Supergirl (2015 series)

Supergirl is a 2015 live-action television series which debuted on CBS and has run on The CW since its second season.

In the vast DC Comics Universe of superheroes, the rich mythology of Superman and the planet Krypton is perhaps the most famous and instantly recognizable. Enter Supergirl! Born on the doomed planet Krypton, the preteen Kara escaped at the same time as the infant Kal-El, but didn't arrive on Earth until many years later after being lost in the Phantom Zone. Now at age 24, living in National City and working as an assistant for Catco Worldwide Media mogul Cat Grant (Calista Flockhart), Kara (Melissa Benoist) has spent so many years trying to fit in that she forgot to ever stand out. All that changes when she decides to embrace her superhuman abilities and become the hero she was always destined to be. With the help of Daily Planet photographer James Olsen (Mehcad Brooks), her foster sister Alex (Chyler Leigh), and the research of the super-secret, off-the-grid Department of Extra-Normal Operations (DEO) and its head, Hank Henshaw (David Harewood), who are tasked with keeping the Earth safe from aliens, Kara takes to the skies to protect her world.

Originally airing on CBS in 2015, Supergirl was conceived as separate from the rest of the Arrowverse but confirmed, via a crossover with The Flash, to be set in the same multiverse, with Kara living on Earth-38. When the show moved to The CW for its second season, starting with Invasion!, it began participating in the Arrowverse's yearly Crisis Crossovers (though Invasion! was a Red Skies Crossover for this show). In Crisis on Infinite Earths, both Earth-1 and Earth-38 were destroyed, merged into a new reality called Earth-Prime.

A Spin-Off, Superman & Lois, premiered in Feburary 2021. It focuses on... well guess, its first season airing alongside Supergirl‍'‍s sixth and final season. After 126 episodes, the show came to an end on November 9th 2021.

Tropes used in Supergirl include:

• Aborted Arc:
  • As a result of the channel hop, a lot of lingering plots from Season 1 were dropped such as Maxwell Lord getting the Omegahedron.
  • Jeremiah Danvers never put in an appearance since he miraculously showed up alive and was eventually assassinated on Lex's orders off-screen.
• Action Girl: Quite a few. While the most obvious ones are Kara (naturally) and her adoptive sister Alex, there's also Maggie Sawyer, Lena Luthor (though she doesn't get in on it as much), Imra Ardeen and Kelly Olson.
• Adaptation Name Change:
  • The eponymous heroine now goes by Kara Danvers rather than Linda Lee or Linda Lee Danvers. Linda Lee is however given a Mythology Gag when Red Daughter poses as a waitress.
  • In the comics, Mon-El was the character's honorary name while it's his real one here. Lar-Grand, his true name in the comics, is given to his father.
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Jimmy Olsen. Aside from going from sickly little nerd to extremely well built, he takes on the mantle of Guardian.
  • Lex Luthor. His Manipulative Bastard powers are taken Up to Eleven.
  • While Green Martians have always been powerhouses in DC, this show makes clear that an untethered Green Martian at their peak is more powerful than a Kryptonian.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Subverted. Hank Henshaw is still a vile man. J'onn J'onzz, who has taken on Henshaw's form, was always a hero.
  • Another subversion happens soon after. Winn is Winslow Schott Jr.; his father, Winslow Schott Sr., is the Toyman.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Played for Laughs but it's suggested that, though he does have some journalistic standards, Perry White is not a particularly pleasant man to work for.
• Adaptational Niceness: Manchester Black. He's still an Anti-Hero but he has a Freudian Excuse and is a Well-Intentioned Extremist whose crusade is one of Pay Evil Unto Evil against the Children of Liberty's xenophobic fascism rather than a proto-fascist thug.
• Adaptational Villainy:
  • Siobhan Smythe is Kara's best friends in the comics. Here she wants to murder Kara. To be fair, she is a Composite Character with Siobhan McDougal, another Silver Banshee.
