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Supergirl meets Batgirl for first time when the latter goes to National City. After exchanging greetings, Kara asks Barbara's help to solve a case: She's been getting long-distance telepathic messages from someone named Gayle who claims to be a Kryptonian kept prisoner in a Cadmus Black Site lab. Ba


Quote1 The Phantom Zone. A dimension beyond time. Cold, dark, empty... I was there once. I would forget it if I could. Quote2
Supergirl src

Escape from the Phantom Zone is a 2017 crossover storyline of Supergirl and Batgirl.

Synopsis

Supergirl meets Batgirl for first time when the latter goes to National City. After exchanging greetings, Kara asks Barbara's help to solve a case: She's been getting long-distance telepathic messages from someone named Gayle who claims to be a Kryptonian kept prisoner in a Cadmus Black Site lab. Barbara points out that "incarcerated psychic" is an old trick and Kara agrees, but she isn't willing to risk leaving one of her people in danger. She needs to break into that place, and she could use Batgirl's help to go into the lab stealthily and deal with Wayne Tech security.

Batgirl agrees to help Supergirl out to the latter's delight. A short while later, both girls sneak in the facility and make their way to the P-Wing. On the way to the lower levels they stumble on another prisoner (called Caleb) who attacks them, mistaking them with guards. After subduing him, Batgirl and Supergirl assure him that they'll get him out of that place.

Both heroines finally reach the Prisoner Wing and find Gayle. It turns out that Gayle isn't Kryptonian. Someone put in her head something called "the key to the Phantom Zone". Said "key" lets her speak Kryptonian and tells Supergirl can send Gayle where she needs go: the Phantom Zone. She needs Supergirl's power to get there.

Horrified, Kara tries to warn Gayle about the horrors of the Phantom Zone, but Gayle doesn't care. She argues the Zone can't be worse than a Cadmus lab, and there she'll find the one can "fix" her. She telekinetically holds the heroes still and touches Supergirl's emblem. Supergirl cries out in pain and Gayle vanishes.

Supergirl slumps over, feeling weakened and sick. Batgirl picks Supergirl up, and carrying her in arms, get them out of the lab unseen.

Later, Barbara and Kara are resting somewhere in the Mojave Desert. Kara is feeling a bit better but she is mortified because she couldn't help Gayle. Barbara nods at Caleb, who is sleeping nearby, and reminds Kara that she has helped someone, even if it wasn't who Supergirl expected.

Batgirl also states she has the feeling that story isn't over. Supergirl asks if she can call her in the future, and Barbara tells she already hacked Kara's phone and put her number in it.

Several days later, TychoTech is holding a press conference to unveil a new clean energy engine. Said engine has been built using dangerous Kryptonian technology TychoTech has stolen from the D.E.O., Supergirl has to attend that event to make sure that people is safe.

Barbara Gordon has arrived in National City again to attend TychoTech's exposition. She runs into Ben Rubel by chance. At the same time, Kara Danvers leaves her school, changes clothes and flies to the Expo. There she meets Barbara and Ben. Barbara introduces herself and says she is not sure of having ever met Supergirl. Supergirl stares at Barbara for several seconds and hints she has guessed her secret identity.

However Supergirl has to go because the unveiling is about to begin. TychoTech C.E.O. Katarina Bissel, unveils the Tycho Eidolon, a device which generates Phantom Energy, the same thing that powered Kryptonian rockets.

Suddenly someone throws a spear at Supergirl. Supergirl catches the weapon, but the tip pokes the Eidolon. The device activates and generates a vortex that proceeds to pull people in. Supergirl manages to save several spectators, but Ben Rubel falls into the vortex. Then Magog turns up, declaring he will kill Supergirl while she is still young. Meanwhile, Barbara puts on her costume.

Supergirl and Magog battle as Batgirl makes sure that no more people gets pulled in the portal. Magog blames Supergirl for the future destruction of his family, shouting that her "Hope, Help and Compassion for all" motto will mean the end of his bloodline. This is the second time in few days Supergirl is attacked by a stranger and blamed for things she has not done. Since Magog refuses to explain himself, she decks him.

Supergirl sees Batgirl getting sucked in the portal. Kara gets the Burnside's hero and notices the rupture is closing. Which is unfortunate because Ben fell into the vortex, and since the Eidolon siphons phantom energy, he could be trapped in the Phantom Zone. Batgirl leaps into the vortex. Just then Cameron Chase comes along, accompanied by a D.E.O. response team. She tries to talk Supergirl out of going after Batgirl, but Supergirl flies into the portal.

Director Chase turns to Magog, intending to get him arrested, but Magog warns the Fatal Five will destroy Supergirl and all of her allies before teleporting away.

In the meantime, Supergirl, Batgirl and Ben Rubel find themselves into a dark, chilly, bizarre dimension. Supergirl explains that place is the Phantom Zone, the pocket dimension where the worst Kryptonian criminals were banished to.

Far from there, in a little citadel called Aethyropolis, Xa-Du, the Phantom King, observes the trio and recognizes Supergirl's family crest. Xa-Du plans to escape from the Zone by breaking the "Aethyr Switch" open. To that end he powers his ecto-armor with the souls of Kryptonian criminals. Still their cells' residual solar charge is not strong enough to fully power his armor up. But a fully empowered Kryptonian from the House of El should recharge his armor to the max.

