Arrow may have kickstarted the Arrowverse, but it was Supergirl that threw its first female superhero into the mix. Supergirl has been on air since 2016 and the titular heroine has faced many villains since the first episode, villains of both human and extraterrestrial origin.
Since so much has happened in the meantime, it’s easy to forget what Supergirl was like in its beginnings when Kara Danvers was still learning how to use her powers and was hoping to figure out how to be a hero. No matter how many times you’ve seen the show’s first episode, you might have never noticed the following 10 details.
National City
Kara reveals shortly after the beginning of the first episode that she lives and works in National City. The name of the city is a nice easter egg for all fans of the publisher DC comics.
National City doesn’t have its origin in the comics, but by choosing this name for Supergirl’s home, the show’s creators paid homage to DC comics. Before DC was, well, DC, the company’s name was National Comics Publications, hence the ‘National’ in the name of Supergirl’s city.
Saving The Plane
Kara is at first determined to live a normal life and not to draw attention to her powers but she throws all of that out of the window to save her sister.
In the first episode, Kara’s sister Alex is leaving for Geneva in a plane and the plane gets into problems, threatening to crash. Kara flies to it and carries it to safety. As James Olsen later notes, Superman’s first heroic deed also was saving a plane, which means that Kara has more in common with her famous cousin than the same powers.
The Bridge
When Supergirl saves the plane, she flies it over a bridge called the Otto Binder Bridge. Besides the name of the city itself, the Otto Binder Bridge is another nice reference to the comics.
Otto Binder was the writer who wrote the Action Comics storyline ‘The Supergirl From Krypton’ and just like in the TV news in the show, the comics also wondered whether Kara was a friend or not. After all, she did wrack a part of the bridge when she saved the plane.
Costume Changes
Supergirl is sporting much more practical trousers these days but when she started fighting crime, her costume was much more revealing. Luckily not as revealing as the one in this picture.
It took a while for Kara and her best friend Winn to find the right costume, but in the end, they did. The costume seen above is a nod to the comics since Kara’s costume in the comics also changed throughout the years, and she wore a headband in them in the 1980s.
Winn’s Toys
Those who don’t read the comics most likely missed the reference and it doesn’t influence the plot of the first episode in any way but it’s still a nice detail. Winn Schoot is Kara’s co-worker and closest friend who’s also unhappily in love with her.
Winn has a few toys on his work desk and his surname is the same as of the supervillain known as Toyman. It’s later revealed that the villain is Winn’s father and Winn did his best to distance himself from his evil dad.
Superman’s Curl
Baby Superman appears at the absolute beginning of the first episode when Kara describes the events that led to her leaving Krypton and going to Earth. The episode shows both Kal-El leaving and Kara following him in her pod, only for Kara to get lost in the Phantom Zone.
The adult Superman is known for having a curl falling into his forehead, a hairstyle that marks a difference between Superman and his alter ego Clark Kent. And as it seems, he already had his trademark curl when he was still just an adorable baby.
Stopping Bank Robbery
When Kara and Winn form a crime-fighting duo in the first episode, Winn decides that every superhero needs a crime to fight and he sends Kara out to stop bank robbers at 6th and Sprang.
The name of the street where the robbery is taking place is another nod to an influential comic book creator, besides Otto Binder. It’s a reference to Dick Sprang, who worked on Batman in the 1940s, and he also designed a first version of the Supergirl, who was a dreamed-up partner for Superman in Sprang’s version.
Pa-Pow!
In the first episode, it’s soon shown that Winn has a crush on Kara. He tries to ask her out to the movies but she rejects him, stating she has a date (that doesn’t work out). Winn and Kara talk about love and he describes the effect of meeting someone with whom you immediately click as pa-pow!
Kara later whispers the words for herself when she meets James Olsen for the first time. Pa-pow sounds like something directly from the older comics, which often featured random words and verbs to demonstrate heroes’ actions or thoughts.
Kara’s Apartment
One of the details that made the eyebrows of many viewers climb weren’t anything about the show’s plot, but Kara’s apartment. Kara works as an assistant at Catco Media and her job mostly includes organizing Cat Grant’s schedule, running her errands, and fetching her food and coffee.
Later on, Cat repeatedly points out that she doesn’t pay Kara a lot. But if she doesn’t and Kara doesn’t have a second job, how can she possibly afford such a large apartment in a large city all on her own?
Choice Of Romantic Partners
In the first episode, when Kara wants to tell the truth about her powers to Winn, he jumps ahead and assumes that she’s a lesbian, and that’s why she was never interested in him, but Kara quickly points out that she’s not gay, but she’s, in fact, Supergirl.
It’s interesting that it’s later revealed that it’s not Kara but her sister Alex who prefers women, but nobody has the idea that she does in the first episode, and it remains a mystery both to Kara and the viewers.
