Supergirl: Universe End

The collected edition of Supergirl stories by Mariko Tamaki and Skylar Patridge was released on September 23rd, 2025. The stories that are collected here are The Supergirl Special from October 2023, and the Supergirl backup stories from Action Comics from October-December of 2024. All of the stories are written by Mariko Tamaki, Skylar Patridge covers penciling and inking duties for everything aside from the stories from Action 1076 and 1077 when Meghan Hetrick took over. Coloring was done by Marissa Louise and lettering by Becca Carey.

While the Special and the Action backups can each be read individually and either works perfectly fine on it’s own, the stories do play off each other quite well and the collection as a whole works quite well as a continuous story. The major theme of the Special deals with the conflict of a universe with both Supergirl and Power Girl living and operating at the same time in the same universe and also in the same city. The Special also features a lot of Supergirl reminiscing about her life on Krypton after getting questioned about it by Otho-Ra in the early pages of the story. The Action Comics backups instead show Supergirl on a secret mission to transport a prisoner across space, but the events of the story once again reference Kara’s specific backstory in regards to Krypton and Power Girl plays a crucial part in the climax of the story.

The Supergirl Special was very exciting for me when it came out, Mariko Tamaki has long been my favorite Supergirl writer ever since Being Super and I’ve come to really enjoy Skylar Patridge’s artwork in the past couple years, and with Jamal Campbell’s cover (which was also used as the collection cover) it was a no brainer to pick up. Opening with Supergirl reading through social media posts about herself and Power Girl when Otho-Ra and Osul-Ra, the Super-Twins, fly up to her and ask her about Krypton. This begins stirring up memories, but the twins soon change subjects and lead Kara back to the Kent’s apartment for “Sunday Dinner”. After dinner, Jon comes up and continues the conversation about life on Krypton. Here we get a bit more information about what Argo was like, and we also find out that Kara ran track when she lived on Krypton, most likely a nod to Tamaki’s Being Super story. Before Kara gets too much into telling this story, she gets nervous and flies off back to her apartment.

Following the girl of steel back to her apartment, we continue this flashback as a dream and we see Kara reliving the destruction of her home before being jostled awake by and emergency call to action. Supergirl and Power Girl are both on the scene and Supergirl, while trying to save civilians, makes a competition out of it and we wee a bit more of the flashback to the race. Earlier, the race had seemed like a sure victory for Kara, but now we see that she tripped right before the finish allowing competitor Elsa to win. This sequence is paired with Supergirl racing Power Girl to the top of a burning building where Supergirl also falls short. A brief, albeit angry, dialogue between Supergirl and Power Girl is seen after which leads to Supergirl once again heading back to her apartment.

Kara enters her home, not met with solitude, but with Lois Lane and a tray of cupcakes. A really charming string of pages where we get a bit deeper of a look into Kara’s mindset where she reveals she always feels like she’s coming up short and not being what she was meant to be, Kal’s protector. Lois helps ease her worries some by telling her that Kal didn’t need a protector and that Kara showed up to be exactly what she needed to be. It was a very mom scene for Lois in the best way. Immediately after Lois leaves, Power Girl comes in through the window. Kara and Kara have a nice discussion where Power Girl reveals she is often mistaken as Supergirl and that line of dialogue finally breaks the tension between the pair and we get a conclusion to the flashback where Kara admits to her father that she lost the race, and Zor-El comforts his daughter letting her know that the race doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. Likewise Kara and Kara share a final scene where they each claim the other is their favorite.

Moving into the main story now, we get a return to Supergirl’s roots in a way. Action Comics #1070, from October 2024, was the start of a 12 week storyline where the title would be released weekly. The main story was titled “Phantoms” but the reason we’re talking about it here is because each issue also had a 10-page backup story featuring the maid of might in a story called “Universe End”. For nearly the first decade of Supergirl’s existence in comics she had an almost uninterrupted run as the backup feature in Action Comics. So the combination of weekly Supergirl stories in a time where she didn’t have any ongoing storylines, and the fact that she was back in Action Comics was really exciting for me.

The story itself does a good job of making use of the 10 page format, and Tamaki and Patridge really successfully pull off cliffhanger endings and solid stories each issue. That being said, reading it as a collection is a much more enjoyable experience if for nothing else the ease of reading. As presented in the collected edition, one story leads right into the next and reads as a single 120 page storyline only broken up by the use of full-page splashes at the start of each new “issue”, but full-page splashes aren’t exclusive to starts of issues so it’s not jarring to suddenly hit them and it doesn’t feel like it breaks up the story at all.

Starting somewhat mysteriously, we find Supergirl setting off on an apparently secret mission and we see our hero wiping memories of those around her so they cannot know what she is up to, and then she shoots off into space in what may be a one-way trip. We soon find out that this secret mission from Superman is to transport a prisoner to their “final prison”. This is Prisoner 8912, who has been charged as “The Destroyer of Worlds”. Supergirl’s mission is by no means a simple prisoner transport as she is soon met with conflict from all manner of foes who seek to have the prisoner for themselves. The first of these conflicts results in the death of the judge responsible for the prisoner’s sentence, which turns Supergirl’s mission into a solo mission.

