Adventure Comics: Superwoman Background

Family tradition can be a powerful force. Few people find it quite so powerful as Kristin Wells. Kristin, like all her line, had grown up in the comforting shade of the House of El. From their earliest beginnings, they had been friends, confidants, and occasionally sidekicks and companions to the Super-People. Kristin discovered to her delight that she had inherited her family's greatest gift during her fourteenth birthday party. Back in the time of the original Superman, Pete Ross and Lana Lang's infant son Clark had been kidnapped by Brainiac in Doomsday's body and subjected to the beginnings of a procedure to replicate a mindless Doomsday for his consciousness to inhabit. Superman managed to defeat Doomsday and rescue Clark with no ill effects. Or so it seemed.

What Superman did not realize was that the acclimatization process had not worn off completely, and small subspacial resonances occurred in Clark Ross's genes as Doomsday endlessly teleported between the four linked transport tubes on the Lunar Surface. These changes did nothing directly to him, and he grew to lead a normal life. He fell in love with Sarah Olsen (The daughter of James Bartholomew Olsen, Jr. and Lucy Lane, named after Olsen's mother), got married, and settled down. Kristin, a hundred centuries later, had inherited that metagene. When her "Aunt" Laurel Kent, a good long-time friend of the family, took her to see the Legion of Superheroes at the Worlds Fair in Metropolis for her Birthday weekend, the inevitable happened.

The All-Worlds Dome was taken over by the escaped consciousness of the Cyborg Superman. Converting it to a giant robot, he knocked the young Legion about with disdainful ease. Laurel hurried Kristin toward the exit, and told her to run. When Kristin turned to grab her aunt's hand, she saw Laurel running back. Following her, she watched Laurel disappear behind a display and Superwoman come out the other side. Stunned, Kristin failed to notice the Bad Thing about to happen. Several super-powers intersected, causing a freak explosion. Kristin felt a surge through her body, and leapt desperately to avoid the blast. She found herself airborne, moving away in an arc. Landing against a storage shed, a huge robotic foot nearly crushed her. Desperately pushing at the door, she tore it like paper. Inside was the Display Warehouse. Outside, Superwoman crashed to the ground, unconscious.

Kristin took a moment while the building next to the shed she was hiding in was demolished to consider her situation. Realizing she didn't have a second moment, she cast about desperately for something to help her. A colossal footstep spilled several containers. At her feet landed one with a familiar shield emblazoned on its lid. Willing to consider any alternative in her increasingly dwindling time, she tore it open. Within was mannequin costume kit The kit for the original Supergirl. Kristin sighed as her ancestral luck caught up with her, and donned the costume and wig. She strode out to see if Superwoman... If Laurel... was OK, and to try to not get killed distracting the Cyborg if she wasn't.

Uncertain how her powers worked, Kristin crept to the door and watched Superwoman, who was already stirring. She would be fine. A huge shadow fell over them, and Kristin reacted instinctively. She reached up and pushed with all her might and will. The Cyborg, surprisingly, toppled. In the time it took him to try to stand, the regrouped Legion joined the revived superwoman in tearing him apart and isolating his consciousness once more. As the Science Police took the computer module Brainiac 5 had trapped the Cyborg in away, Superwoman leaned over to Kristin and whispered, "I suppose there's only one way to get you to keep the Family Secret..." She stood back up and smiled. "Supergirl."

Kristin served as Supergirl for a very, very long time. She grew up, got her degree in History, and got a job teaching at Metropolis University. Superwoman had a son, and the new Superboy, Jordan Kent, treated Kristin like a big sister. As Laurel announced her intention to retire, it even looked as if for the first time in centuries, the new Superwoman would not be a Kent. To celebrate the occasion, Kristin applied for and received permission to travel back and observe the debut of the first Superwoman, whom she now knew had secretly been Karan Kent, Clark's sister from Krypton who had survived the destruction of Krypton's sole colony, Argo.

Kristin arrived at the right place at the right time, with a week's worth of identification and supplies so that she could observe Superwoman's presentation to the world before she left. Finding a place she knew was safe, she set her invisible Time Bubble to record the events. Superman and Doomsday appeared on schedule, fought on schedule, and then, at the appointed moment... Nothing happened. No Superwoman. Krisitn couldn't move. Any change could, in theory, erase her timeline. Her home. Everything and everyone she loved. As she stood paralyzed, before her eyes, Superman died.

Stunned, crying, scared, Kristin returned to the Time Bubble. She activated the recall, determined to ask Laurel and Jordan what could have gone wrong. The Time Bubble bounced off an impenetrable barrier in the timestream. Kristin noted the date before it spun out of control. It was the day Clark Ross and Sara Olsen's daughter had been born. She blacked out as the bubble crashed. When Kristin came to, she was in a dark place. The Time Bubble's Time Coil was melted into a rapidly dissolving liquid. She was trapped. Acting on her Temporal Historian's field training, she shunted all remaining power to the computer, and spread a worm that would establish a more permanent version of her identity here before deleting itself.

That done, she scanned the local records she could access until the power failed. There was no Superwoman, there was no Karan Kent, there wasn't even an Argo... Krypton had had no colonies. This was not her past. She believed that her future had been erased. She started to weep. She must have slept, for the early rays of sunshine were just beginning to peek through the warehouse windows as she awoke. The Time Bubble had just one functional system left. Kristin activated the Self-Destruct. The rush of air filling the space where it had been dislodged a small cardboard box from a palate. As it landed at her feet, she noted a familiar shield emblazoned on its lid. She picked it up and opened it. Halloween was a few weeks away. It was a cheap, illegal knock-off party costume. A redesign of Superman's costume, for a woman. Sighing at her family's luck, she put it on. Superwoman flew away into the rays of dawn.