  • Richard Malverne was Kara's first love interest in the comics, and tragically died of cancer. Here he's a deranged sociopath who kidnaps Alex and sticks her in a death trap.
  • Jim Harper still works at Cadmus but he sure as hell isn't the Token Good Teammate.
  • Agent Liberty was a hero in the comics. Here, he's an Absolute Xenophobe.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • In the comics, Mon-El was essentially a Kryptonian whose Kryptonite Factor was lead. Here his power level hovers somewhere around the original 1938 Superman and his lead weakness is much more prominent.
  • Agent Liberty was originally an ex-CIA agent skilled in hand-to-hand combat. This version is a former history professor who has no fighting ability. At first anyway.
  • Manchester Black lacks his psychic abilities, which bordered on Story-Breaker Power, and is instead a Badass Normal.
  • In Superman Red Son, the Man of Steel was several times more powerful than he normally is and lacked several of his more prominent weaknesses. His expy, Red Daughter, has a few extra-Kryptonian powers but can be matched by Supergirl in a straight fight and bested in physical combat by Lex Luthor, something that could never happen in the original comic.
• Adorkable: Everyone has their moments, but there are some standouts.
  • Kara as a contrast to her sister, Alex.
  • Clark Kent. Per his own admission, his status as The Klutz is not an act. Kara often mocks him for this.
  • Mon-El pulls this off so wonderfully, one has to wonder if it's a superpower of his.
• Alien Among Us: Aliens are a naturally accepted part of life in National City, some living right out in the open.
• Alien Invasion: The Daxamites invade National City in the Season 2 finale.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Winn's crush on Kara in Season 1. Amusingly, when Winn has some assertive moments in the Season 3 episode "Schott Through the Heart", a perpetually ignored Kara seems to be giving him her best "come hither" looks.
• Always Someone Better: Someone once said that J'onn J'onzz was the strongest being on Earth. That someone was Superman.
• Ambiguously Bi:
  • Winn. He's expressed interest in both Kara and Clark.
  • Kara, particularly in her interactions with Kate and Lena.
• Ambiguously Evil: Lena Luthor. Season 5 toyed with ditching the "Ambiguously" part of this but Season 6 brought her back to the side of the super-friends.
• Ambiguously Human: Ruby. Give that her mother was a Kryptonian sleeper agent, it's unclear if Ruby inherited any Kryptonian DNA. She never shows any Kryptonian powers but she's also too young for those to develop yet.
• Ascended Extra: As the show focuses on Kara, Zor-El and Alura have a much bigger role than they usually do in Superman media.
• Avengers Assemble: Everyone comes together in "Kara" to fight Lex and Nxyly.
• Back for the Finale: Eliza, Mon-El, James and Winn all return in "Kara" to help defeat Lex Luthor. He responds by summoning simulacrums of Overgirl, Red Tornado, Metallo, and Parasite. Cat Grant later shows up at the end to give Kara one final kick in the pants.
• Bad Bad Acting: Most of the cast has professional singing experience yet all tone it down in "Schott Through the Heart". Chris Wood (Mon-El) is the most egregious offender.
• Badass Adorable: Kara may be the most Adorkable girl who ever lived but she's more powerful than a locomotive.
• Badass in Charge: J'onn and later Alex Danvers as head of the D.E.O.
• Badass Normal:
  • Alex Danvers, a skilled fighter and intelligent agent for, later leader of, the DEO.
  • James Olsen, a photographer who is courageous and skilled fighter.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: Averted. Even Kryptonians need a space suit in a vaccum.
• Beam-O-War: Happens constantly.
• Become Their Own Antithesis:
  • Just like in Smallville, Red Kryptonite, given enough time, does this to Kryptonians.
  • Lena Luthor in Season 5. After Crisis on Infinite Earths, she's became everything she stood against in Season 2.
• Betty and Veronica:
  • Kara is the Archie to Winn's Betty and James' Veronica with Barry Allen as Cheryl Blossom. She chose James but the ship sank pretty quickly.
  • James is the Archie to Lucy's Betty and Kara's Veronica. Lucy is the one who ends this and encourages James to pursue a relationship with Kara.
