Supergirl / Tropes V To W

Tropes A to B | Tropes C to D | Tropes E to F | Tropes G to H | Tropes I To J | Tropes K To L | Tropes M To N | Tropes O To P | Tropes R To S | Tropes T To U | Tropes V To W | Tropes X To Z

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Tropes found in Supergirl

• Vacuum Mouth: Pre-Crisis Kara has "Super-Suction Breath", which is a variant of her Super-Breath. Instead of expeling large amounts of air from her mouth she inhaled air with the purpose of cutting off someone else's oxygen supply. In Action Comics #270 she knocks out people in her class by sucking out all the air so that she can perform heroics without risking her Secret Identity. In Supergirl Vol 1 #1 she sucks all the air of a vehicle in order to apprehend a criminal without harming him.
• Ventriloquism: Pre-Crisis Kara had super-ventriloquism as one of their powers. In War World, she and Superman used it to communicate with each other through the void of space. Post-Crisis continuity supposedly did away with that power, but Kara can still talk to Superman and Superboy in airless environments, which would indicate it was quietly folded back into the lore.
• Victory Is Boring: In DC Comics Presents #56, Superman an alternate universe Kara fight Maaldor, a villain with godlike powers who challenges them because he's conquered his whole universe... and now he's bored.
• A Villain Named "Z__rg": Several Silver Age villains were called names like Drang, Zond or Klax-Ar. Nowadays Kara still has to contend with enemies like Xenon, Deimax or Vax.
• Villainous Crush:
  • Pre-Crisis Supergirl often was hit on by seemingly decent guys who later turned out to be super-villains or criminals. One example: In Supergirl vol 1 #4 a gangleader called David Grahm romanced her.
  • Post-Crisis Kara had to deal with Powerboy, a Darkseid's minion who had a crush on her and was Not Good with Rejection.
  • Another post-crisis encounter: the Main Man himself had a run-in with Kara and wasted no time in having her know that she was just his type. Repeatedly.
  • Post-Flashpoint Supergirl met H'el, a man who claimed to love her... and planned to blow the Sun up in order to save Krypton.
• Villainous Demotivator: In Adventure Comics issue #423, alien conqueror Gur executes his C. O. for one small error and tells his crewmen to "take heed".
  Gur: A task I shall never hesitate to perform upon a crewman... who is negligent in his duties! So take heed, all of you witless, blundering fools...
• Villainous Underdog: Most of Kara's enemies until her public debut in The Unknown Supergirl were gangsters, scammers and other terrible but non-powered people who never even figured out who caused their downfall.
• Villains Want Mercy: At the end of Who is Superwoman?, Supergirl and Superwoman square off. Lucy gloats over framing Kara for her own murders after killing her. When the Girl of Steel proceeds to pummel her, Superwoman pleads for mercy. Supergirl replies -rightly- that she doesn't deserve any and keeps bashing her.
  Superwoman: Super— Kara! Stop! Please! You don't know what you're doing!
  Supergirl: You're asking for mercy? Like Agent Liberty got?! Like poor Mister Henderson!? Like my father!? You don't deserve mercy, you deserve a beating!
• Villain Team-Up: In Supergirl (Rebirth) storyline The Girl of No Tomorrow, Emerald Empress recruits four other villains -Selena, Indigo, Magog and Solomon Grundy- to kill Supergirl after destroying her reputation.
• Villain Teleportation:
  • In Supergirl (1982) #23, Kara fights a mutant that has the ability to dissolve his body and rematerialize far away. Said mutant uses this power to run away from Supergirl at one point.
  • In Many Happy Returns, Fatalist teleports to get away from Linda Danvers when she decides to bash his head in.
  • In Supergirl (2005) #60, Kara has to fight a group of villains that use dimensional doors to move around and strike heroes unexpectedly.
• Warrior Monk: Thara Ak-Var is the super-hero Flamebird and a devout follower of the Church of Rao.
• Watching Troy Burn: Most of time, Supergirl is forced to watch helplessly as her hometown Argo City gets destroyed and/or Krypton blows up while she gets blasted into space. At the climax of New Krypton, Superman is fighting Zod's soldiers and Supergirl is locked up in a radiation pod when the planet goes up in flames around them. And they cannot do anything to save it.
• We Can Rule Together: In Adventure Comics #415 Supergirl is abducted by a wannabe space dictator who wants to destroy Earth, conquer the universe and make her his mate. She turns him down, wrecks his warship and turns him over to the authorities. As he is being put away, the man cries the universe could have been theirs.
• We Help the Helpless: Kara can't stop herself from helping people in need. During the early Silver Age she spent more time protecting the weak and making people happy anonymously than fighting super-villains. "Help for all" is, actually, her motto.
  Supergirl: My cousin once said in an interview that he stood for "Truth, Justice and the American Way of Life". If anyone asked me, I'd say I stand for "Hope, Help and Compassion For All."
• We Used to Be Friends:
  • In the post-Crisis storyline "New Krypton" she broke up with her childhood friend Thara Ak-Var when she believed she aided and abetted her murderer's father. Later on, they reconciled after a fashion, but their friendship was still strained.
  • In the New 52 series, Kara befriended Siobhan Smythe "Silver Banshee" shortly after arriving in Earth. However she broke it off when she thought Siobhan was using her.
• Wham Episode: The soul crushingly bleak Supergirl #23 in The New 52 has Kara completely disintergrated (in a particularly traumatic way) by the amnesiac Cyborg Superman who uses her DNA to reconstitute himself into an organic being. He immediately discovers he is really Zor-El and has just killed his daughter. To top everything off a very angry Brainiac (who 'created' Cyborg Superman) has just arrived.
• Wham Line: "We've... we've had a casualty."◊
