Arrowverse season. Over the years, Supergirl has faced a wide variety of adversaries, including the Dominators, the Daxamites, and Fort Rozz’s alien inmates; metahumans like Live Wire, Parasite, and Silver Banshee; and human villains such as Roulette, Toyman, Agent Liberty, and Lex Luthor. Still, the foes who have tested her the most share a common power: magic.
Reports of a recent casting call have emerged for a new main villain for Supergirl’s final season, described as a “powerful alien witch” named “Rosemary” who is plotting to enact revenge against Supergirl and those closest to her. With “Rosemary” likely a stand-in name, the character could turn out to be Amparo Cardenas aka La Dama, who in one comic iteration killed half of the Justice League in the future only to be thwarted by Supergirl. She could also turn out to be the Emerald Empress who in some comic stories is the evil leader of the Fatal Five, or even the witch Selena, an occasional Fatal Five member. All these women have strong ties to mystical or magical powers which could spell serious trouble for Supergirl.
The CW version of Supergirl often has difficulty dealing with magic. While Kryptonite may be her greatest weakness, magic can be equally as dangerous and damaging to her. When faced with foes like Music Meister and Mr. Mxyzptlk, she found herself literally powerless against their spells. Then, one of her greatest and most deadly challenges came when she faced Reign, the powerful creation of the Kryptonian witches of Juru (practitioners of dark magic) who had come to terraform Earth.
In both comics and in film, Supergirl has had some of her fiercest battles with magical foes. The 1970’s feature film Supergirl, starring Helen Slater, (the CW Supergirl’s Eliza Danvers) had Supergirl facing the witch Selena who for a brief time managed to imprison her in the Phantom Zone. On television, during her first encounter with the fifth-dimensional imp, Mr. Mxyzptlk, Supergirl quickly learned her superpowers could not defeat him. She relied on her intelligence and stealth to lure him to the Fortress of Solitude and send him back to his dimension by tricking him into saying his name backward. Similarly, Supergirl found herself rendered totally powerless when Music Meister put her and Barry, “The Flash,” Allen, under spells and into comas trapping them in a musical dream world. To escape they had to follow the script of the musical which required their respective true loves, Mon-El and Iris, to save them from dying.
Kryptonian villain Reign and her creators, the witches of Juru, proved to be foes with far darker methods. A severely injured Supergirl was put in a futuristic stasis chamber to heal after her first battle with Reign. She was later weakened and left essentially powerless when Reign and the witches’ other creations Pestilence and Purity conjured a solar eclipse that threatened to plunge the Earth into a frozen darkness. Only teamwork from Supergirl’s friends, her mother, Alura, and the return of Mon-El and the Legion of Superheroes from the future made defeating them possible. Even then, it was a piece of the Harun El and waters from the valley of Juru, rather than any superpower, that led to victory.
The story in Supergirl season 6 will need to see the titular hero defeat Lex Luthor and the demi-god beings of Leviathan he captured. Luthor plans to use Leviathan’s magical god-like powers for his own purposes, and who knows what other magical threats his interference could summon or release. If rumors are to be believed, this alien witch could be the most powerful magical being to enter the Arrowverse yet and will be Supergirl’s last and most deadly foe.