  • Mon-El is the Archie to Kara's Betty and Imra's Veronica. Ultimately, he decides to tap out of this trope and is quite happy for it.
  • The backstory for the series suggests that Cat Grant was the Veronica to Clark Kent's Archie and Lois Lane's Betty. Cat is a Graceful Loser but she still likes to flirt with Clark. And really, who wouldn't?
• Big Bad Ensemble:
  • Non's forces and Maxwell Lord in Season 1.
  • Queen Rhea of Daxam and Lillian Luthor in Season 2.
  • The Worldkiller Cult and Morgan Edge in Season 3.
  • Subverted in Season 4. Though this initially seems to be the case, Agent Liberty is Lex Luthor's Unwitting Pawn, making Lex the sole Big Bad.
  • Lena Luthor and Leviathan in Season 5. After the Cosmic Retcon, Lex joins forces with Lena against Leviathan. But then Lex reminds everyone that, when pushes comes to shove, he will always be the Big Bad of the Super family.
  • Lex and Nyxly are initially unconnected in Season 6 before they become a Big Bad Duumvirate in the final few episodes.
• Big Damn Heroes: The Legion of Super-Heroes shows up when Reign is about to annihilate the Earth.
• Big Eater: Given the sheer amount of calories she burns through when pulling off her heroics, Kara. Kryptonians can't gain weight under a yellow sun however.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: According to Lena Luthor, Kryptonians, despite being Human Aliens, have more in common with plants than humans.
• Both Sides Have a Point:
  • Kara and Manchester with regards to Agent Liberty in Season 4. Kara argues that they need to be better than him and not sink to his level. Manchester fires back that, for all of Kara's optimism, the Children of Liberty will not change in their xenophobia, given that they've already had tons of chances to, and need to be put down. And both ended up being right in the end. Some Children of Liberty saw the light and abandoned the group but others remained monstrous xenophobes until the end.
  • In the Grand Finale, the heroes debate the merits of superheroes working for the government, noting that the arguments for and against this are equally valid thanks to the events of Seasons 4 to 6. Though they ultimately decide that it's in everyone's best interests for superheroes to work with the government.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Lex Luthor openly admits that he's an evil bastard and revels in that fact.
• Casting Gag: The show loves this.
  • Supergirl's adoptive parents both portrayed Superman and Supergirl. Jeremiah Danvers is played by Dean Cain who portrayed the character in Lois and Clark, while Eliza is played by Helen Slater who portrayed Supergirl in the eponymous and critically reviled film.
  • M'yrnn J'onzz is played by Carl Lumbly who famously voiced J'onn in Justice League.
• Central Theme:
  • Personal identity. You are not your family or any other prejudices. You are your own person. Do what you will wit that.
  • Balance. Not just in the world (the old guard vs. the new generation) but a balance between a person's responsibilities and their desires and dreams.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Maxwell Lord and Lucy Lane disappear after Season 1 given that Peter Facinelli and Jenna Dewan didn't want to move to Vancouver for filming.
• Cool Car: J'onn J'onzz has a 1957 Chevrolet Bel-Air convertible. Pretty cool on its own but is also doubles as his Cool Ship. As he himself says, Martians shapeshift, so why shouldn't their technology?
• Create Your Own Villain:
  • Livewire and Silver Banshee were both ex-employees of Cat's whom she mistreated. Sure they were also Asshole Victims, but when they got powers, they didn't even hesitate to come after her.
  • All the events of Seasons 2 and 3, and the main characters dismissing the man in favour of more important issues, play a role in creating Agent Liberty.
  • Agent Liberty does this to himself. First by killing Fiona, he makes an enemy out of Manchester Black. Then, when he drags away a man from his alien wife, said alien wife breaks into his home and kills his own wife.
• Death Equals Redemption: Lillian Luthor goes out telling Lena she genuinely loves her and that You Are Better Than You Think You Are.
• Decomposite Character:
  • Mon-El's real name in the comics is Lar Gand. In the show, Lar Gand is his father.
