Name: Linda Lee Danvers (Earth name), Kara Zor-El (Kryptonian name)
Occupation: Student, farm girl
Place of birth: Krypton
Legal status: U.S. citizen with no criminal record
Known Relatives: Zor-El (father; deceased), Alura (mother; deceased), Jeremiah Danvers (adoptive father), Eliza Danvers (adoptive mother)
Hometown: Midvale, California
History: Long ago, a planet named Krypton orbited the distant red dwarf star Rao. The planetary mass closest to Rao, Krypton was a modest-sized planet with the same mass and volume as Earth.
A planet's geophysical conditions are a greater component of biological evolution on that planet than its environmental conditions. The combined synergistic effect of a planet's particular magnetic field and particular gravity field has a molecular-level influence on organisms that induces specific mutations and genetic variations. Because of that, specific geophysical conditions invariably direct evolution and speciation along and towards a specific pattern of physical development when added with a specific natural selection path caused by specific environmental influences such as a particular atmospheric composition and climate system.
As a consequence, physically identical life forms can evolve on different planets because those planets happen to have both very similar environmental conditions and the same precise gravitational and geomagnetic conditions. It is under those circumstances that on Krypton, a planet environmentally similar and geophysically identical to Earth, evolved a sentient mammalian bipedal species outwardly indistinguishable from anatomically modern humans right down to the exact same morphological traits and range of phenotypical variations. It is only at the cellular level that the real differences between the people of Earth and these 'Kryptonian' humanoids could be determined.
Having evolved under the radiation of a red dwarf star, Kryptonians developed a unique subcellular structure and composition that absorbed radiation from their sun to produce a cellular-level bio-electric aura composed of a unique type of energy that further nourished the Kryptonian body. Although they derived most of their nourishment from the consumption of animal and vegetable matter, the solar energy of the bio-electric aura supplemented their diets. They were, in effect, organic solar batteries.
It was on the planet Krypton that the scientist Zor-El and his wife, Alura were born and died. an astrophysicist and astronomer member of the Science Council, Krypton's ruling body, Zor-El discovered the Phantom Zone and many other worlds. He also found out something horrifying: Krypton was in great danger. He predicted that due to internal eruptions, Krypton would soon explode. When he produced his findings, however, he was laughed to scorn. Zor-El was determined to find a way off the planet, and he began to research ways of getting off Krypton.
Zor-El had only one thing to do. He began work on a spacecraft that he hoped could carry his daughter, Kara, through an artificial wormhole to the planet Earth, which he had recently been observing. Zor-El had just enough time to build one small rocket. No sooner than he finished the ship, the time of Krypton's death came. The ground began to shake and Zor-El knew he had to act quickly. Alura and him placed their daughter, still a toddler, in the ship and targeted it for Earth. Zor-El ordered them inside while he made the final calculations. There was room in the ship for both Alura and Kara. But Alura flatly refused. She told him that their daughter would have a better chance without her weight.
Through her own studies as a biophysicist, Alura also knew that their daughter would grow strong and powerful on Earth as her cellular structure absorbed the solar radiation of Earth's sun. Alura told Zor-El that this would give their daughter the advantage she would need to survive on Earth. Zor-El then launched the rocket and Alura stepped into his arms. They embraced, watching the ship get smaller and smaller. Then, the world of Krypton exploded after the pressure grew to much for the planet's mantle to contain, transmuting the sum and substance of the dying world into an ore with a radiation that is lethal to Kryptonian physiology.
The tiny spaceship generated a wormhole and traveled through it, covering the fifty light-years that separated Krypton and Earth in a matter of moments. However, hundreds of pieces of Krypton's debris also traveled through the wormhole. The ship crash landed in a lettuce field in the rural central California town of Midvale while a meteor shower of Krypton's debris rained destruction on the unsuspecting citizens of the town.
While in their farmhouse, Jeremiah and Eliza Danvers heard the ship crash. Intrigued by the chance of being able to find an actual meteorite, the couple jumped into their truck and drove out to the backfield, where the object had seemed to hit. What they found was a shallow crater and an object that appeared to be a tiny spacecraft. Approaching the craft, Eliza thought she saw something moving inside. When Jeremiah gingerly reached out to the craft to touch the smooth, egg-like upper section of the craft, it seemed to melt away, revealing a three-year old girl inside. On the ride back to the house, the childless couple discussed what to do with the girl. Eliza argued that they should keep her, and Jeremiah was hard pressed to think of a reason why they shouldn't. By the time they got home, they had already decided to name her Linda Lee, after Eliza's mother, and raise her as their own daughter.
As a young child, Linda Danvers picked up good values from her loving hard-working parents, learning responsibility in helping with chores around the farm. She also acquired the Danvers love of reading and often derived as much pleasure from sitting under a tree with a book as she did from a fast game of soccer. For all intents and purposes, Linda appeared to be just another normal, healthy American girl.
But she was not normal. Just as her biological mother, Alura, had calculated, Linda's Kryptonian cells began storing and processing the radiation of Earth's sun. As she grew older, Linda became increasingly stronger and more powerful. The first noticeable consequence of her power came when Linda was eight years old. Taking a short cut across a pasture, she was trampled by an angry bull, but she sustained no injuries. A few months later, Eliza was astounded to see her daughter casually lift the back end of their pick-up truck to retrieve a ball that had rolled out of reach.
As she entered puberty, Linda discovered that she could see farther and in increasingly greater detail than any of her friends and that she could see through solid objects if she concentrated and she also developed the ability to emit heat from her eyes. At the age of thirteen, Linda began wearing eyeglasses to help control her vision powers, so she didn't accidentally look somewhere she shouldn't or set something on fire. Even after having learned to control her supervision, she continues to wear the glasses as they make her feel normal, flawed...human.
