Major Supergirl Character Dies in “Crisis on Infinite Earths”

From the moment it was first teased during The Flash‘s series premiere in 2014 fans have known that when “Crisis on Infinite Earths” finally came for the Arrowverse it would come with a cost. After all, worlds will live and worlds will die and the universe will never be the same, something that was made very clear during Arrow‘s season eight premiere when Earth-2 was wiped from existence, a casualty of the coming anti-matter wave. Tonight, though, the terrifying red skies of “Crisis” arrived on Supergirl and drove home for the heroes of Earth-38 just how dire things really are with a devastating and deeply personal loss for the Girl of Steel.

Spoilers for tonight’s episode of Supergirl, “Crisis on Infinite Earths: Part 1,” below.

After a montage of Earths being destroyed by the anti-matter wave working its way through the Multiverse it turns out that the universe in which Earth-38 exists is next up on that destructive path. Even as they stare down that threat, though, Supergirl/Kara and her allies at the DEO come to realize that the wave will hit Argo City first and that they are virtually helpless to stop it. The wave is mere moments away and while they do their best to warn Argo the last living vestige of Krypton vanishes right before their eyes. Moments later, though, Harbinger arrives having brought with her the heroes of Earth-1 as well as Supergirl’s cousin Superman/Clark and his wife, Lois. They had been living on Argo and were rescued at the last moment by Harbinger.

Supergirl is overjoyed to see her family has survived, but that joy soon turns to sadness when it’s revealed that while Lois and Superman have survived as well as their son, Jonathan, who was sent to Earth in an escape pod before the devastation there was no such salvation for Supergirl’s mother. Alura Zor-El has perished along with the rest of Argo City, the last of Kryptonian civilization wiped out once again. While this loss is one that was teased in the trailer for “Crisis”, fans have held out hope that perhaps Alura would survive somehow. Now, that hope is gone.

For Kara, this is no doubt going to be a defining loss. This is the second time she has dealt with the loss of not just her Kryptonian home world, but her mother as well. Kara ended up as Earth-38’s Supergirl because the actual death of Krypton years earlier, the catastrophic event that saw Kara’s parents and Clarks’ biological parents load their children into escape pods and send them into the universe in order to save their lives and while Clark was a baby and too young to remember, Kara was an adolescent. She remembered the loss of her world and the death of her family and now, she has had to bear witness to a similar loss all over again.

In a sense, this devastating death almost feels too cruel but as we see, there’s no time for Supergirl to mourn or truly sit with this painful loss. With Argo gone, the anti-matter wave is coming for Earth-38 next and while even Superman is finding it difficult to remain hopeful and strong, Supergirl rises. The focus is now on saving Earth-38 and in doing so, keeping Krypton alive through them. If they keep fighting, Krypton will never truly die and now that fight is taking on a new dimension. A Quantum Tower as sprung up in National City with the tower having the ability to stop and dissipate the anti-matter wave and, thus, save them. The heroes will just have to protect it as forces will be coming to take that tower out so that nothing can stand in the way of the wave of death.

“Crisis on Infinite Earths” kicks off on Sunday, December 8 on Supergirl, runs through a Monday episode of Batwoman and that Tuesday’s episode of The Flash. That will be the midseason cliffhanger, as the shows go on hiatus for the holidays and return on January 14 to finish out the event with the midseason premiere of Arrow and a “special episode” of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, which launches as a midseason series this year and so will not have an episode on the air before the Crisis.

What do you think about the tragic loss of Alura Zor-El and Argo City? Let us know in the comments below.