Karen Starr

Karen Starr
Occupation	CEO of Starrware Industries
Played by	N/A
Status	Alive

Karen Starr is the CEO of Starrware Industries, and a friend of Alan Scott.

Season Three

Around 2003, Chloe Sullivan used Starr-Ware Database system 5.0 to create a digital Wall of Weird.

Future

In a 2017 interview with the Daily Planet, Alan Scott mentioned his friend, Karen Starr.

Appearances

• Season Three: Extinction (Indirectly mentioned)
• Season Five: Fade (Indirectly mentioned)
  • Vengeance Chronicles (Indirectly mentioned)

Notes

• The existence of Karen Starr was teased by the introduction of Starr-Ware Database system 5.0 in Extinction. She is mentioned directly by name in the Daily Planet Commemorative issue (included in the Smallville: The Complete Series DVD box set), confirming her existence in the universe of Smallville.
• The origin of the Smallville version of Karen Starr is unknown. Extinction (which only contained an easter egg to Karen Starr/Power Girl, rather than confirming her existence) aired in 2003, by which time Power Girl still had her Atlantean origin in the comics. By the time that the Daily Planet Commemorative issue was written (and might have ignored the existing easter egg, which never established if the database program was actually created by Starrware Industries), Power Girl had a Kryptonian origin.

In the Comics

Karen Starr/Power Girl as she appears in the comics.

Power Girl first appeared in All Star Comics #58 (February 1976), where she was introduced as the cousin of the Superman of Earth-Two. She became the first new member of the Justice Society of America (later becoming the group's first female chairperson), and was determined to not be seen as a carbon copy of her famous cousin (refusing to wear a "Superman"-symbol, or even a symbol remotely resembling it).

Her origin, and name, was finally revealed in Showcase #97-99 (February-April, 1978). Her real name was Kara Zor-L, and had been born around the same time as her cousin. Like him, she had been sent to Earth, when Krypton. However, her rocket had been slower, resulting in her landing on Earth decades later. Power Girl had been kept in suspended animation, which had slowed down her aging (resulting in her being physically in her early 20s, when she came to Earth), and raised in a virtual reality of Krypton. Showcase #97-99 also had her assume a secret identity for the first time: a computer programmer named Karen Starr (later becoming the CEO of her own corporation).

Nearly a decade later, Power Girl would get a new origin. The Crisis On Infinite Earths storyline had destroyed the Multiverse, with DC Comics rebooting their characters. There was no longer an Earth-Two, and a new company mandate dictated that Superman was to be the sole survivor of Krypton. Supergirl was changed into a protoplasmic entity from the pocket universe. While Power Girl was changed from a Kryptonian to an ancient Antlantean. Secret Origins Vol 2 #11 (February, 1987) introduced this new origin. She was now the granddaughter of the Arion, a sorcerer, who had sent her thousands of years into the future to protect her. Power Girl later became a member of the Justice League.

Almost 20 years later, Power Girl's origin would once again be changed. In the 2005-2006 event Infinite Crisis, Power Girl was changed back into a Kryptonian from Earth-Two, with the storyline revealing that she was a survivor of the original Crisis On Infinite Earths (who had ended up on the post-Crisis Earth, and been told a lie by Arion).