With the third season of The CW’s Supergirl tv show drawing to a close in a few weeks, it might be an opportune moment to cast an eye over the Maid of Might’s gallery of villains (that is, villains belonging to Supergirl herself, not borrowed from her cousin) to look for suitable candidates to grace Kara Zor-El’s televised adventures in future seasons.

Most fans are familiar with the foes Kara has faced in her recent past, so in this blog post we cast the net back much further in time, into the murky waters of the Silver and Bronze Age. Believe it or not, Kara’s early escapades deliver a cornucopia of dastardly female foes, all viable candidates for small screen translation. So, without further ado, here’s three classic examples for your delectation and consideration…



Candidate #1: Lesla-Lar

First appearing in Action Comics #279 (Aug 1961), Lesla-Lar was an evil Kryptonian scientist who sought to steal Kara Zor-El’s identity on Earth in order to escape entrapment inside Kandor, Krypton’s surviving capital city (then a miniaturised city in a bottle located inside Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.) Thanks to a self-made teleportation device, Lesla-Lar was able to swap places with Supergirl, acquiring her super powers as a consequence. She then quickly teamed up with Lex Luthor in an attempt to eliminate Superman, as the first step in a dastardly plot to wreak havoc on Earth. Meanwhile, a confused and amnesic Kara Zor-El adjusted to life inside the tiny bottle city.



The conniving Kandorian even fooled Superman, but she couldn’t get past Krypto the Super-Dog’s keen canine senses. The Pooch of Steel soon realised that Kara isn’t really Kara, and managed to use the evil scientist’s teleportation ray to swap the two women back into their proper places – clever dog – but sadly that wasn’t the end of Lesla-Lar’s identity stealing shenanigans.

In Action Comics #297 (Feb 1963) Lesla-Lar escaped again from Kandor, this time by trading places with Linda’s friend Lena Luthor (aka Lena Thorul.) She set about releasing General Zod and his cronies from the Phantom Zone, but her plan backfired when Zod betrays her, and poor Lesla ended up being frazzled into mere atoms by the General’s energy ray. But, tragically, even vapourisation didn’t put an end to Lesla-Lar’s plotting…

Eighteen years after Lesla-Lar’s disintegration, in a tale inside the pages of Superman Family #206 (Mar 1981), a twisted and maniacal spirit took control of the Girl of Steel’s mind. As Supergirl wrestled to gain control over her own sanity, it is revealed that Lesla-Lar’s consciousness had remained alive as part of an astral field. Driven insane in her non-corporeal state, Lesla-Lar now believed that she was actually Kara Zor-El’s twin sister, and fuelled by the worst case of sibling rivalry in the history of forever(!), tried to carry out the ultimate identity theft by hijacking Kara’s body permanently.

Naturally, Kara fought back, and was finally able to defeat Lesla-Lar once and for all. But Lesla’s obsession with stealing other people’s personas might make her an ideal candidate for resurrection on the CW Supergirl series, chiming with 21st Century concerns around identity theft, social network manipulation, and fake news. The crafty Kandorian combined scientific brilliance and an aptitude for scheming, with a fanaticism bordering on (and ultimately tipping over into) insanity, making her a deadly foe worthy of a small screen outing.



Candidate #2: Shyla Kor-Onn

Debuting in Superman Family #183 (May 1977), Shyla was an escapee from the Phantom Zone who established herself on Earth as a scientist at the New Athens Experimental School under the name of Sylvia Shadow. Coincidentally New Athens happened to be the same school that Linda (Supergirl) Danvers worked at (imagine that!), and it isn’t long before the Girl of Steel is alerted to strange goings on surrounding Sylvia’s research project. Shyla Kor-Onn’s experiments are draining life energy from volunteer students to enhance her own Kryptonian powers, but her ultimate prize is (of course) the Girl of Steel’s own super powers.

Supergirl managed to defeat Shyla, but her foe didn’t forgive the Maid of Might. In Superman Family #188 (Mar 1978) Shyla attempted to manipulate a Kandorian court in order to get Supergirl falsely imprisoned. She failed, and both women eventually walked free from the court. Thankfully by Krypton Chronicles #1 (Sep 1981) Shyla seemed to have turned over a new leaf, leading a productive life on New Krypton (the final home of the people from the aforementioned Bottle City of Kandor.)

Shyla Kor-Onn’s obsession with draining the life force from innocent people, leaving them tired and listless, has overtones of vampirism and the black arts. Like the Girl of Steel, Shyla hides in plain sight behind a secret identity, with her victims unaware that they have been targeted – but Shyla’s addiction drives her to seek out ever stronger subjects, forcing her activities out into the open, with the ultimate goal being to absorb the mighty strength of Supergirl herself. The threat is clear: if Shyla succeeds in stealing Supergirl’s powers, then Kara’s own abilities will be used to manufacture a nemesis of almost unimaginable power. Does Kara risk engaging with Shyla, or might it be more prudent to avoid her? That dilemma makes for an interesting plot prospect, worthy of a tv tale.



Candidate #3: Blackstarr

Originating in Supergirl Vol. 2 #13 (Nov 1983), Blackstarr was once a small child named Rachael Berkowitz who had narrowly escaped the Holocaust in 1940s Europe by disguising her Jewish roots. In America after the war she grew up into a brilliant scientist and learned how to manipulate the elemental forces of the universe, giving herself enormous power in the process. Driven by a hatred of the mother she assumed betrayed her back in the concentration camps (Ida Berkowitz, a friend of Linda Danvers), the newly-rechristened ‘Blackstarr’ ironically found herself aligned with the forces of fascism and Neo-Nazism.

In DC Comics Presents #86 (Oct 1985) Blackstarr had the honour of featuring in Kara Zor-El’s final published adventure before her death in Crisis on Infinite Earths. Blackstarr is found to be using black holes to disturb the balance of the forces in the universe. Both Superman and Supergirl respond to the threat, but the cousins quarrel over whether to use force (Kal-El’s plan) or negotiation (Kara’s plan) to end Blackstarr’s menace. It’s a rare note of disharmony between the two Kryptonian crime fighters, betraying how far apart they had grown in attitudes since Kara first landed as a child on Earth.

Blackstarr would make a timely addition to the CW Supergirl tv show, although admittedly a bold one. As Western society has become more fractured, and there has been a revitalisation of far-right politics across Europe and even in the United States, introducing a foe who is not only immensely powerful but also touches on themes of antisemitism and racism could (if handled with care) make for some very interesting storytelling.



Conclusion

And so there you have it. Three female foes, each with potential to bring some interesting and imaginative storytelling to the Girl of Steel’s televised adventures.

Will we ever see these characters on screen? Probably not..! But it is worth noting that the rogues gallery presented above is far from an exhaustive list. Kara’s classic comic capers also feature the likes of the wicked Zora Vi-Lar (aka Black Flame), the machiavellian Nasthalthia Luthor (aka Nasty), and let’s not forget the ice-cold Starfire (who succeeded in stripping Kara of her superpowers for eighteen straight months back in the early 1970s.) And those are just the women.

I guess it’s true what they say about the female of the species…