Despite his best attempts at trying to save the remnants of Krypton's civilization, Kara Zor-El's (aka Supergirl) father Zor-El inadvertently doomed his people. The tragic origin of Supergirl was revealed to be even worse than she thought when she finally recovered her memories of her last days in Argo City.

The destruction of Krypton is strongly associated with Superman, as it's the reason his parents sent him to Earth. But baby Kal-El was far from the only person affected by the nightmare of their home world's final days. Kara Zor-El was a teenager when the dreaded data-harvesting villain known as Brainiac brought his evil to Krypton and his attack left Kara shaking for years after. Unlike Superman, who was rocketed to Earth, Kara and a handful of survivors lived on after Krypton exploded in a protected community known as Argo City. For a brief time, the Kryptonian race had the chance at normalcy in spite of the great tragedy they'd suffered.

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Unfortunately, the very thing that was aimed at protecting them was ultimately their undoing. In Supergirl #35 by Sterling Gates and Jamal Igle, Kara is continuing her reunion with her parents now that Superman has liberated the Bottle City of Kandor. Things take a turn when Zor-El realizes his daughter has been suffering from kryptonite poisoning. Zor-El and his wife Alura put their daughter through a process to heal Kara, and inform her that she may recover memories she had forgotten. As the process commences, Supergirl does remember marveling at the protective shield her father helped create to protect Argo. She also recalls discovering that the shield was powered from a defunct Brainiac probe and that, sadly, the probe was used by Brainiac to attack Argo City and collect the escaped Kryptonians.

Supergirl Zor-El Brainiac DC Comics

To Zor-El’s credit, he couldn’t predict the future Superman and Supergirl villain Brainiac would actually come back to collect Kryptonians that had survived his initial attack. And he was absolutely certain the probe was dead, because he'd never put his civilization or family at risk. However, his underestimation of Brainiac's cold cruelty was Zor-El's greatest mistake. But it isn't just Zor-El and the captured Kryptonians who suffered. This recovered memory added a new, tragic layer to the trauma Supergirl had already endured. Supergirl's origin story is arguably much worse than Superman's. Kal-El was just a baby when he was rocketed from Krypton and remembers nothing of his home world. However, the destruction of Krypton weighs heavily on Supergirl since she was highly aware of her planet's final days. For years, Brainiac was like a boogeyman figure to Kara. A dreaded monster that upended her old way of life. Argo City falling because Kara's father thought he could use Brainiac's technology to his advantage just reinforces how much of an effect the villain had on Kara's origin.

Supergirl's father may have tried to do right by his people, but his efforts only ended up condemning them to a terrible fate.

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