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Near Smallville, Kansas a group of meteors crashes through the earth, monitored closely by TychoTech's organization. The lead meteor travels through the earth's crust and mantle, and winds up in Siberia, Russia.


Quote1 Have you ever had that feeling... like you've been asleep for a really long time? For what seems like a lifetime. And you have crazy dreams. Things you didn't even know your brain could imagine. But when you finally wake up... the dream isn't over? Quote2
Supergirl src

The Last Daughter of Krypton is a 2011 storyline written by Michael Green and Mike Johnson, with art by Mahmud Asrar. It is the first arc of Supergirl's New 52 title, and introduces the new version to the continuity.

Synopsis

Near Smallville, Kansas a group of meteors crashes through the earth, monitored closely by TychoTech's organization. The lead meteor travels through the earth's crust and mantle, and winds up in Siberia, Russia.

From the crater crawls Kara Zor-El, who believes that she must be dreaming. Confused by the fact that she's wearing a uniform that she is not meant to be wearing yet, and the appearance of a blizzard on what she believes is Krypton, Kara can't imagine that it couldn't be a dream.

Suddenly, she is surrounded by a number of men in metal suits, speaking a language she cannot understand. Suddenly, they restrain her with powerful ropes that hurt her. Feeling confused and set upon, Kara realizes that this isn't a dream after all - and when she notices that the sun is yellow, she realizes that this is not Krypton. Kara attempts to escape, discovering in the process her new and impressive powers. As the soldiers try to subdue her, she becomes enraged and tears one of their suits away until she grips a mere man in her fist. She demands to know where she is and who he is, but he can't understand her Kryptonian. Unexpectedly, a blur of red and blue passes behind Kara, and she turns to see Superman flying overhead. In Kryptonian, he commands her to stop.

Kara Zor-El remembers that just three days ago, she had been tasked with babysitting her infant cousin Kal-El, in lieu of studying for her final trials. When she passed the trials, she would finally get the privilege of wearing the family crest. Now, she is in a whole different world, being accosted by a man who wears that family crest, and speaks Kryptonian. He demands to know who she is, but she won't answer his questions. He is taken aback when she finally tells him that she is Kara Zor-El of Argo City. Confused, he responds that if what she says is true, he is Kal-El, her cousin, and grown up.

Kara believes he is lying, and punches him hard. As they fight across the snowy landscape of Siberia, the men who attacked her in the first place realize that the situation is more dire than expected. Fortunately, they got what they came for, having taken something from Kara's pod, and they return to their dropship.

Kara fights on until she realizes she has endangered innocents with her recklessness. Superman returns, and expresses regret that things got to this point. He promises her the answers she seeks, flying with her up into the clouds. Superman explains that they are on Earth, and that the yellow sun gives them powers which are akin to the Kryptonian Worldkillers, requiring that they be very careful. When Kara asks him why he has never returned to Krypton, she is stunned to hear that it no longer exists.

Elsewhere, a man in shadows receives the delivery of an artifact recovered from the crash site. It is a red crystal, which he believes will provide him all of the knowledge he needs.

Superman explains to Kara that he is her cousin - all grown up, despite her memories of having held him as an infant just three days ago. Likewise, a number of other events have occurred without her knowledge, including the destruction of her home on Krypton. She has been outside of time for a number of years, unaware. Kara's reaction is disbelief, and she demands to know what has happened to her family. Unfortunately, Superman has no knowledge of whether her family survived, or how she came to be on Earth.

Kara can't bring himself to believe that man is her cousin and her world is gone, and heads off in search of her flight pod. As she flies away, Superman warns that she is not prepared for life on Earth.

At the crater site, Kara finds that her pod has been taken. However, a strange device pops up and projects a hologram of a man who introduces himself as Simon Tycho, adding that it is great to meet her. He admits that he took her pod, and uses his device to lure her into space. They go out beyond the earth's atmosphere until reaching a satellite.

Tycho suspects that Kara is somehow related to Superman, as he traps her in a hangar. He releases several experimental weapons to test Kara, who beats his challenges and uses her X-Ray vision to locate her pod. Kara blasts through the wall to find it. However, before she can investigate it, she is affected by Kryptonite poisoning - much to Tycho's amusement.

