A new Supergirl is about to take flight in the DC Extended Universe. But in sharp contrast to Melissa Benoist’s Arrowverse Supergirl, Sasha Calle’s hero in The Flash appears to take more visual inspiration from a far more obscure character, Lara Lane-Kent.
While this daughter of Superman and Lois Lane may have only appeared in a dream sequence within the video game-inspired world of Injustice: Gods Among Us, she seems set to help define one of the most important heroes in any part of the DC Multiverse.
In the world that began with the 2013 game Injustice: Gods Among Us, the Joker famously tricked Superman into killing a pregnant Lois Lane and detonated a nuclear bomb that wiped out Metropolis. In retaliation for the attack, Superman killed the Joker and took over the world in his inconsolable grief, driven by the idea that peace could only exist under the rule of his iron fist. While half of DC’s heroes and villains supported Superman’s Regime, Batman led the other half in an Insurgency against the tyrannical Man of Steel that played out in the game’s narrative and its critically-acclaimed tie-in comics.
Lara Lane-Kent made her first and only major appearance in Tom Taylor, Bruno Redondo, Juan Albarran, Xermanico, Rex Lokus and Wes Abbott’s Injustice: Gods Among Us: Year Three #14 in 2014. After Batman took the form of Etrigan the Demon and attacked Superman, the Man of Steel fell into a deep sleep where he had dreams of his ideal world. The dream’s Batman stopped Superman from killing Lois and killed the Joker for what he did to Superman. While Batman answered for that crime in prison, Superman and Lois welcomed their daughter Lara into the world and gave her an idyllic childhood.
Lara started developing her Superman-esque powers in early adolescence, and her father taught her how to use them with help from Justice League members like Green Arrow. She soon began operating as a hero in her own right, working both on her own and with Superman. Not unlike Jon Kent in modern DC continuity, Lara handled her family’s heavy legacy with good humor.
Haunted by the specter of Krypton’s final days and seeing the myriad problems facing the Earth, Lara gave an impassioned plea for global unity to the United Nations as a young adult. The receptive crowd included an aged Superman, President Lois Lane and UN Secretary-General Wonder Woman, who was married to a now-free Bruce Wayne. As Superman’s dream faded away, he mentioned that she was helping refreeze glaciers in Greenland.
While that dream sequence constitutes Lara Lane-Kent’s only real appearance, she draws has quite a bit in common with some of DC’s other Supergirls. She shares a name with Superman’s Kryptonian mother and the Supergirl of the Dark Knight Returns world. While Lara’s high collar resembles Supergirl’s New 52 look, the red that extends from her S-shield over her shoulders has been an occasional part of Supergirl’s costume since her 1983 redesign in Supergirl #13, by Paul Kupperberg, Carmine Infantino, Bob Oksner and Tom Ziuko. Finally, Lara’s short brunette hairstyle was predicate by Cir-El, a Brainiac creation who posed as Superman’s daughter and briefly operated as Supergirl in the mid-00s.
Although Superman’s cousin, Kara Zor-El, debuted in Injustice 2 and became that world’s main Supergirl, Lara still exists in at least one corner of the DC Multiverse. In 2019, Lara appeared alongside a group of multiversal heroes in their doomed effort to stop the release of the dark cosmic god Perpetua in Justice League #34, by Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Bruno Redondo, Howard Porter, Hi-Fi and Tom Napolitano.
While there’s no indication that The Flash’s Supergirl will retain any part of Lara’s backstory, this short-lived Injustice hero is a clear stylistic antecedent for the character. Even if she’s only been a face in a crowd or part of Superman’s dreams, Lara Lane-Kent seems to have left a lasting impression on the DCEU’s next major hero.
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