  • While Jor-El still sent Superman to Earth, his status as a holographic mentor from a previous Kryptonian generation was passed onto Alura Zor-El.
  • Hank Henshaw, but not Cyborg Superman, now shares his identity with the Martian Manhunter.
  • The eponymous heroine goes by Kara Danvers. Her pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths identity of "Linda Lee" is given to Red Daughter, albeit as a one-off disguise.
• Depending on the Writer: Why did Krypton explode? Was it due to mining operations destabilizing the core, like in Man of Steel, or was it just naturally unstable?
• Disappointed by the Motive: Eve Tessmacher is appalled to learn that Lex Luthor's year long gambit and Xanatos Speed Chess was motivated entirely by gathering up enough energy so he could fire a Kill Sat at Argo City and kill Superman. Why she's surprised, given that this is Lex Luthor, is anyone's guess.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: All the anti-alien xenophobia in Season 4 and its parallels to the rise in xenophobia from right-wing Americans during the airing were very intentional.
• Dragged Off to Hell: Lex Luthor's ultimate fate is to be dragged off to the Phantom Zone. And since the Zone can only be opened from the outside, with no followers left, no one is coming for him any time soon.
• Dramatic Irony: Lex may have loved mocking the fact that Lena didn't figure out that Kara was Supergirl, but even when presented with all the facts, including the Great Big Book of Everything, he can't piece together that Clark Kent is Superman.
• The Dreaded: How do the heroes react when Supergirl sees that Lex Luthor is free? With a Mass "Oh Crap" along with ignoring every other villain for the next episode and a half.
• Early Installment Weirdness: Season 1.
• Easily Forgiven: Lena's allying with Lex and over the top evil plans are quickly overlooked by Kara to stop Lex. However, Kara is only doing this because Lex's threat means there isn't enough time to properly work through her emotions and deal with Lena, whom the heroes need to stop Lex and later rescue Kara from the Phantom Zone. Rescuing Kara ultimately proves what they need to reforge their friendship with Lena.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Despite all of her truly horrible deeds, it's shown that Lillian Luthor does love her children, Lex and Lena. Even if Lena and her are on opposite sides of the moral spectrum, Lillian went into full Mama Bear mode (as in don Powered Armor for the purposes of cold blooded murder) when someone tried to kill her baby girl. It also appears that Lex would like to avoid killing Lena if he can.
• Even Evil Has Standards: For all that Ben Lockwood is a xenophobic human supremacist, even he is appalled by being associated with Lex Luthor.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Lex Luthor knows that Superman and Supergirl are cousins. He also knows where Supergirl lives, that her alias is Kara Danvers, and that Kara Danvers is Clark Kent's cousin. He cannot grasp the idea that Clark Kent is Superman, reasoning that someone with Superman's power wouldn't bother to walk among mortals. In Crisis, when face-to-face with the Supermen from Smallville and Superman Returns, he accepts that they're, in his twisted mind, Composite Characters with Clark Kent, while dismissing it as a laughable idea where he comes from.
• Evil Is Petty: Everything that Lex Luthor does is motivated by his hatred for Superman.
• Eviler Than Thou: Lex Luthor ultimately proves so much worse than any other villain. He takes pride in it.
• Failed a Spot Check: As Lex mocks Lena with, how blind did she have to be to not figure out that Kara was Supergirl?
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse:
  • As J'onn points out, Manchester's crusade has gone far beyond avenging Fiona. He even accuses him of being glad that she's gone so that he can indulge his sadism. And whatever his motive may be, it doesn't excuse him denying J'onn the chance to explore a life of non-violence.
  • In "It's a Super Life", Kara calls Lena out on this. What she's done goes way beyond not being told that Kara was Supergirl and Kara is through enabling her guilt complex.
• Gender Flip: Emil Hamilton is now Amelia Hamilton.
• Happily Adopted:
  • Kara by the Danvers.
  • Esme by Alex and Kelly.
