The Supergirl Timeline

Supergirl has a long history, going back nearly 70 years and while a lot of things about her have stayed the same – arriving after Kal, being a younger hero, coming to earth as a teenager – there’s also been a lot of variance over the years and I’d like to break that down and explore exactly how Kara came to earth and when things happened around that. I’ll be giving specific number values to events when it’s relevant and mentioned in story. The major life points I want to note are: Kara Zor-El’s birth, Kal-El’s Birth, Kara’s age at time of Krypton’s destruction, and Supergirl starting her heroic career, although some other events will be explored too. At the end of this post I will be focusing on current continuity and how everything fits together (to the best of my ability) but before we make our way to the present, let’s look at how the girl of steel got to where she is now.

What is probably the most well know origin of Supergirl doesn’t come from the comics, but instead from the CBS/CW Supergirl television show that started in 2015. This series explored what I will be referring to as a stasis-type origin. Her origin is told fairly clearly in the pilot (Supergirl S01E01) as well as in most of the show’s opening narrations. Most importantly for today however, is that we’re given clear numerical values for all the events in Supergirl’s life. Both Kal and Kara leave Krypton at the same time right before its destruction and while Kal is a baby (let’s call him 1 year old), Kara is 13, which put’s Kal’s birth at 1 BKE (Before Krypton’s Explosion) and Kara at 13 BKE. While Kal would make his way to earth on time, Kara would instead be trapped in stasis in the Phantom Zone for 24 years making her arrival on earth 24 AKE (After Krypton’s Explosion). to update, Kara is 12 years older than Kal, but by the year 24 AKE, Kal has grown to be 25 on earth and has embarked on his heroic career, while Kara is still 13. Kara would stay in secret for the next 12 years before making her debut as Supergirl at age 25 in the year 36 AKE, which would make Kal in his late 30s-early 40s as the show progresses.

In contrast to this more widely known origin, we can instead take a look back to Action Comics #252 which was Supergirl’s comics debut and uses what I will be calling Argo-Type origin. Kal was born right before the destruction of the planet and we can keep him at 1 BKE, but instead of Kara being born on Krypton, we see her born on Argo City. The inclusion of Argo here will add a new item to the timeline which will be Argo’s Destruction. While it is not clearly defined exactly how long Argo survived after the destruction of Krypton, we can make some inferences based on elements we do know. Superman was an established hero by the time Kara is rocketed from Argo and I think it is reasonable to assume Kal would begin his Superman career around the age of 22 (22 AKE), this would allow for Clark to attend and graduate journalism school before beginning both his career at the Planet and his career in blue tights. Allura and Zor-El are seen viewing Kal’s heroic career through a super-telescope before Kara leaves the planet and I think about 3 years of being Superman before Kara arrives on earth is a reasonable timeframe. The added fact of Kara being 15 when she lands on earth lets us fill in some of these events. Kara is born at 10 AKE, which allows for a decade of Zor-El living safely on Argo, ample time to meet and marry Allura. Kara will leave Argo and arrive on earth in 25 AKE.

This specific origin does have a couple other events I want to mention, namely the secret weapon aspects. The silver age Supergirl began her career as Superman’s secret weapon and wouldn’t be properly revealed to the world until later on. In real world time this was about 3 years later, but comics time doesn’t always work the same way. Again this is my personal speculation, but 1 year of secret adventures and learning her powers makes sense, which would put Supergirl’s reveal to the world (and her adoption by the Danvers) at 26 AKE. This allows for Linda to live with the Danvers for 2 full years before going off to college and the career world which seems like a perfectly reasonable timeframe to allow for the type of bond the Danvers family unit seems to have. This Supergirl also notably dies during the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths. This is also after having attended no less than 3 colleges and 5 career endeavors so to give her time to have a full life, I think it’s reasonable to have her being about 28 at the time of her death (38 AKE). This is also young enough that her death is tragic, and puts Superman at 38, which puts him at a reasonable age for the events of Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow to play out.

I’m going to rapid fire through a few additional origins and how they differ from the established Stasis-Type and Argo-Type origins we’ve already discussed. In Superman the Animated series we get a Stasis-Type origin with Kara In-Ze (not a Kryptonian) being cryogenically frozen for decades after the destruction of Krypton and is the only survivor when Superman finally answers the planet’s distress signal. Kara is about 15 in this iteration. Smallville too had a Stasis-Type, with Kara’s ship landing in the meteor shower along with Kal, however her pod got knocked into a reservoir triggering the ships stasis safety mechanism until Clark finds her about 19 years later. The 1984 movie is an Argo-Type origin with Kara only ever knowing life on Argo and she seems to be around 16-17. Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade shows us a 13 year-old Kara with an Argo-Type origin but has Argo as a moon of Krypton not a city, and Argo is still a perfectly functional and livable location here (just in a pocket dimension). This is not an exhaustive list but I hope it showcases haw much variety can exist in Supergirl’s origin compared to Superman’s “Rocketed to Earth as a baby and raised by 2 humble farmers” origin.