• What Does She See in Him?: In Justice #8 a mind-controlled Kara tells Lois Lane that she doesn't know what her cousin sees in her:
  Supergirl: I don't know what Superman sees in you, Miss Lane. And don't tell me "X-Ray Vision". I have, too. And I don't see anything.
• What Is This Feeling?: In Peter David's run, the demon Buzz feels a horrible pain when he tries to leave Supergirl. At first he thinks this is God's doing, but it turns out that, for the first time since he was a human, he's feeling guilt.
• What Measure Is a Humanoid?: "The Super-Steed of Steel" introduces Comet, a super-powered, intelligent horse who was really a centaur called Biron who'd been cursed so that at any one time he had to be all horse or all man. Comet had an unrequited crush on Kara which she was completely oblivious to.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Although she's intelligent, and is capable of coming up with plans and tactics, her default method of attack is just to fly up to a problem and punch it. Given that she's Kryptonian, this does solve a number of problems.
• When the Clock Strikes Twelve: Subverted in a Peter David issue. Supergirl inquires a twentysomething witch about her divine fate, and is told to come back that night. Supergirl assumes the meeting will be at midnight, but the witch says 1:00am because she doesn't want to miss her favorite late-night show.
• Why Did You Make Me Hit You?: After Kara is brutally beaten up by Powerboy, including having her face dragged down the side of a skyscraper, she wakes up in a bed next to a Stalker Shrine devoted to her, bound in powerful, alien-tech restraints. Powerboy says a big speech about how much he loves her, that he knows best, and that the beating was her fault for making him angry. Supergirl's retort? Delivering a brutal beating combined with a Shut Up, Hannibal! speech (see above).
• Wicked Toymaker: Anton Schott alias "Dollmaker", the son of Toyman who is also a skilled -and creepy- toymaker, although he specializes in deadly robot dolls.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist:
  • Pre-Crisis Kara Zor-El was an exceptionally innocent, trusting teenager. Her enemies often exploited her naivete and tried to earn her trust or seduce her so they could manipulate her and kill her or her cousin. Eventually she stopped being so gullible, but she kept believing that people are mostly naturally good-hearted.
  • Post-Crisis Supergirl is less innocent (excepting some versions such like Elseworld's Finest: Supergirl And Batgirl Kara who was fooled by Lex Luthor) but she still stands by his ideals and always tries to do the right thing and be an hero, not matter how dark her world is or what bad things happen to her.
• Willfully Weak: Supergirl holds back the whole time because she's too powerful and she'll kill someone if her control slips.
  • When post-Crisis Kara arrived on Earth, she caused a lot of property damage in the early issues until she learned how to control her enormous strength.
  • Even when she briefly went out of her mind due to the influence of the Red Ring, Supergirl instinctively held back because she didn't want to hurt anybody.
• Will Not Tell a Lie: In Superman Volume 1 #176, Superman and Supergirl celebrate a Kryptonian holyday called the Day of Truth in which they have to speak nothing but the truth, no matter the cost. It is not an easy task because they are incredibly blunt when they are being honest.
• Will They or Won't They?: Supergirl and Brainiac 5 first met in 1961. Querl fell for Kara at first sight and she liked him back, but she couldn't stay in the 31st century permanently. Both teenagers spent twenty-three years, real time, dancing around each other and wondering whether they should or could get together until they hooked up. Unfortunately, Kara died in the Crisis On Infinite Earths one year later.
• World of Muscle Men: In older issues of Supergirl and similar "girlie" comics, the men in the super heroine's lives will often be so built, their muscles appear under sweaters. The reasons for this can vary.
• World's Strongest Man: Kara is a contender for strongest woman in the DCU, being, powerwise, a female Superman.
• World's Best Warrior: Played with regarding Supergirl. She is a hero but she is not a warrior by nature. However many people in the DC Universe mistake her for this trope. And since she is definitely one of the most powerful heroes, most incarnations have trained in some kind of martial art or haven been mentored by Batman and/or Wonder Woman, and she is more temperamental than her cousin, it is very easy for her becoming a fighter when she is given no choice.
• Wounded Hero, Weaker Helper: At the end of Superman: Doomed, a cloud of Kryptonite enveloping Earth causes Kara to fall to Earth, crash into a house and pass out. She is found by a boy in a wheelchair, who drags her to his house's underground shelter, whose walls and ceiling were designed to stop nuclear fallout, so that she can recover.
• Wrap Around: In storyline The Lords Of Luck, Supergirl and Lobo find themselves lost in Destiny of the Endless' Garden of Forking Ways, an extradimensional "location" where space and time are permanently warping and twisting themselves in ways that are incomprehensible to the human mind. As trying to find an exit, Supergirl flies upwards and skyward, and bursts out of the very ground spot she had just taken off from.
• Writing Around Trademarks: In 1985 DC decided that Superman should be the only survivor of Krypton and killed Supergirl. In 1988 John Byrne deemed unwise to let the trademark expire and came up with a non-Kryptonian Supergirl. Eighteen years and four failed non-Kryptonian Supergirls later DC gave up, revoked the "Last Child of Krypton" policy and reintroduced Supergirl as Kara Zor-El, Superman's Kryptonian cousin.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Superman has a strange life, as demonstrated when his first reaction to seeing a teenage girl flying out of a Kryptonian rocketship while wearing a version of his own costume is "A girl, flying! It — uh — must be an illusion!"

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