The prisoner is quite flighty after joining Kara’s care and it seems like being captive at all even without restraints or a prison cell. It is when the two, along with CRB (Courtroom Bot), are on a spaceship where the prisoner mind-melds with Supergirl and shows the destruction she has caused and asks the girl of steel to kill her. From here, Supergirl of course doesn’t grant her this wish, but instead learns more of this prisoner’s past and we learn that she is but half of a whole, and her counterpart is out there in the universe and when they combine they cause the destruction of planets.

The pair are siblings, the brother; Rage, and the sister; Fear. Together they bring annihilation, and annihilation that has thus far taken 157 worlds. Fear was captured and imprisoned after attempting to flee from her brother’s clutches because she no longer wished to cause so much loss, and her desire for Supergirl to end her life is a further extension of no longer wanting to be a part of annihilation. Fear, after telling Kara “If you will not do this willingly. I will give you no choice”, uses her powers to make Kara think she’s back trapped in her rocket on her way to earth. Power Girl, back on earth, uses her psychic connection with Supergirl to snap her out of the trance but not before the trio of adventurers crashes onto a swampy planet where they are met with none other than Rage.

At this point we get the only real fight in the story as much of the tale has been pretty calm so far. Unfortunately, Supergirl isn’t doing so hot in this encounter and is easily tossed around by Rage. While our hero is knocked down, Rage takes the opportunity to bring his sister back under his control. Before any annihilation can begin however, Kara figures talking is a much easier way to take out this baddie than hitting and convinces Fear that Rage’s way isn’t the only way.

Fear, Supergirl, and Power Girl via psychic connection, form together into an amalgamation that is now powerful enough to take on Rage. Though powerful they are together, Rage is still overwhelming to them. Split once again, Fear is again convinced that there is only one way; Rage’s way. Supergirl once again finds the words to solve a problem fists can’t. Supergirl tells Fear that instead of merging into Rage, she can instead take control and take Rage into herself and once again become one with Rage but now in control of her and their actions. We head into the resolution of the tale with this new being telling Supergirl; “I asked you to kill me. Yet somehow you have killed me and saved me.” Supergirl reports back to the United Planets and tells them her mission has been completed, and we get a sequence showing the Prisoner and CBR on the courthouse satellite where it is implied that CBR has taken over as judge and has been tasked with observing and understanding what it means to destroy a world. The story ends with Kara and Kara together once again and there is a bit of dialogue between them discussing why the mission had to be undertaken by Supergirl and Supergirl alone. Supergirl says she hasn’t asked Superman specifically about it, but she feels like she understands and she thinks it’s because of her specific experience on Krypton and her understanding that “out of pain can come something greater and longer lasting.”

This is a rather subdued Supergirl story, and for the most part we don’t get Supergirl preforming any super-heroics. Instead we get a lot of Supergirl showing a more gentle approach to the situation and her instead talking through interactions. Tamaki’s approach to writing is quite successful and I never had any issue with the way Supergirl was portrayed and I thought the entire team involved with the book did an exceptional job with differentiating between Supergirl and Power Girl. Supergirl and Power Girl have existed simultaneously in comics since the mid 70s, and since the 80s have existed on the same universe. However the didn’t have much in the way of interactions until the early 2000s and the post-crisis Kara Zor-El. Since then however a lot of their stories where they show up together revolve around them fighting one another. This story has none of that, even the competitiveness between the 2 in the Supergirl Special, doesn’t involve the 2 punching one another. I think this is part of why I enjoy this comic so much, it just feels like a fresh approach to the character while never feeling like a drastic shift from the iconic heroine. When I initially saw the solicitations for this comic I felt that the Supergirl Special’s inclusion was just because it had the same creative team as Universe End and to pad out what may have been a rather light trade, but reading this collection as a single story really works and the special works as a great introduction and first act to the story and sets up Kara and Kara’s relationship that is a vital part of Universe End.

I mentioned earlier that the story didn’t have a lot in the way of action, but I don’t think this a bad thing. On a whole I don’t really have any issue with this story, I was excited for it every week as it was coming out and rereading it when the trade came out was a great experience, and I had an enjoyable time reading it again to cover for the blog. The only downside I can think of are that there wasn’t any more story after this. Mariko Tamaki and Skylar Patridge have a wonderful approach to the girl of steel and the tease at the end of Universe End stating “Supergirl’s Daring Adventures will continue in 2025” made me think the team would go on to put out an ongoing Supergirl title. I am loving the current book by Sophie Campbell and I really couldn’t ask for a better ongoing Supergirl title, but I would love to see this team work on Supergirl again some day.

The collected edition itself is extremely bare bones, no sketch gallery, no introduction, and not even a cover gallery. This book is basically just the Supergirl Special (2 of the covers to it are put in here, the Jamal Campbell one and the Ramón Pérez one) and 120 pages of Universe End in a neat 176 page trade. The only additional content, if you can even call it that, is this ad on the last page promoting some other Supergirl collections. I this this is a fantastic lineup of stories to accompany this book and to give readers that may be new to Supergirl a place to start. I talked at length about Woman of Tomorrow last week (read here) but I do feel like it’s a decent way to introduce the girl of steel to a wide audience. Being Super is hands down my all time favorite Supergirl story (covered here) and by the same author as Universe End so it pairs nicely together. And then to close out the set you have the DC Finest collection that covers all the Supergirl stories from her first 3 years in a really clean collection and includes a couple stories that had never been reprinted before this edition. I would absolutely recommend Universe End to anyone and if you haven’t read the story along with the Supergirl Special, the two are great companions and work together to form a wonderful narrative. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time!