Simon Tycho is pleased to discover that the suit that Kara Zor-El was wearing when she fell to earth is essentially indestructible. He hopes to reverse engineer it, and then have the fabric mass produced and sold to the military. Meanwhile, the alien herself has been trapped inside a chamber with a large chunk of Kryptonite. Tycho hopes to dissect and research her. Though one of his guards overhears that plan, he takes action. His name is Jacobs, and he forces his way into Kara's chamber, and to her surprise, he frees her. Though she can't understand him, he apologizes for his part in her capture, and helps her away from the Kryptonite.

Unfortunately, they enter the hallway to find Tycho and several guards waiting. Kara's strength is returning, but she is still weak, and she is unable to act as Tycho orders Jacobs killed before her eyes. Angered at what happened to the only man who has shown her kindness since her capture, Kara's strength returns, bolstered by the appearance of the yellow sun on the horizon. She easily beats her way through Tycho's guards, and seeks out her uniform.

Once she has found and donned it, Kara bursts through the wall of Tycho's command centre and knocks him to the floor. Before she does anything rash, Tycho warns that he has something she desires; a sunstone. Kara assumes it must contain a message from her father that will give her the answers she needs, but Tycho believes that it must contain schematics for a weapon. He has managed to pull data that shows a star map from the stone, indicating a location beyond the capacity of human telescopes to see. Kara instinctively knows that this must be where her home is.

Tycho threatens to destroy the stone if she refuses to do as he tells her. So, improvising, she blasts a hole through the floor with her heat vision. Tycho believes she has simply missed him, but his assistant informs him that Kara's target was actually the satellite's core, which means that it will soon be destroyed. The distraction allows Kara to grab the stone away from Tycho, and then escape from the satellite, moments before it explodes. Fortunately, most of the crewmen managed to escape with their lives. Tycho on the other hand, appears to have been caught in the blast. He's taken to a secret facility where his body was rebuilt by merging what was left of his torso with the gelatinous creature his scientists call the Brain. Tycho notices that a nearby guard has a blood spatter on his uniform. Assuming that blood must be the alien's, Tycho smiles, deciding that he has won.

Oblivious to this, Kara examines the sunstone, and notices that it has been cracked. She contemplates asking Superman for help in activating it, but instead recalls the star map she saw, and chooses to fly home. As she flies outward from the Earth she fails to realize that someone is following her.

Kara is growing unsure that the super-human abilities she acquired on Earth will last long enough for her to survive the trip all the way to Krypton, but suddenly, she begins to feel a strange pull on the Sunstone that she carries, recovered from the wreckage of her pod's crash landing. The stone pulls her to a strange device floating in the middle of space. Reluctantly, she passes through the field the device produces, and realizes that she has emerged in a completely different sector of space. The pull on the stone grows even stronger, and she follows it to a small blue star. Orbiting that star is a strange asteroid. It is the ruins of Argo City, torn from the very surface of Krypton, somehow. Many prominent structures have been destroyed, and the place looks to have been deserted for quite some time. Sadly, she begins to realize that her family and friends are not there, and are likely dead. She makes her way to her father's lab where she finds a device which can activate her sunstone.

The sunstone reveals a message from her father, Zor-El. The message was recorded just moments before Krypton's inevitable destruction, and it confirms Kara's fear that their home planet was gone. Zor-El explains that he has used a risky plan to attempt to save Argo. He designed a force-field around the city, and his hope is that the city will survive long enough for the people remaining to find a new home to live.

Zor-El hopes that his plan has been successful, and that he and his daughter will be reunited on that new home planet, but if that is not the case, she must know that she holds the memory of the city, the planet, and her family in her heart. Zor-El promises that the stone holds a historical record of Krypton and all of his research. He is interrupted before he can reveal something, and Kara watches as her father is blasted by an unseen assailant.

In a rage, Kara flies out into the city and begins smashing buildings to rubble. She is suddenly surprised by the appearance of another person there. This alien woman introduces herself as Reign, and offers Kara a new life. Impulsively, Kara turns on the woman and accuses her of having killed her father.

Reign defends herself, and explains that nobody has set foot on Argo since before the dead city began orbiting this blue star. But she does know that Kara is one of Krypton's only survivors. Reign explains that she is one of the Worldkillers, a squad of conquering warriors whose origin is traced somehow to Krypton. She and her people came to Argo on a mission to discover the mystery of their creation and found it as dead as Kara did. What little she could determine from the city's datacores led her to Earth, where Kara herself landed. Reign believes that this is more than coincidence, that some Kryptonian secret lies on the Earth.

