Matrix

Kara Zor-El was gone, but you can’t keep a good Supergirl down. Stick with me, folks, here’s where it gets tricky.

A pocket universe (totally different than an alternate universe, of course) was under attack by evil Kryptonians. Since that universe’s Superman had disappeared as a boy, the only person left to fight the Kryptonians was a heroic Lex Luthor. Lex created a being out of protoplasm, based on the genetic matrix of his dead wife Lana Lang, named her Matrix, and sent her for help.¹³

Matrix fetched Superman, but the two of them were unable to save Matrix’s universe, and so Superman brought her back to his world. Naturally enough, this young blonde female quickly became Supergirl, although her powers differed slightly from Superman’s (she had his strength, speed, invulnerability, and flight, but she could also shapeshift, turn invisible, and fire “psi-blasts” of telekinetic energy). She came somewhat to the fore as the protector of Metropolis during Superman’s death,¹⁴ but aside from that the only really notable thing Matrix did from her debut in 1988 for nearly a decade was date Lex Luthor. (He’d transplanted his brain from his cancer-ridden body into a much younger cloned body and was masquerading as his heretofore unknown son, philanthropist and champion of justice. Having only known the benevolent Luthor who’d created her, Matrix was easily taken in. I warned you it was going to get confusing!) Matrix even got a solo miniseries,¹⁵ but the character failed to get a firm foothold in the DCU. She just didn’t have any humanity.

Well, she’d just have to get some, wouldn’t she?

Next: Linda Danvers
Back: Kara Zor-El

13. All this is part of "The Supergirl Saga," which ran through Superman v.2 #21, Adventures of Superman #444, and Superman v.2 #22, all by John Byrne and Jerry Ordway, although Supergirl's reappearance was foreshadowed earlier, in Superman v.2 #16.
14. Back in 1993. Remember?
15. Supergirl v.3 (February-May 1994). Writer: Roger Stern. Artist: June Brigman.

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