Meanwhile, Supergirl, Batgirl and Ben can hardly see or feel anything and Kara feels her powers fading. Then a strange floating ship turns up, and a man going by captain Jiln-Ka descends, claiming he'd like to take them the city of Aethyropolis. Neither Supergirl nor Batgirl trust him, but they need to be on solid ground. The trio boards the ship.

Their mistrusts proves to be justified when "Jiln-Ka" confesses his real name is Doctor Xa-Du, and he has an use for them. Xa-Du's men surround the trio, and they're taken to Aethyropolis and dumped into a cell.

Supergirl explains her friends that Xa-Du was the first Phantom Zone inmate, a real mad scientist who plans to boil them alive and use their souls as a fuel for his armor. Kara knows they have to stop him but she doesn't know how to. Barbara encourages her friend, reminding her she may be out of power but she still has her brains and her experience.

Thanks to her eidetic memory, Batgirl noticed Xa-Du said something she'd heard before. Gayle Marsh, Psi, the girl they tried to break out of a Cadmus black site, used the same phrase. Both girls deduce that Xa-Du was the person Gayle thought would fix her brain. Since Psi came under her own power, she might be their way out. A risky guess, but it's their best bet so far. Batgirl comes up with a plan to break them out.

In the meantime, Xa-Du oversees his prisoners. Psi -whom he calls the "Aethyr Switch"- wrapped herself in a psychic cocoon as soon as she arrived at the Zone, but Xa-Du is confident that Supergirl's power will let him break her psionic shell. And then she'll have to choose between opening a rupture into the real world or dying. He orders his minions to prepare the rendering vat for Kara Zor-El.

Several servants drag Supergirl, Batgirl and Ben out of their cell. In the way out, Batgirl reveals she unlocked their shackles. Both heroines make short work of the guards and then Supergirl heards a plea for help of Psi.

Kara and Babs make their way to Xa-Du's private chambers, beating down of all Xa-Du's minions, and find Psi. Supergirl manages to get Psi wake up. Unfortunately, Xa-Du finds them, too, and he poisons Supergirl. Xa-Du gets mad, transforms into a dragon, and brings down her kidnapper's palace.

Batgirl judges Psi is blind with rage. Supergirl realizes Psi's panicking and she needs to reach her, even though she's weak and poisoned. Batgirl tries to talk her out of it, but to her and Ben's horror, Supergirl dives into the psionic dragon's open mouth.

Supergirl finds find Psi and tries to reach the maddened and hurt girl out. Still Psi, who had previously begged Supergirl to help her, is now wondering why she should trust the Girl of Steel.

Project Cadmus claimed they could stop the pain her telepathy causes her, but they put Kryptonian tech in her brain (which siphons Phantom energy and gives her the ability to control the Phantom Zone, change the place and open doorways between it and the real world) Xa-Du said he could help her if she got in the Zone, but he attacked her and attempted to use her powers to escape from his dimensional prison. Supergirl claims she wants to help her; still, she helped her get in the Zone. So, why should she believe her?

Meanwhile, Batgirl and Ben are waiting outside. Batgirl wants to believe her friend will stop Psi, but she knows she needs to be ready, just in case. Right then, they're spotted by Xa-Du and his remaining men, who survived Psi bringing his city down around him by boarding his Phantom Cruiser ship.

Batgirl and Ben are attacked by the Phantom Zoners. Xa-Du blames Batgirl for protecting Supergirl so he fights her personally. Batgirl isn't frightened at all, though. She knows Xa-Du and his goons are almost powerless in the Zone. And she has faced "clowns" like him before. She disables his men with a flash grenade and fights him off.

Inside the psionic dragon, Supergirl tries to talk Psi out of killing Xa-Du and his thugs. Psi senses their evil thoughts and emotions the whole time and is sick of it and them. She only wants to punish them. Kara insists that Psi should be better than her torturers. She tells Psi to read her thoughts. She struggles each day to look for reasons to be merciful to her enemies... but she finds them.

Batgirl goes on fighting Xa-Du, and baits him into confessing he never had any intention to free the other Phantom Zoners, and he doesn't even regard them as people. Only materials. Betrayed and angry, the Phantom Zoners move in on him. Right then Supergirl and Psi arrive. Psi demolishes the rock everyone is standing on.

Xa-Du and his men drift away. The Phantom King threatens to find a way back their world and open them up across the whole planet. The three heroes and Ben aren't listening to him, though. Psi was being driven crazy by the inmates' thoughts, but now she can think clearly thanks to Supergirl. Yet she feels she can't leave the Phantom Zone until she's fixed the place. She thanks the Girl of Steel by saving her twice and sends them home.

Later in National City, Supergirl and Batgirl are resting. Her joint adventure has strengthened their friendship. Kara thinks Barbara is an awesome hero because she dove into the Zone without a second thought. Barbara retorts Supergirl dove into a psychic storm dragons' mouth. Amused, Kara reminds her that it isn't a contest, words Batgirl herself told her no long ago.

Supergirl questions aloud how TychoTech got DEO's Phantom technology. She knows someone is leaking information. Batgirl states she'll help Supergirl whenever her friend needs her.

Issues


Trivia

Recommended Reading

Links and References


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