what happened to us remains hidden in the wake of Krypton's destruction. And yet we both sense that this world might play some part.
• Not What I Signed on For: Jacobs, a mercenary hired by Simon Tycho, had no qualms about working for his shady boss until Tycho captured Supergirl and expressed openly and casually his intention to dissect her. Deciding he was not hired to help torture innocent girls, Jacobs frees Supergirl from her containment pod, and gets gunned down by his own boss straight after.
  Jacobs: This isn't what I signed up for, Miss. I thought Mr. Tycho was a genius. Thought he was gonna help the world. Not torture innocent people.
• Oh, My Gods!: Kara invokes Rao's name and the ancient Kryptonian gods as soon as the first scene.
  Supergirl: Oh gods, I don't...
• Older Than They Look: Kara looks and thinks like a sixteen-years-old girl, but because of being placed in suspended animation, she is several decades older.
• Origins Episode: This story tells the origin of Post-Flashpoint Supergirl.
• Parental Abandonment: Kara loses her parents when they send her to Earth to save her from the destruction of Krypton.
• People Jars:
  • A flashback shows several alien embryos being floating in a jar filled with orange, bubbly fluid while they are being genetically engineered into become Worldkillers.
  • Another flashback shows Kara floating in a liquid-filled transparent cylinder while Zor-El is correcting alleged genetic flaws.
• Person of Mass Destruction:
  • Upon landing on Earth, Supergirl accidentally or intentionally punches one hole through the Great Wall, blows a space station up, and destroys chunks of Argo City and Manhattan.
  • The Worldkillers were designed to be planet-killing weapons. Reign turns Manhattan into a war zone before being stopped by Supergirl.
• Pietà Plagiarism: It happens twice in the same issue. Simon Tycho's mercenary Jacobs carries Supergirl in his arms as getting her out of Tycho's cell and away from a chunk of Kryptonite. Shortly later, Kara is holding him in her arms after his morals have gotten him shot by his boss.
• Pinned to the Wall: After defeating Supergirl, Reign pins her barely-conscious adversary to a half-crumbled wall by her cape with her sword's broken blade, and then she challenges Supergirl to get away before the floating city they are standing on falls apart.
• Portal Door: Kara's sunstone creates a glowing, dimensional portal which takes her from a sector of space to another.
  Supergirl: Felt like my insides froze when I passed through it! But what was the point of — Wait. The stars. The stars are all different now...
• Power Crystal: A Sunstone -glowing multipurpose crystals used by Kryptonians- guides Supergirl back to Argo City and then displays a message recorded by her father.
• Power Glows: Supergirl's body gives off a golden glow when she heats up and releases stored sunlight. She uses it to power up a Kryptonian recording device.
• Powered Armor: Some of Simon Tycho's hired mercenaries wear flying grey-blue suits, armed with on-board hand blasters and energy combat tentacles.
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: When they meet again, Reign believes Supergirl has decides to join her in conquering Earth, but she is quickly disabused of that idea.
  Supergirl: I didn't come back to rule this world, Reign... I'm here to kick you off it!
• Prepositional Phrase Equals Coolness: Last Daughter of Krypton
• Prequel: Supergirl (2011) issue #0, published half year after the end of the story arc, finally reveals how Kara was blasted off into space.
• Punch Catch: Kara tries to punch Reign when they first meet, but Reign catches her clenched fist with no trouble, noting that the Kryptonian girl seems weakened.
• Punched Across the Room:
  • Kara has just emerged out of her space pod when she is attacked by a group of mercenaries clad in powered armor. Still dazed and unaware of her own strength, she punches one of them and is utterly shocked when she sends him flying across the woodlands.
  • At the climax, Reign smashes Kara through several buildings with one single punch.
• Punished for Sympathy: After Simon Tycho gets lucky and captures Supergirl, his mercenary-for-hire Jacobs decides he did not sign up for torturing young girls, so he releases Kara... and his boss gets him killed off immediately for "screwing with [his] plans".
• Put Their Heads Together: During the battle in Simon Tycho's satellite base, Kara smashes two mercenaries' heads together.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Kara's eyes give off a sizzling, red glow before she unleashes her heat vision for the first time and blasts a hole in a robot attacking her.
• Relative Error: After seeing Kara in action, Symon Tycho remarks her physiology, costume and even chest insignia look right like Superman's, and he wonders if she is his ex-girlfriend.
  Simon Tycho: I'm starting to think the symbol she's wearing isn't a coincidence. Is she related to Superman somehow? Sister? Maybe an ex-girlfriend?
• Rubber-Forehead Aliens: Reign is grey-skinned, her eyes' sclera is pitch-black, she lacks eyebrows, and her very flat and wide nose resembles a monkey's.