Reign had hoped that Kara could be convinced to join her in conquering the earth, but the girl's attitude has shown her that this is not a possibility. So Reign leaves, warning that if Kara doesn't also escape soon, Argo's remains will be burnt up by the blue star it orbits.

In a memory, Kara Zor-El trained against a robot instructor for her finals trials. The combat aspect was an integral part of the curriculum, and as such, she was required to pass it. Still, Kara's interests lay in the sciences. Despite the reprieve, Kara knew that she would have to improve in order to pass the finals.

Now, Kara is powerless and pinned to a wall on what remains of Argo City. Away from the yellow sun of earth, Kara is merely a normal girl again. She resigns herself to dying, but at least it will be at home, in the place where her family and friends died.

Near the Statue of Liberty, a young Irishwoman is accosted by a pair of tourists and asked to take their picture. She has them get a photo of her as well, but her pose is ruined by the sudden appearance of Reign. Turning to one of the security guards at the monument, she commands him to inform the leaders of the world that she will give them the honour of dying first.

Kara is weakened by the sound of her parents' voices. She looks to see their ghostly visages, encouraging her. Her father states that they will always be there for her, and together, with their added strength, she can free herself. With some effort, Kara yanks the sword from her cape, freeing herself from the wall. Her parents warn that she must go before the remains of the city are absorbed by the blue sun. Kara worries that she cannot escape, because she has no power left. Her Mother places a hand on her chest, and a bright ball of light glows as she states that the power is and always has been within her. Her parents bid her goodbye as Kara makes her way back to the only home she has left - Earth.

Meanwhile, Reign is wreaking havoc in New York City, with the military trying to apprehend her to no avail. Fortunately, Kara arrives and punches her hard. Reign is pleased to see that Kara has freed herself, and hopes that she has come to join her in conquering the planet. With righteous rage, Kara explains that she is not there to rule the earth, but to kick Reign off of it. Reign defends herself, taunting Kara with the mystery of her past; of both of their pasts. She believes that the Earth is somehow involved in the destruction of Krypton, especially considering that it is the only place where Kryptonian survivors can be found. She reveals that she knows about Kal-El, and has taken measures to prevent his intervention. Reign warns that Kara will not likely survive this encounter by herself, given that just like the Kryptonians, more than one Worldkiller survived.

While she battles against Kara Zor-El, Reign explains that the Worldkillers were the result of experiments by Kryptonian scientists, who had kidnapped embryos from other worlds and brought them to a laboratory somewhere away from Krypton itself. The scientists had been secretive, and not wanted anyone to know their purpose as they studied, tested, and changed the creatures they took. In each one, they left a hunger to destroy, a hunger to conquer, and a hunger to discover the planets of their birth. Though the Worldkillers escaped, the trail led back to a planet that had long ago been destroyed. From there, the trail led to Earth - the only place where survivors of Krypton persist.

Now, Kara struggles to stay alive in battle with the four Worldkillers: Reign, Deimax, Flower of Heaven, and Perrilus. Kara realizes that she has to lure the Worldkillers away from the innocent bystanders on the ground, but because of the stolen Kryptonian technology developed by Zor-El, Reign has placed a force-field around most of New York City, which prevents her from getting much distance between them. Even in flying amid the tall buildings, Reign still sends Kara hurtling back onto the streets below.

Kara fights hard despite being weakened and outnumbered. She senses that she may not be able to defeat these Worldkillers alone. Still Kara vows that she will die before letting the Worldkillers hurt any of these innocent people. She remembers that Reign had said "Only a Worldkiller can defeat another Worldkiller," which gives her an idea. She takes Perrilus' barbed appendages, and thrusts them into Deimax's chest, poisoning her. Finally, Reign calls an end to the attack, stating that she cannot afford to lose another of her number. She has Deimax taken for treatment before conceding defeat to Kara.

Though Kara has defeated them on this day, Reign promises that it is not a victory. She and the Worldkillers will return one day, after seeking out their home planets. Before leaving, Reign leaves Kara with one last mystery: back in the lab they grew up in, there were five incubation chambers. Who and where is the fifth Worldkiller?

Despite the mystery and the property damage, Kara feels as though today was a success. She saved lives; saved the city. Just for today, she won.

Issues


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Links and References


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