On Earth, Kara enjoys living with the Kents and flexing her new powers, but she's frustrated by Clark not wanting her to take part in superheroics. He wants her to properly adjust to Earth before she starts pitching in and encourages her to be patient. In Metropolis, Intergang starts acting up again, and once again, they have Apokoliptian backup. This time, it's Granny Goodness, one of Darkseid's lieutenants. Naturally, these two plot threads come together, when Kara and Jimmy Olsen (who wants to be treated as a full reporter) decide to go investigate on their own, and Granny catches them. While Kara is more than a match for Granny, she's not so much a match for the Female Furies who outnumber her. Fortunately, Superman arrives to help.
Unfortunately, this results in Superman being captured by Granny and the Furies, forcing Supergirl to travel to Apokolips in order to bail him out, but not before Darkseid reveals his plan is to re-direct a comet into hitting Earth. The two destroy the comet manually, much to Darkseid's annoyance, and Kara then makes her official debut as Supergirl.
Tropes:
- Adaptation Name Change: Supergirl's name is changed from Kara Zor-El to Kara In-Ze. In the comics, In-Ze, was her mother's maiden name.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Granny begs for mercy after the plan fails, but Darkseid ain't giving her any.
- Bad Boss: After Earth is saved, Darkseid has the Female Furies teach Granny the (non-lethal) price of failure.
- Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Granny Goodness is too competent at indoctrination and combat training for Darkseid to simply disintegrate her with his Omega Beams, so he has her tortured instead after the plan fails.
- Clark Kenting: Lampshaded when Kara dresses up in a disguise that has more effort put into it than Clark's (dyed hair done in a ponytail with glasses and punk clothes), yet he's still immediately able to see through it.
- Continuity Nod: Having disposed of Bruno Mannheim in the previous two episodes, Darkseid is now in control of his Intergang organization via Granny Goodness.
- Dude Magnet: It isn't long after Supergirl's public debut that every guy at the Daily Planet becomes an admirer of hers, Jimmy in particular.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Kara so badly wants in on the action and to prove herself. Meanwhile, Jimmy wants his big chance at writing a story for the paper and grouses when no one hears out the lead he found.
- Evil Is Petty: As Darkseid says, he destroys whatever he can't have.
- Evil Power Vacuum: Downplayed, but with Bruno Manheim's death last episode, Intergang's now leaderless. This has allowed Darkseid (vis-à-vis Granny) to take control of the organization and continue to utilize it for Apokoliptic operations on Earth.
- Hoist by Her Own Petard: Granny trained the Female Furies to obey Darkseid foremost. Thus, when Darkseid orders them to torture Granny after the comet is destroyed, they do so without hesitation.
- Hope Spot: Supergirl effortlessly handles Intergang and Granny, but then the Female Furies are summoned.
- Human Popsicle: This is how Kara survived the destruction of Argo. Her mother had placed Kara, herself, and the rest of their family in stasis pods in an attempt survive the ice age killing the planet long enough for help to arrive. Unfortunately, by the time Superman arrived, Kara was the only survivor as the others had been frozen to death when their pods were damaged.
- Karma Houdini. Downplayed. While it's not explicitly pointed out, it's still evident Darkseid and Apokolips suffered no diplomatic repercussions for killing Dan Turpin last episode (and despite Orion's ultimatum that any further aggression would breach the peace treaty and be considered an act of war against New Genesis itself). This can be justified, as Darkseid was retreating and signaling de-escalation; killing Turpin was a means of saving face while still leaving Earth. While Orion was genuinely regretful and remorseful on Superman's behalf, Highfather realistically isn't going to abrogate the Pact and plunge New Genesis into another eternal war just for the sake of avenging a single human death.
- Kneel Before Zod: Granny demands a captured Superman kneel before Darkseid. He won't, so she shocks him to get him on the floor.
- Last of His Kind: Subverted as Superman discovers and rescues Kara In-Ze, another surviving Kryptonian like him from Krypton's sister planet Argo.
- Leitmotif: Lolita Ritmanis debuts a leitmotif for Supergirl. Shirley Walker's Darkseid leitmotif and Kristopher Carter's Apokolips leitmotif are also reprised for this episode.
- Loophole Abuse:
- A meta example. At the time DC and Warner Bros had a general executive policy for all DC media stating that "Superman was the last survivor of Krypton period and no other survivors were allowed." However, despite the policy, the writers of the DCAU still wanted to bring in the original Supergirl into the series. The writers were able to get around this editorial ban by slightly altering her background and making her an inhabitant of Argo instead of Krypton, while also making her Superman's adopted cousin rather than his biological cousin. Thus, using the loophole explanation of, "She is technically not from Krypton", the writers now had the ability to use a slightly altered version of the original Kryptonian Supergirl rather than one of the non-Kryptonian Supergirls that were in the comics at the time.
- With Earth now under the protection of New Genesis, Darkseid can't openly attack or destroy it without violating the treaty with Highfather. But if the Earth were to be destroyed by, say, "a stray comet"...well, then, Darkseid could not be held accountable for a "natural disaster", now could he?
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Since he cannot take over the world, Darkseid plans to destroy it instead. Because he'll get in trouble if New Genesis catches him doing it, he'll attract a comet to destroy Earth without New Genesis finding out.
- Mythology Gag:
- In the comics, Argo was one of many cities on Krytpon. In this series, Argo is a planet within the same solar system as Krypton that was colonized by the Kryptonians at some point in their history. The change was made as part of the loophole mentioned above that the writers needed to allow them to use the original Kryptonian Supergirl at a time when DC had banned all Kyrptonians besides Superman.
- The comet that Darkseid tries to use to destroy Earth is called Fleischer's Comet.
- Newscaster Cameo: Al Roker makes an appearance when Martha Kent is watching the news, where he advises everyone in Smallville to go outside and enjoy the sunlight. It then cuts to Kara doing exactly that.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Supergirl destroys Darkseid's comet-attracting device thinking it'll save Earth. However, since the machine already did its work, it instead means it cannot be used to get rid of the comet.
- Oh, Crap!: Jimmy's reaction when Granny Goodness opens up a Boom Tube, revealing that she's from Apokolips.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Darkseid explains that the comet's impact will cause a dark cloud covering Earth and wiping out all life. Granny eagerly looks forward to it.
- Planetary Relocation: This is what happened to Argo when Krypton exploded. The energy from the blast tore Argo out of its orbit and sent it drifting away to the edge of the system, which also caused to planet to slowly freeze and kill the inhabitants.
- Related in the Adaptation: Inverted. Supergirl is Superman's biological cousin in the comics but Superman merely adopts her in this cartoon. The execs didn't allow any biological relatives of Superman to survive, so the writers went for the next best thing.
- Unwitting Pawn: Granny's human recruits were supplying her with the tech to alter the comet's trajectory and doom the Earth.
- Villain Respect: Subverted.Darkseid: Ever proud, eh, Kryptonian? I must say I find it wearying.
- Villainesses Want Heroes: Lashina finds Superman rather attractive.
- Wham Shot: Granny pulling out a Mother Box and opening a Boom Tube at the end of Part 1.
- You Have Failed Me: After Granny's plan fails, Darkseid has the Furies (non-lethally) torture her as punishment. Strangely, the Furies themselves are not subjected to this despite losing to Supergirl.
