Why The Arrowverse Is Wasting Its Best New Villain Twist

The Arrowverse is wasting its best new villain twist in Supergirl. The titular superhero is currently stuck in the Phantom Zone after being sent there by Lex Luthor in the season 6 premiere. Kara Danvers has had a rough time of it battling the phantoms and struggling to find a way out. She thought she’d made a friend in Nyxlygsptlnz (aka, Nyxly), a fifth-dimensional Imp who was nearly killed by her ruthless father and imprisoned in the Phantom Zone. However, Supergirl may have thrown away all the potential for the show’s next big bad. 

The Super Friends are hard at work trying to get Kara out of the Phantom Zone. However, that’s easier said than done and it’s proving to be a challenge on multiple levels — namely, those pesky phantoms escaped and were wreaking havoc on National City. In the space prison itself, Nyxly used her magic to bring herself, Supergirl, and Zor-El to the location of the Phantom Zone exit. But Nyxly turned on Kara, dropping the friendly, haunted-by-her-past act to reveal ulterior motives. She even went so far as to knock out Zor-El while attempting to make Supergirl see how her dad was holding her back, just like Nyxly’s own father did years prior. However, just as Nyxly was being set up as an exciting villain for Supergirl season 6, she dies in the explosion that results from Kara smashing the mirror portal to Earth. 

To be sure, Nyxly revealing herself as an antagonist was a great twist, but killing her immediately following her confession is disappointing. Supergirl season 6 has so far established only the phantoms as villains the Super Friends must defeat. With Lex Luthor on the backburner and Leviathan destroyed, Nyxly was primed to take over as the season-long villain. Her brief friendship with Kara would have made her the perfect big bad, too, since it’s been a long time that the superhero series has brought on a foe with a more personal connection to Supergirl. With Nyxly seemingly dying immediately after confirming her true nature, it makes the twist somewhat irrelevant because it removes all of the tension that’s been building up since her introduction.  

Conversely, it’s possible Nyxly is still alive somehow. If so, she could see Kara facilitating the explosion and destroying the only known way out of the Phantom Zone as the ultimate betrayal, thus making Nyxly even more of an angry nemesis later on. There’s also a chance the Imp’s magic saved her from dying — that is, if she was actually lying about her magic not working right before. In a short time, Nyxly has already proven herself to be a master manipulator, as well as resourceful, so here’s hoping Supergirl didn’t permanently remove the best candidate for the season 6 villain. There’s only so much of Lex’s scheming one can take before it starts to get old.

If Nyxly really is gone, then the effort put in to introducing her and revealing her backstory to Kara would have all been for naught. Killing off Nyxly at this point in Supergirl season 6 is ill-advised and would be a complete waste of character development and storytelling. There has to be a reason for it that will be revealed soon. As it stands now, however, Supergirl truly took a strange turn by making it seem like Nyxly died mere moments after her villainous twist. 

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Mae Abdulbaki
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Mae Abdulbaki is a movie reviews editor with Screen Rant. She previously wrote about a variety of movies and TV shows for Inverse, CinemaBlend, Pajiba, and The Young Folks, where she wrote reviews, features, news pieces. Her other work can be found at The Mary Sue, Film School Rejects, UPROXX, Heroic Hollywood, Looper, The List, and Bam Smack Pow, among others. Mae has also appeared on television segments, podcasts, and panels to discuss all things entertainment.

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