• Hot Scoop: Kara Danvers, Cat Grant, Nia Nal, and Lois Lane for the women. For the men, James Olsen and, of course, Clark Kent provide this trope.
• Hollywood Nerd: Winn Schott, the CatCo tech guy and later tech specialist at the DEO.
• Homeworld Evacuation:
  • When chunks of Krypton rained down on their planet, the Daxamites hightailed it away.
  • In Hour One of the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover, 3 billion of Earth's citizens flee to Earth-1 as Earth-38 is destroyed by the antimatter wave.
• Hostile Terraforming: In the Season 3 finale, the Kryptonian Witches try to have Reign turn Earth into New Krypton.
• Humans Need Aliens: Without Supergirl, National City would have been destroyed. As is pointed out in Season 4 however, aliens on Earth are often the cause of alien attacks on Earth.
• Hypocrite: As Kara is often called out for, for all that she encourages people to live as their authentic selves, she has a Secret Identity and hides her Kryptonian heritage from those not in the know. She lives up to what she preaches in the Grand Finale.
• I Choose to Stay: In the finale, Brainiac-5 chooses to stay with Nia in the 21st century.
• Innocently Insensitive: This is sometimes pointed out with Kara. For all that she is passionate defender of alien rights, she looks human. Not only that, she can easily pass off as a white upper-class conventionally attractive human. As such, she can often fail to comprehend how difficult it can be for some aliens to fit on Earth with an obviously non-human appearance.
• Innocuously Important Episode: In "Welcome to Earth", Snapper delegates a reporter to investigate the impact that legal alien immigration will have on the job market and how the average worker will compete with a superpowered alien. Guess what drives the Mundanger of Season 4. In addition, The Reveal of President Marsdin being an alien also resurfaced in Season 4 as part of the unstable political climate.
• It Is Dehumanizing: Kara understandably takes offence when Lena refers to Red Daughter as a weapon.
• It's a Wonderful Plot: Episode 13 of Season 5, "It's a Super Life".
• It's All About Me:
  • The Children of Liberty, their founder Ben Lockwood in particular. Everything about alien immigrants is clearly designed to hurt them and them alone. And they will gladly drag society back to the cultural values of The Fifties to put themselves back on top.
  • Lex Luthor as always. So much that pulls the Hijacked by Ganon card in Season 5 to make him the centre of everything.
  • While she's always toyed with this, Lena Luthor dives right into this in Season 5. Everything she does is derived from her sense of hurt, motivated by what she had to do, and all for her idea of perfection.
• The Juggernaut: As Invasion! establishes, while Kara still faces trouble from her own rogues, she is more powerful than Team Arrow, Team Flash, and the Legends put together. Sorta explains why she never calls on them for help.
• Last of His Kind: J'onn is the last Green Martian. Subverted in Season 3 when he learns that his father is still alive. Then played straight when his father performs a Heroic Sacrifice, then subverted in Season 5 when it's revealed that J'onn's brother survived.
• Literal Split Personality:
  • In the climax of Season 3, Black Kryptonite is used to separate Sam from Reign.
  • It's also used to create Red Daughter from Kara.
• Living Emotional Crutch: M'yrnn J'onzz to J'onn in Season 3.
• Logical Weakness: It's shown a few times that despite all her powers, Kara does still have to play by the laws of physics. This hampers her in the vacuum of space because there's nothing for her flight or Super Strength to push off of.
• Loophole Abuse: Maggie mentions that a lot of petty criminals can get themselves released on the basis that Supergirl isn't an officer of the National City Police Department and even if the officers had given her permission to interfere, then the more willy of them will claim that Police Brutality was used.
• Love Triangle: Kara, James, and Lucy Lane and Kara, James, and Winn in Season 1.
• Manipulative Bastard: Lex Luthor. Though there's some Xanatos Speed Chess to it, he was pulling the strings since Season 1 ended before he makes his debut in Season 4.
• Mistaken for Gay: In the pilot, Kara tells Winn that she embraced a part of herself that she'd been denying for years. Winn's response: "Oh my god, you're a lesbian." She wasn't but he supported her nonetheless.