• The Ruins I Caused: Supergirl blasts Simon Tycho's satellite base's central core and then stands around watching while the place catches fire, falls apart and finally blows up.
• Safely Secluded Science Center: Zor-El had his research laboratory built on a lonely rocky plateay so he could conduct his not-quite-legal scientific experiments "away from prying eyes".
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Kara has curb-stomped Simon Tycho's mercenary army, has beaten their boss up, has trashed the place, and has damaged the satellite's core, which means the place will blow up very soon. Simon Tycho's mercenaries to decide to ignore their boss demanding they stay and fight on, and rush towards the evacuation pods.
• Sensory Overload: Seconds after arriving on Earth, Kara's super hearing starts working. All of sudden, Kara is hearing the noises of a whole planet, and she does not know how to stop it or control it. She shuts her eyes, clutches her head with both hands and falls on her knees while she screams and asks someone stop it.
  Kara: (thinking) Ears ringing— Where are these sounds— "...Please...Stop..." coming from?!
• Shooting Superman:
  • At the beginning, Simon Tycho's mercenaries keep shooting at Supergirl, even though bullets, plasma beams... are clearly bouncing off her skin. Subverted when the last conscious soldier realizes that his firearm is useless and surrenders.
  • During the battle of New York, Reign is laughing off the police's bullets and the army's artillery fire. One tank shoots another shell, which Reign also shrugs off before tearing the tank apart.
• Smug Snake: Simon Tycho is a manipulative corrupt businessman and arms dealer, who albeit cunning, tends to overestimate his own smarts and resourcefulness a lot. He thought kidnapping a Kryptonian girl and pilfering her technology was a good idea. When she breaks free -thanks to one mook taking issue with his boss torturing a girl- and starts wrecking his base, Tycho does nothing but frantically shout at his soldiers "Take her down!". He ends up with half body scorched because he refuses to evacuate and admit he has been "defeated by a little girl" when the place is exploding around him.
• Space Base: Simon Tycho had a satellite base. Had being the correct word, it is quickly destroyed by Kara.
• Spirit Advisor: The ghosts of Zor-El and Alura appear before a beaten Kara to encourage her to not give up and tell her how can she escape from Argo City before the floating city plummets into a blue star.
• Sudden Principled Stand: After Simon Tycho captures Supergirl, planning on dissecting her, one of his mercenaries decides hurting young girls is not what he sign for, and he releases Kara.
• Super Hero Origin: This story provides the origin for Post-Flashpoint Supergirl.
• Super Supremacist: As much as Reign is concerned, people with superhuman abilities should rule over the rest.
  Reign: We're not so different, you and I. We have the power of gods, and with it the right... the duty... to use that power. I thought that together we could conquer that pathetic planet and find the answers we both seek."
• Takes One to Kill One: When Supergirl first fights the Worldkillers, their leader boasts that only a Worldkiller can defeat a Worldkiller. Supergirl exploits this by grabbing one Worldkiller's Combat Tentacles and stabbing another one with them.
• Tempting Fate: Zor-El sends his daughter to Earth because "[She] will wake with such power that she will never be in danger again". As soon as she landed, Kara was attacked by a squad of military robots. Then, in quick succession, she stumbles upon Kryptonite, is captured by a Corrupt Corporate Executive who intends to cut her up, and has to battle four super-beings, each of them as powerful as her. And then it got worse...
• That Was Not a Dream: The last thing Kara remembers before being put in stasis is her father driving her to his lab. So when she wakes up from her decades-long artificial slumber, stumbles out of a rocketship, crawls out of a crater and finds herself lost in an unfamiliar snowy landscape (and she is not freezing to death), she thinks she is still dreaming. When battle robots suddenly fly down from the sky and surround her, she ponders it is a very weird dream. Then the robots attempt to capture her, and the pain caused by her attacks makes Kara realizes she is not dreaming.
• There Was a Door: Tycho is looking for Supergirl as she is tearing his base and his troops down. Right when he is demanding that someone shows him where she is, the ground in front of him explodes and Supergirl flies in through the gap.
• Three-Point Landing: As surveying the desolate ruins of Argo City, Supergirl lands on one street touching the ground with one hand, one foot and one knee. Her landing's impact crushes the ground and causes a shockwave.
• Together in Death: As she is trapped in a crumbling Argo City, Supergirl ponders at least she will die where her family and friends died.
  Supergirl: At least I'll die at home. In Argo. Where my family died... My friends died...
