Red Kryptonite in the Earth-One universe originated when Green Kryptonite passed through a scarlet colored cosmic cloud, altering its chemical composition. It had random effects which temporarily transform Kryptonians exposed to it into a variety of states for 48 hours. Such was the case when Kara Zor-El aka Supergirl, upon contracting Red Kryptonite radiation, split into two distinct women with separate identities.
Although there was Red Kryptonite in the Earth-Two universe, it didn’t have the same effect on that reality’s Superman and his cousin Power Girl. However, another remnant of her Krypton had the effect of splitting her in two. While her counterpart split into two physical bodies, the effects of the Symbioship which carried her from her home world to Earth-Two instead extended her lifespan by decades! Still, she two ended up with two different psyches, one inside her spacecraft and one outside it. This would cause long-lasting effects, evident years later when she joins humanity!
Despite appearances to the contrary, Satan Girl was alive and well as Nightflame, back in the 20th century where she was shunted to the pocket dimension of the Innerverse. As it started to collapse, Nightflame sought to steal the life of the woman she was cloned from, and nearly defeated Supergirl. Yet during their battle, the heroine gained the upper hand and seemingly doomed her evil doppelgänger.
The woman formerly known as Satan Girl and Nightflame soon after her disappearance materialized on Earth-One. Seeking to atone for her problematic past, she redesigned her first costume into the one she’d ware as the Black Orchid. Using her Kryptonian powers, although she herself was born on Earth, she would use the acting skills she learned from her template… the original Supergirl aka Linda Danvers… to assume various identities such as Paula Porter and Matilda Moocock*. She would devise different origin tales for how she began her costumed career, no doubt to cover over the shame from her past. Through all this, she would be driven and determined to expose and eliminate evil from across Earth-One. She even inspired a young woman named Ronne Kuhn who joined in her into captured a criminal cartel of fake Black Orchids. Equpped with state of the art technology to replica the original’s superpowers mechanically, Ronne was encouraged to become the second Black Orchid!
While Kara Zor-L was slumbering as her second persona aboard the Symbioship, which still has a couple decades before it would enter Earth-Two’s solar system, another young woman filled the void. This female professional wrestler, Daffy Dill, possessed superhuman strength and endurance along with a temperament to match Power Girl herself, and had dozens of adventures in the mid-1940s!**
* Black Orchid was such an expert in the art of disguise and deception, that she fooled fellow heroes Phantom Stranger and Madame Xanadu into believing she had alternate origins as different women. This protected her sacred secret, that she was initially Kara Zor-El until that Supergirl was split into two!
** Ipsea speciosa, the daffodil )Daffy Dill) orchid, is a rare wild orchid found in the hills of Sri Lanka and southern India.
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