Will Superman & Lois Give The Arrowverse a New Supergirl?

With Superman & Lois joining the Arrowverse in the coming months, fans have wondered for quite some time what a Superman show might mean for the future of Supergirl, the network’s veteran drama starring Melissa Benoist. Shortly before giving birth to her first child in September, Benoist announced that Supergirl would end following the upcoming season. Now, some fans are wondering whether we might get a second Supergirl in the Arrowverse after Kara’s disappearance. Why? Well, there are a few things. First of all, Supergirl is a part of the Arrowverse’s version of the Justice League, along with Superman, Batwoman, Black Lightning, White Canary, The Flash, and Martian Manhunter.

That opens up a hole in the team’s lineup when she steps away. Then, there’s a recent casting announcement for Superman & Lois, which raised some eyebrows.

Degrassi: The Next Generation star Stacey Faber is set to play the role of Leslie Larr, a character newly-created for the TV series but one who might have ties to a Silver Age DC villain…and that villain might open the door to a new and different take on the Girl of Steel.

When the news of Faber’s casting broke, fans pointed out that the name “Leslie Larr” is likely a nod to the Kryptonian villain Lesla-Lar. That character appeared primarily as an enemy of Supergirl, and hailed from Kandor. But there’s more to it than just that.

The character description given for Leslie has led a lot of people to assume that she will be working with or for Lex Luthor, and that’s something that the character of Lesla-Lar did in her first appearance in 1961. In that comic, Lesla-Lar (a scientist from Kandor who was jealous of Supergirl) stripped Kara Zor-El of her powers, shrank her down, and trapped her in the bottle city of Kandor while she pretended to be Supergirl herself. During that time, she sprung Lex Luthor from prison to work with her.

The Arrowverse has a long history of taking stories from the comics and modifying them to fit the needs of the Arrowverse or the TV format. It would not be impossible to imagine that a riff on Lesla-Lar could be introduced in the hopes of giving the Arrowverse a version of Supergirl to use after Kara (we assume) gets some kind of happy ending and flies off into the sunset (or the 30th Century).

The Linda Lee version of Supergirl from the ’90s, for instance, was a regular human who got her powers from an unlikely interaction with the Supergirl who was active at the time. While that Supergirl wasn’t Kryptonian, it wouldn’t be impossible to see Kara or another Kryptonian (there are a few out there in the Arrowverse) somehow imbuing Leslie with powers along the way. And while the character is described as a villain at first…well, Supergirl and Superman are all about hope. Redeeming a criminal and turning them into one of Earth’s greatest heroes is actually something we could see them attempting.

We’ll see when the Arrowverse returns in January, and after Supergirl wraps up its final season in the spring.