• Too Dumb to Live: Simon Tycho tries to capture and dissect Supergirl. As a result of the ensuing confrontation, he loses his space base and the lower half of his body. After getting his body rebuilt with synthetic parts, Simon continues to hunt down Supergirl. He goes so far, he breaks into her submarine Sanctuary and tries to beat her into giving him control of her base. Instead, Supergirl orders her base's A.I. to lock him up as she figures out what to do with him. Unfortunately, her Sanctuary blows up shortly after, taking Simon Tycho with it; a fate Simon could have averted should he have not chosen to antagonize a Kryptonian doggedly.
• Trauma Congaline: Kara was blasted off Krypton by her father and placed in suspended animation. She finally landed on Earth and woke up, only for finding she had spent three decades sleeping, her world, her family, her old life... were dead and gone, and her only living relative was no longer a baby. She was attacked, kidnapped, chased after... She flew off the planet and managed to find Argo City drifting in space, which confirmed Krypton was gone. Then she was attacked and nearly killed by a biological weapon and left to die. And yet she managed to fly back to Earth and fight four world-destroyer biological weapons off.
• Underestimating Badassery: During the final battle, Reign is happy to sit back and watch her soldiers ganging up on Supergirl while boasting that only a Worldkiller can defeat another Worldkiller. However, Kara mulls over her words and comes up with the idea of grabbing Perrilus' poisoned tentacles and stabbing Deimax with them. Disgruntled and unwilling to lose one soldier, Reign to concedes defeat and leaves with her mooks.
• Unknown Rival: Simon Tycho tries to capture Supergirl and gets his butt kicked. Kara quickly forgets about him afterwards, but Simon becomes obsessed with being defeated by "a little girl". Determined to not let her "win", Simon finds and breaks into her submarine Sanctuary to fight her, and Supergirl gets him locked up provisionally while she decides what to do with him. Nonetheless, she does not dedicate another thought to Simon, not even when her base gets blown up and he dies.
• A Villain Named "Z__rg": One of the Worldkillers is named Deimax.
• Villain Teleportation: Reign gets her Worldkiller soldiers beamed up from their ship to the battlefield when Kara shows up to stop her from destroying New York.
• We Have Reserves: Inverted. Reign is a blood-thirsty Super Supremacist, but she cannot afford any of her three henchmen, which is because she reluctantly forfeits a battle when one of them gets poisoned.
• We Used to Be Friends: Jor-El and Zor-El got along well with each other until Jor-El found out that his big brother was involved in the creation of the biological weapons of mass destruction known as the Worldkillers. Jor-El asked Zor-El to stop his experiments, and his brother responded by getting mad and refusing to talk to Jor-El and his family again.
  Jor-El: I became aware of... experiments... your father was pursuing, Kara. Experiments that would surely incur the wrath of the Council should they learn about them. I warned Zor-El that his work could endanger the freedom of all scientists on Krypton to conduct their research, should the Council decide to take action. He took offense. And we have not spoken since.
• We Will Meet Again: At the end of final fight, Reign forfeits the battle so she can heal her wounded soldier, but she warns Supergirl the Worldkillers will return to hound her. However, although Kara would eventually run into another Worldkiller, Reign's group have not been seen again.
  Reign: You win the day, Kryptonian. I cannot afford to lose a single one of my companions. But do not think of this as a victory. We will be back, and we will be even stronger the next time.
• X-Ray Vision: Kara's X-Rays first activate when she's fighting Superman. Having no idea what her powers are, she freaks out when she sees her own bones◊.
• You Are Not Alone: Kara has been savagely beaten up by an enemy, pinned to a wall by her cape, and left to die as Argo City, the floating space city, plummets into a blue star. Kara feels hurt and strengthless, cannot free herself, and has just found proof that her family is dead, and her civilization is gone. Feeling out of options and utterly alone, Kara has nearly given up when she sees her parents' ghost appearing. Zor-El and Alura help her get free, and they encourage her to save herself and find a new home, reassuring her that they will always be with her.
  Alura: You must go. Now. The city is falling into the Sun.
  Supergirl: Not... leaving you...
  Alura: You must save yourself.
  Supergirl: N-no power left...
  Alura: You have the power. It is always inside you. It will never leave your heart, as you never left ours.
  Supergirl: Mother... Father...
  Zor-El: Find a new home, Kara. Do not worry. We will always be with you.
• You Can't Go Home Again: Kara finds Argo City drifting in space, but it has become a ghost town. Shortly after, Argo City is consumed by a blue star while Kara is forced to watch helplessly. At this point, Kara acknowledges her home is gone for good.
• You Killed My Father: As soon as she sees Reign, Kara assumes she killed her father and charges head-on.
  Supergirl: Did you do this?! Did you kill my father!?

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