Supergirl The World: 14 Stories, 14 Costumes

Supergirl: The World is a comic that released a few weeks ago and is the 4th entry in DC’s The World line. This line of original comic short stories takes creators from around the globe and lets them produce short stories of the titular character. Before the woman of tomorrow, Batman, Joker, and Superman got similar The World collections and I can only imagine there are more to come from DC. Instead of taking a look at the stories collected here, I’m going to take a similar approach to how I covered Supergirl’s Family Vacation where I covered the easter eggs in the book. This time however, I’m going to count down from least favorite to most favorite Supergirl costume presented in this book. Supergirl: The World features 14 stories and with each one comes an artist’s interpretation of Supergirl’s costume. I will also only be talking about the costume itself and won’t base my ranking on the artist’s work, although I will talk about it if it’s relevant. Also I’ll do my best to pinpoint the specific elements of the costumes and see if I can reference which era of the girl of steel it’s representing.

For my least favorite entry, it’s more of a disqualification than a true “worst costume”. The Italy story, “Dark Reflections”, is told by Francesca Michielin, Irene Marchesini, Federica Croci, and Andrea Accardi. The story has Supergirl taking a break from her super-heroics to take care of her mental health. A perfectly interesting story to explore, but in doing so she doesn’t suit up and is instead just wearing a tank top for the whole story. We do get a quick look at the costume hanging up in her hotel room where we can see it’s a fairly standard blue tunic/red skirt ordeal, although the thick gold belt seems reminiscent of the Rebirth-2 costume that Supergirl started wearing after Bendis’ Man of Steel mini-series. Although that costume had a blue skirt rather than a red one.

The next few entries are all fairly simple and use a standard blue tunic/red skirt/red cape combo which is generally the classic go to for Supergirl. We got similar costumes in both the 1984 movie and the 2015 tv series, and in comics we saw this combo of elements in 1983, 1988, and 2016. While iconic, this costume combo isn’t my favorite by far which is why all instances of it skew more towards the bottom of the list. For the #13 slot, we have the costume from “Foreign Skies’ Sun” from the Serbia team of Uroš Dimitrijević, Stevan Subić, and David Tankosić. This costume doesn’t do much to differ from the norm aside from a bit of flair on the belt but I think if anything I prefer that less to a standard belt. Also I’ve grown quite fond of Supergirl with curly or at least wavy hair, and this Supergirl has quite straight hair so it loses points there as well.

“Home Sick Home” is the story from the Turkey team of Mahmud Asrar and Aykut Tanay. Once again we get a standard Supergirl fit, although this one does seem pretty specifically in line with the Rebirth costume especially when looking at how the boots look and how the sleeves fall on the backs of Supergirl’s hands. I was first introduced to Asrar’s art when I read through his work on the New 52 Supergirl title and I really loved how he handled the character. However, in the back of the first collected volume of the New 52 Supergirl comic, there were sketch pages of alternative designs for Supergirl that Asrar did and I would’ve much rather seen one of those here instead of the more classic look that was presented. Costume aside, the art is quite stunning and there’s a panel near the end where Supergirl is glowing which looks quite stunning.

The Columbia team brings us “Song of the Humpbacks” as presented by the one woman team of Sara Rodríguez. Again we’ve got the classic look for the girl of steel, although Rodríguez does get a couple bonus points for giving Supergirl curly hair and the wrist cuffs ending in gold bands instead of staying blue.

#10 goes to the Japanese team that brought us the story “Superman & Supergirl vs. Chàteraesé’s Cheap & Tasty Sweets” which is by far the longest title of an of the stories here. The story is presented to us by the same team that brought us Superman vs Meshi; Satoshi Miyagawa, Kai Kitago, and Wes Abbott. The story is presented in black and white, although that doesn’t dock it any points. This costume gets a bit of an upper hand here because I think Supergirl’s hair is cute in this story. The short hair is a good look for her.

It’s very possible that this entry gets such a high ranking because of the artist’s (Joel Jurion) style, which I previously mentioned I wouldn’t do, but I do really like this depiction of the classic Supergirl costume and I make the rules. It does seem to use the same belt that the Serbia team used that I previously mentioned not liking, but the extra bits of yellow on the boots and wrists help to elevate the costume. There’s also a abstraction of the classic S symbol here that also gives it bonus points in my mind, Marguerite Sauvage did a similar thing with the S when she was working on the Power Girl comic a couple years ago. I also much prefer how the cape sits covering the shoulders as opposed to staying all the way behind. All that being said, France gets the highest spot of all the classic costume set from the team of Kid Toussaint, Joel Jurion, Yoann Guillé, and Nube Consulting.

We now move into what I’m going to call the “classic costume plus” section of the list. First up is the Spanish team’s entry in the story “Supergirl Y La Maliciosa” by Aneke and David Carro. This is a costume clearly inspired by the upcoming movie with the S symbol and costume design being a near copy. This depiction also has the girl of steel in a coat, however this is more of a bomber jacket as opposed to the movie Supergirl having a trench coat. I did initially have this costume a bit lower on the list because it’s really just the classic costume with a coat instead of a cape and I don’t really care for the coat look. But the costume has kind of grown on me, The collar is a good look to me, and I like the skirt and my preference is always having the S symbol looking less like an “S” and more like an alien symbol which the Kingdom Come S certainly does.