To explore the current continuity Supergirl’s timeline of life, there are 2 main sources I’ll be looking at, The New History of the DC Universe and the 3rd story from the Summer of Supergirl Special. Both these stories are written by Mark Waid and the latter is more of an extension of the origin told in New History. The basic premise of DC’s current continuity (everything since Doomsday Clock) is that everything is canon. Everything being canon makes things a tad messy but I think we can make it make sense. To start off, current continuity uses the Stasis-Type origin, most recently told in issue 6 of Woman of Tomorrow. We see Kara in class on Krypton when the planet’s destruction begins and her living on Argo for a time before it too perishes. I will be making some inferences on Supergirl’s age throughout this section so bear with me. Supergirl is in a classroom at school when the planet’s destruction begins, she does seem older, but I’m going to put her at age 12, I feel like this lines up with other versions of Supergirl that use stasis-type origins. Also I can’t imagine Kryptonians teaching Binomial Coagulations before their equivalent of middle school. The next stop on our timeline is Argo’s destruction. I’m putting this at 4 AKE, giving the Argoians 4 years of life, and putting Kara at age 16 when she’s rocketed away, again this seems to line up with most versions of the character. At this point Kara is stuck in stasis, I think it is reasonable to insert the pre-Flashpoint origin here. As seen in the Supergirl storyline from Superman/Batman, Kara is in stasis inside a large Kryptonite asteroid that hits earth’s atmosphere well into Superman’s heroic career and this asteroid could very well be the last bits of Argo following Kara to earth and the 4 year difference in leaving Krypton could account for Kara’s much later arrival. Based on post crisis continuity, Superman is about 29 when we start following his adventures in Superman (Vol. 2) #1 (thanks to Mike Bailey of baileyplanet.org for this number) and it’s safe to say an amount of time passes between that point and when Kara arrives, he died, got married, and met his daughter from the future in that time, so let’s call Kal 32 when Supergirl arrives on Earth, or 32 AKE. With Kara 16, it puts Kal 16 years her elder which seems plausible based on their relationship.

At this point, Kara chooses to live in Midvale orphanage to live among people her own age and not around her cousin who is twice as old as her and all his similarly aged friends. Kara would soon be adopted by the Danvers and she would continue her adventures in Midvale and Stanhope as we saw in the Pre-Crisis storytelling. Supergirl dying in crisis is also in canon, and Darkseid is responsible for her resurrection. This does fudge up the timeline a bit and it makes this endeavor much trickier, but I’m going to give it my best shot. I think, in current continuity, her death makes sense to happen after her Stanhope days but before she went to Vandyre University or any of her careers. I am putting her death at age 19 (35 AKE) and I am assuming she stayed dead for 7 years.

This 5 year gap helps account for Jon Kent. Jon was born about 12 years ago (10 years before the volcano incident and let’s say he’s been an adult for about 2 years since coming back) I like to think Clark is about 47 in current continuity, making current continuity around 47 AKE and Jon being born in 35 AKE, the same year Kara died. Kara coming back 7 years later but being 19 still upon her return allows her to pursue those other universities and careers (and a brief stint as a Red Lantern) and this all happening while Jon is alive helps explain why he’s so knowledgeable about her life in the Summer of Supergirl special.

Woman of Tomorrow clearly lists Kara as being 21, and the current Supergirl ongoing title confirms that being in continuity and in the current past. Supergirl is over the age of 21 now, but still able to be peers with Lena Luthor II who is mentioned as being under the age of 21 so Kara cannot be much older, but she does have some amount of responsibility at least in regard to Lesla and the bottle city. I think it is reasonable to assume she’s about 24 currently (in 45 AKE) which lines up with the 5 years that have passed since coming back to life.

As I mentioned above, a lot of these numbers are purely speculation but hopefully my reasoning makes sense for anyone reading. For your reference, and my own, I’ve put together a timeline graphic based on the numbers discussed above. This timeline is also of course subject to change at any given moment when any future writer wants to fiddle with continuity and that’s perfectly fine. In my opinion, I would much rather have an Argo-Type origin and it makes the timelines a whole lot easier to work, but it seems like Stasis-Type is what DC wants to go with. Surprisingly though, the new Supergirl movie has Kara being born on Argo 8 years after Krypton’s explosion so maybe there’s hope for the Argo-Type origin in the future.