• Movie Superheroes Wear Black: Downplayed. But the Legion's costumes are more muted than their comic counterparts.
• The Multiverse: Introduced in a Crossover when Barry Allen arrives and explains it to the Super Friends.
• My Greatest Failure:
  • J'onn is deeply ashamed of fleeing when the White Martians attacked his people.
  • When Cat was still working for the Daily Planet, she interviewed the make-up artist of a famous actor's wife who revealed that he was a Domestic Abuser. Cat caved to PR pressure and wrote a fluff article. Three months later, to Cat's everlasting horror, the actor shot his wife in the head.
  • After Krypton's destruction, Alura came to regret her Holier Than Thou attitudes towards Astra's environmental warnings. She also regrets how casually she sentenced all those aliens to Fort Rozz.
• Never My Fault:
  • At his trail, Lex Luthor's defense of his actions was "Superman made me do it."
  • More or less the Children of Liberty. For all that they complain about aliens and innovations stealing their jobs, they didn't actually do anything to try and compete. Lena even lampshades this when she first meets Ben, noting that his father could have saved his foundry if he'd retooled it to process Nth metal.
• Nice Guy: Clark Kent is almost offensively inoffensive.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Ben Lockwood/Agent Liberty; a charismatic upper-middle class white man who promotes hate speech against minorities and whose message resonates with blue-collar workers of an older generation; seems very much a spiteful middle finger at right-wing commentators, but Ben Shapiro of The Daily Wire in particular. They've even got the same first name and somewhat resemble each other.
• Odd Friendship: Mon-El and Winn.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: As the last few episodes of Season 1 were taking place, Superman defeated Lex Luthor, who'd turned the sun red, and got him sentenced to jail.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Katie McGrath is a talented actress. But she is a terrible Fake American. Lena constantly speaks with some bastardized mixture of Irish and American accents.
• Outliving One's Offspring: As the Last of His Kind, J'onn has outlasted his daughters.
  • In "It's a Super Life", Patricia Arias outlived her adoptive daughter Sam/Reign in one of the alternative timelines. In another, Ben Lockwood outlives his son George who committed suicide due to the Cult of Rao's dogma.
• Pink Means Feminine: Kara often wears a pink top.
• Pop Cultural Osmosis Failure: Many are shocked that Brainiac-5 hasn't seen Star Wars.
• Put on a Bus:
  • Cat Grant goes on a walkabout at the start of Season 2 (because Calista Flockhart didn't want to move to Vancouver for future filming) and is later made the White House Press Secretary. After losing that job, she became an environmental activist before returning to CatCo in the Grand Finale.
  • Winn at the end of the third season as he goes to the 31st century to help the Legion.
• Putting on the Reich: When the Children of Liberty are deputized, their uniforms become very gestapo.
• Real Men Wear Pink: J'onn is wearing a pink apron in the Season 1 finale and his driving playlist features Britney Spears.
• Related in the Adaptation: Non is Supergirl's uncle, though not a blood relative.
• Religion Is Wrong: The entire conflict Season 3 is driven by a Religion of Evil venerating ancient Kryptonian dogma. Even the more benevolent religion doesn't get a pass as the worshippers openly create chaos, as in terrorist level threat chaos, to have the object of their worship, Supergirl, appear.
• Religion of Evil: The Children of Juru. They worship Yuda Kal, a pre-Rao Kryptonian deity that sought to bring Old Testament levels of chaos to the universe.
• Rogues Gallery Transplant: Most of the show's villains were originally Superman foes. In-Universe, Metallo and Lex actually target Kara to get back at Superman at first but then become her baddies.
• Rousing Speech: Kara has this down to an art form. She learnt it from Cat Grant.
• Secret Identity: Kara Danvers/Kara Zor-El, as well as "Hank Henshaw"/J'onn J'onzz and, to a certain degree, Mike/Mon-El. By the end, all of them have come forth as their true selves.