Aware that their daughter is in possession of awesome powers, Jeremiah and Eliza have raised Linda in virtual isolation, prohibiting her from participating in any activity that might lead to her unintentionally displaying her abilities. As a result, Linda has the reputation of a gawky nerd, and is extremely self-conscious and full of trepidation about her place in the world. Because of her otherworldly origins, Linda often feels truly alone in the world, like an outsider looking in. Even her best friends Cat Grant - the intrepid investigative reporter for the Midvale High Torch - and straight-talking Kelly Olsen have long been in the dark about Linda's powers.
Also, Linda struggles with her feelings for Kelly's brother, Jimmy; the boy she worships from afar. Although he feels a strange kinship to Linda, Jimmy doesn't know much about her, especially that she blames herself for his and Kelly's parents' tragic death in the meteor shower so many years ago. The lead photographer for the Midvale High Torch and one of the most popular boys in school, Jimmy dates Midvale's resident high school girls volleyball star, all-around golden girl Eve Teschmacher. Linda's yearning to talk to Jimmy is complicated by the meteor rock that he carries with him almost everywhere. Whenever she gets near him, the green stone causes her to become literally weak in the knees.
Linda has also forged a remarkable new friendship with Lena Luthor. Right out of college, Lena has come to Midvale to help turn around her family company's struggling fertilizer plant. After Linda saved Lena's life in a death-defying rescue, the two became friends. Linda looks up to Lena as the big sister she never had, and Lena is surprised that this small-town girl is someone she can actually trust. But the friendship causes tension in the close-knit Danvers family, as Jeremiah and Eliza fear Lena may take after her ruthless tycoon father, Lionel Luthor.
Meanwhile, the intervening years since the meteor shower have left Midvale's inhabitants with scars and secrets; some even with unusual traits inherited as a direct result of exposure to the meteor rocks. From the ashes of the tragedy, Linda has grown into an awkward teenage girl. While adolescence always brings its challenges, her transition from childhood to adulthood is particularly difficult. Linda must struggle to come to grips with her emerging superpowers, and the effects of the meteor rocks, while battling the strange things that have plagued the idyllic inland California hamlet that is Midvale since the meteor shower.
Someday, she'll master her powers and understand her true calling. For now, Linda Lee Danvers just has to get through adolescence.
Height: 5'5"
Weight: 119
Hair: Blonde
Eyes: Blue
Powers: Linda Danvers has a host of extraordinary powers that include the ability to move at incredible speed, invulnerability to physical damage, extreme strength, control of her personal gravity field, x-ray vision and heat beam emission. They are all the result of the fact that Linda's Kryptonian subcellular structure and composition absorbs and metabolizes solar radiation, allowing her to use the absorbed solar energy to multiple effects in the form of the extraordinary powers.
The powerful radiation of Earth's yellow Sun enhance the strength and properties of the energy of her cellular-level bio-electric aura to a degree that it envelops her entire molecular structure and in turn augments her cellular and molecular binding forces while simultaneously functioning as a protective energetic force field on both a cellular and molecular level to microscopically deflect and repulse any form of matter or energy that could come close to perforating or disrupting any part of her cellular mass, making her completely invulnerable to any form of physical harm or damage.
The total structural invulnerability of both her soft tissue and her skeletal system together with the continual absorption of solar energy that provides a constant source of tremendous power in each of Linda's cells in place of a limited source of ordinary biochemical energies allows her musculature to apply force far beyond normal organic capability, enabling her to lift and hold objects that have mass more than a thousand times her own body's mass.
With her cells being permeated by the enhanced bio-electric aura and their binding forces being augmented, they are reinforced in such a way that they are not only protected from external harm, but internal forces as well and therefore operate at levels of metabolic capacity that would destroy the cells of any ordinary organism, which consequently enhances all of her bodily systems to a functional capacity that would be impossible for any ordinary organism. As a result, the enhanced structure of Linda's sensory organs combined with the increased capacity of her nervous system provides for greatly enhanced senses. Her enhanced reflexes, muscular speed, and nervous system grant her incredible mobility and rapid perceptions.
The combination of the augmented metabolic functions of Linda's nervous system with the excess solar energy streams that course along her entire cellular structure enables her to consciously manipulate certain aspects of her body's electromagnetic forces so that she is able to project raw energy from her body and because gravitational forces and electromagnetic forces are simply different manifestations of a single universal fundamental force of interaction, her manipulation of her body's electromagnetic forces give her the ability to manipulate her body's gravitational forces.
She is able to use the personal gravity field manipulation ability to generate a gravitational lens on the surfaces of her eyes to magnify her vision so that she can focus through atomic structures to literally see through solid matter. Linda has also shown a capacity to use her personal gravity field manipulation ability to levitate by negating any outside gravitational influences around her. However, she has yet to fully utilize the scope of this ability.
Weakness: The fatal flaw in Linda's cellular physiology is the unique radiation given off by the meteor rocks that arrived with her in Midvale. In the most minute amounts, the radiation waveforms and high-energy particles emitted by meteorites can react catastrophically with the very cellular functions that grant Linda her powers. The briefest contact can inhibit the effects of the bio-electric aura, stripping her of her incredible powers, and further begin a fatal poisoning that totally shuts down cellular activity in the affected areas. Prolonged exposure to the meteorites' radiation would eventually kill Linda. However, the rate of recovery once removed from the emissions is as rapid as the rate of damage, and she will be back to normal in under an hour after exposure in optimal conditions. The emissions of the meteorites can be blocked by lead and other super-dense materials.