Power Girl

Power Girl's first appearance was in All-Star Comics #58 (Jan-Feb 1976), an issue which revived the Justice Society of America on Earth-2. Earth-2 was the alternate reality in which DC’s Golden Age heroes were deemed to exist after the company reinvented many of its characters in the 1950s. Earth-1 was the mainstream universe with all the modern day heroes. Power Girl's world was destroyed in the Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985-1986) and all its inhabitants, including her cousin Superman, were erased from history. Power Girl survived and exists in present day comics due to the quirky nature of the DC Universe.

Power Girl is one of (the?) top fighters in the JSA, a rough and tumble brawler who embodies the Golden Age spirit. Notable for her gung-ho attitude, she likes to kick ass and takes no guff from anyone. She works equally well with both the older heroes of the JSA and younger heroes close to her own age: she has been a member of the JSA (starring in All-Star Comics #58-74 from 1976-1978), the junior super-team Infinity Inc. (from 1984-85), and the Justice League Europe/Justice League International (1989-1994). She rejoined the second JSA in 2002, three years after it was reformed, and became chair of the group in 2007.

Origin

When Power Girl first appeared in All-Star Comics #58, literally from the sky, she said only that her cousin was Superman and that she'd been training with him. Readers would be kept in the dark about Power Girl's origin story for a couple of years until Showcase #97-98 (February-March 1978). This story revealed learned that Power Girl was another survivor of Krypton. In this universe, unbeknownst to Superman, both Kal-L and his cousin Kara had been rocketed to Earth-2 just as their home planet was being destroyed. However Kara's ship ship took a longer route that led it to arrive many years after Superman had begun his adventures, and her baby cousin Kal-L was a middle aged man when she arrived. Power Girl's specially built Symbioship had kept her in a suspended animation that slowed her growth, while the experience simulator provided her with a virtual reality life and full Kryptonian education.

For her first two years on Earth, Power Girl did not have a secret identity or base of operations. She would make an appearance whenever she was needed and then fly off again, avoiding answering the inquiries of nosy reporters and others who were curious as to her story. In Showcase #99 she took on the secret identity of Karen Starr, and landed a position as a software expert for a large computer corporation, thanks to the training of Wonder Woman's "memory teacher" and her own keen Kryptonian intellect. Later she started her own software firm called StarrWare, Inc. which she eventually sold for a small fortune. Her civilian identity is now public knowledge and she oversees the Starr Foundation for orphaned children, which she founded in JSA #38.

(Despite her name, Power Girl has never been a teenaged superhero. That she was not named Power Woman is simply a product of sexist naming conventions. And she still hasn't been promoted to Power Woman after all these years, apart from the Elseworld story Kingdom Come.)