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‘Smallville’ Supergirl Laura Vandervoort Joining CBS ‘Supergirl’ Melissa Benoist

By Stephen Jordan

From the archive: published Jan 11, 2016, 10 years ago. Details may have changed since.

Supergirl recently returned to television from its mid-season winter break, and casting news regarding the upcoming episodes continues to roll in. The DC Comics superhero show will be adding former Smallville actress Laura Vandervoort, who played Kara Danvers, a.k.a. Supergirl, on the prequel-Superman show. The Canadian actress will portray the DC Comics villain named Indigo.

According to Entertainment Weekly, Indigo used to be a super heroine, but has now become a powerful supercomputer that was sentenced to Fort Rozz following her betrayal of the people of Krypton and her homeland. Once she hits Earth, she’s going to continue to wreak havoc.

Actress Laura Vandervoort on January 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, California.
This form of meta-casting is nothing new for the producers of CBS’ Supergirl, who are also producing the comic book television shows The Flashand Arrowfor The CW. Helen Slater has appeared in the Supergirlcast in at least two episodes as Kara and Alex’s mother, and all three Supergirls will unite in an episode later this season. In addition, John Wesley Shipp was cast in The Flashas Henry Allen, Barry’s father. Shipp played Barry Allen/The Flash in the 1990 show The Flash, which only lasted one season.

Supergirl is also going to feature Young and the Restless actor Jeff Branson, as recurring character Master Jailer. He is the relentlessly evil jail guard from Fort Rozz. Now that he is on Earth, he has made it his mission to track down and capture all of the Fort Rozz escapees, bringing them to justice in his own brutal fashion. “One word: Chains,” says Supergirl executive producer Andrew Kreisberg. Branson will make his debut as the character in Episode 14.

The superhero show debuted with extremely high overnight ratings, 13 million total viewers with a 3.2 rating in the 18-49 age demographic. CBS’ Supergirl was one of the first shows of the fall 2015 season to get picked up for a full, 20 episode season run.

“That was a big—that was a really, really crazy feeling. It felt like anything else, it felt like just putting on tights and a leotard and then when I saw myself in the mirror—it’s almost like a physical, internal change,” Melissa Benoist told E! News , excitedly, after putting on the Supergirl costume for the first time. “I feel like a different person, I really do.”

Actress Melissa Benoist on August 10, 2015 in West Hollywood, California.
Melissa Benoist commented on the character herself, stating that the show is really about Kara/Supergirl simply trying to do good in the world.

“A relationship isn’t the main focus, and I don’t think it should be. Certainly, Kara’s juggling a lot of things in her life. That’s what makes her so relatable, that her life is so complicated and there are many facets to it. What this show is really about and what’s important about it is how much good she’s trying to spread and the power of her positivity and what she was sent to Earth to do and living up to that.”

As if that wasn’t enough, one of this season’s upcoming episodes is going to be inspired by Alan Moore’s classic Superman story “For the Man Who Has Everything.” The story featured Batman, Robin and Wonder Woman visiting the Fortress of Solitude with gifts on Superman’s birthday, and they find the Man of Steel in a vegetative state with a large alien plant stuck on his chest. It is later revealed that the plant has placed Superman into a coma.

In the CBS Supergirl version of the story, Kara finds herself back on her original home planet of Krypton, not knowing how she got there or why she is there. It seems to be an incredible time to be a comic book geek with superhero television shows now pulling famous stories from the comics and bringing them to life.

Supergirl airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.

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