There’s a bit of a weird discrepancy in regards to the Mexico team’s Supergirl costume in the story “The Sentinels of Chichén Itzá”. The cover shows the Supergirl costume to include pants or blue leggings under her skirt, while the interior art forgoes the blue legs. I initially thought this might’ve been some sort of coloring mishap, but all the creative duties of this story were done by Mariana Moreno including the cover so maybe she just wanted to show off both options. I personally think the blue pants under the skirt is a better look so I’m ranking the costume based on how it’s presented on the cover, which puts it both above the rest of the classic costumes and above the movie inspired costume. Aside from the pants, this costume is pretty heavily based on the Rebirth Supergirl costume that she wore starting in 2016 after DC Rebirth, even including the extra style lines in the tunic.

Another classic costume plus fit coming from Cameroon’s story “Children of Ngonnso” by Suyru Njoka, Minko Coeurtys Ulrich, and Ejob Nathaneael Ejob. Classic costume plus is a great way to describe this fit because for a good chunk of the story Supergirl is just in her classic costume. It is only when she gets possessed by Ngonnso that her costume gains these extra elements but the extra texture and detailing gives the costume a nice bit of flair.

The next 2 entries exclusively show Supergirl in her new costume designed by ArtGerm for the Supergirl Vol. 8 series that started in 2025. While still being a fairly standard blue shirt/red skirt ordeal, however it does have a couple elements that push it over the edge. Supergirl in a crop top is a great look and I too am a fan of wearing crop tops, and I’m sure the early 2000s Supergirl costume has a lot to do for my preference. The cape also connects to the front of her costume in a rather interesting way. Also this version of the costume introduced a much needed alternative version of the S symbol that different from her cousin’s S and all her own. The above image comes from the America team of Mariko Tamaki, Skylar Patridge, Trish Mulvihill, and Ariana Maher.

As mentioned above, this entry and the previous are pretty much just the current Supergirl fit and they could be easily interchanged between the 4th and 5th slots. It does seem like the Polish team of Anna Krztoń, Kasia Niemczyk, and Tomasz Bratkowski added a bit of flair in gold wrist-cuffs but it’s not really enough to set it apart from the America entry. Joëlle Jones also used this costume for her cover to the hardcover collection, although I think she’s listed along with the America team.

While this is the #3 slot, it’s not quite a standout and it’s really just the top 2 entries that are exceptional. “Strong Girls can Make History” from Johanna Sinisalo, Rosi Kämpe, and Janne-Matti Keisala (Finland’s team) also uses the ArtGerm costume but due to circumstances of the story, there is a bit added to it. There are time travel shenanigans which cause Supergirl to be powerless in 1908 Finland which makes exposing her midriff a tad more indecent than in 2026. Because of this, she adopts a more preiod appropriate attire, but instead of fully changing into a dress, she just adds a longer red skirt on top of her costume giving this Supergirl a distinct look. Also she has a cute braid!

The final 2 entries are where we really get into what I like to see. “Touch Ground” comes to us from Argentina’s Tomas Wortley, Rocio Zucchi, and Camila Jorge and its a visually exciting and striking design for Supergirl’s costume and does a lot of things that I really like. There’s a lot of yellow accents to the costume, Supergirl’s got short hair, she’s got earrings, she’s wearing pants, somehow rocking both sleeves and no sleeves at the same time! Unfortunately the only thing that keeps Argentina from taking home the gold medal, is that it’s a bit too busy for my liking and does too many good things. Although the costume is just too good to be anything but 2nd place. Also while I’m here and I’m not sure when else I’ll talk about it, the villain is Toyman but he’s acting much more like Professer Pyg or Doll Maker when kidnapping people and turning them into living dolls. Just feels like a weird choice or possibly a translation error at some point in either the research or localization of creating this story.

As I’ve compiled this list, I’ve come to find out what I like to see in a Supergirl costume, and this costume from the German team (Yann Krehl and Marie Sann) hits a lot of the notes I like. Supergirl has short, wavy hair (both things I’ve previously mentioned I enjoy) and her ears are pierced (actually it’s just her right ear that’s pierced, which is why it’s not seen in the above art) and she’s got shorts instead of a skirt. I have long felt that the skirt on Supergirl is iconic, and I’m glad the Supergirl in the new movie has a skirt, but my favorite Supergirl costume of all time has shorts. My favorite costume being her standard fit for what I think was the entirety of the 70s, which had shorts and a v-neck shirt. This costume also has 3/4 sleeves which is also a look I like to see. I won’t say this is a perfect Supergirl costume though, I would like to see more yellow in it and I’m not the biggest fan of how the cape is positioned, but it’s a really great look and it’s for sure my favorite of the book.

This list is purely subjective and entirely my own opinion so if you have different thoughts that’s okay and I’d love to hear which is your favorite. Looking at the specifics and intricacies of Supergirl’s costume(s) has long been something I’ve enjoyed and is a big part of why Supergirl in the Multiverse exists. I also had a fun time taking a bit of a different look at this new Supergirl book and I hope you did too. If you want to pick up the book but $25 is out of your price range, the DC Universe Infinite app does have it available to read although it may only be accessible at the Ultra tier.

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