• Secret Secret Keeper: As confirmed in the Season 2 finale, Cat knows that Kara is Supergirl. "Kara" finally has Cat tell Kara she knows.
• Ship Sinking:
  • James and Kara quickly abandon their relationship in the opening episodes of Season 2 as neither can commit enough time to it.
  • "Kara" ends any chance of Kara/Mon-El by having him state that his responsibilities in the 31st century make it impossible for him to commit to a relationship.
• Sins of Our Fathers: Just about every alien that attacks Kara is doing so because her mother locked them away in the Phantom Zone.
• Small Role, Big Impact: Mon-El's unnamed guard. By saving Mon-El's life, he ensured Mon-El survived to pull a Heel Face Turn which led to Mon-El forming the Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st century, saving Earth, and its various colonies, from being Crapsack Worlds.
• Spiritual Successor: The first season, has a few similarities to The Secret World of Alex Mack. A blonde girl living in California won the Superpower Lottery and is aided by a Black Best Friend and her more rational, scientifically-minded sister while trying to keep her powers away from a Corrupt Corporate Executive.
• Suicide by Cop: J'onn suspects that this is what Manchester really wants, with J'onn as the cop.
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham:
  • Justified. Supergirl doesn't want people to view her as a pushover who constantly runs to Superman for help. Averted in the opener and finale of Season 2. Though it does point out a consequence of Clark being away from Metropolis for too long. If he's not there, who's defending his home from supervillain attacks? He also does have a 9-5 job at the Daily Planet that he needs to show up to. Indeed after his extended stay in National City, a furious Perry White calls to know why the hell he's been missing so much work.
    • Taken to ridiculous lengths in Season 3 where no one thinks to call Superman despite the Worldkillers being on the rampage. Properly justified in Season 4 where Superman tells Kara that he's planning to retire to Argo City given that he and Lois are expecting. That said, he leaves the door open enough that he might come back one day. Lex Luthor's whole motive in Season 4 is to make sure that this trope lasts forever by blowing up Argo.
  • Before the worlds merged, Supergirl could open breaches to Earth-1 starting in mid-Season 2 but she only went there for the Crisis Crossovers, despite all the times she could have been useful in Star, Central and Gotham City. By the same token, Barry, Oliver and Kate never showed up on Earth-38 to lend Kara a hand.
    • Seasons 3 and 4 do have some justification. In Season 3, Kara couldn't match Reign and the Wordkillers hand-to-hand, making it rather unlikely that the meta-humans or Badass Normals were going to make a difference. And Season 4 showed that any human heroes are eagerly eaten up by the Children of Liberty to promote their xenophobic hate speech. Whole teams of them would have only made things worse for the aliens that Kara was protecting.
  • Taken to great extremes in "It's a Super Life" where Supergirl is seemingly the only superhero on the planet. Though this could be justified in that Mxy is showing Kara events before the Crisis, and therefore all the action is set on Earth-38, or that the dictator of the darkest timeline, Lena Luthor, simply cleaned up. If her Mecha-Mooks can fight Supergirl on equal footing, a few meta-humans would hardly be an obstacle.
  • Despite Supergirl stuck in the Phantom Zone for the first half of Season 6, none of the other heroes think to lend a hand in National City. Or help out when the Super Friends fear that World War III might be set off.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Kara may not be quite a "Girly Girl" but she generally fills this role to Alex's "Tomboy".
• Up, Up, and Away: Kara's flight, which is said verbatim by James in the Pilot.
• Ungovernable Galaxy: There's no federation or republic to manage things, slavers and warlords fly around with impunity and wars are so common that a large amount of aliens have fled their ruined homes to come live on an Insignificant Little Blue Planet. It's implied that Krypton had a role in keeping the peace once and without it, everything fell apart.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Thanks to the Cosmic Retcon, Lex Luthor. Being Lex, he's unable to keep this front up for very long.
• We Used to Be Friends: In a possible Mythology Gag to Smallville, Lex and Superman were stated to be friends before the former went insane.
• Wedding Day: "Kara", and the series, ends on Alex and Kelly's wedding.