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In season 1 episode 14 Truth, Justice, and the American Way, Supergirl fights the Master Jailer. She says the line "I thought masks were only big in that other city?"

We know that the Supergirl show doesn't exist in the same dimension (Earth-1) as the Arrowverse, nor the Man of Steel-verse. So what city is she referencing?

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  • Ah, isn’t it in the Arrowverse? There was that crossover with The Flash, which I though explicitly established it as being in the Arrowverse.
    – Adamant
    Commented Sep 14, 2016 at 3:14
  • @Adamant: As of season 1, nope. It's not part of the Arrowverse.
    – PiousVenom
    Commented Sep 14, 2016 at 3:14
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    @Adamant: No. As of season 1, it is not. Season 2, it should be. Flash showed up in Supergirl cause he ran so fast and crossed dimensions.
    – PiousVenom
    Commented Sep 14, 2016 at 3:16
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    Yes. I did. It was a different universe.
    – PiousVenom
    Commented Sep 14, 2016 at 3:17
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    @Adamant I guess you could argue that Flash and Supergirl are in the same "tv reality" because a character from one show crossed over to the other show, but those characters are in different universes within that tv reality They specifically say that Barry Allen and Green Arrow don't exist in Supergirl's universe. Barry Allen crossed into Supergirl's universe through speedforce magic. Commented Sep 14, 2016 at 16:37

2 Answers 2

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Probably Gotham

It’s got to be one of the major cities from that show, other DC shows, or the comics. There are a few possibilities:

  • It’s not likely to be Central City, home of the Flash’s exploits on The Flash. When the Flash crossed over to Kara’s universe in “World’s Finest,” several episodes later, he noted the absence of most of what he remembered from that city in his world:

    THE FLASH: You guys have Central City but you don’t have S.T.A.R. Labs. No Cisco Ramon, no Harrison Wells, no Caitlin Snow. Nobody who’s gonna be able to help me get back home.

    Without the Flash and metahumans, a reference to Central City would not make much sense.

  • It’s not likely to be Star City, for similar reasons.

  • It’s probably not Metropolis, which has been mentioned on the show before a few times. There would be no need to equivocate and say “that city.” Further, Metropolis is Superman’s city, and most of his rogues’ gallery (Brainiac, Lex Luthor, Doomsday, Darkseid) do not wear masks, much as Superman himself does not.

On the other hand, it would make a lot of sense for Supergirl to be talking about Gotham.

  1. Most of Batman’s enemies (Joker, Poison Ivy, Riddler) do not wear masks. However, many of the heroes wear masks. Gotham’s primary superhero is Batman, who wears a mask. Robin wears a mask. Batgirl wears a mask. Batwoman wears a mask. Pretty much all the heroes wear masks.
  2. They might want to leave open the option of bringing in Gotham, while still not committing to anything by mentioning its name. If the episode had mentioned Gotham by name, there would have been a whole lot of expectations, such as a crossover episode in the near future.
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It's not clear which city she is mentioning, but it's presumably Gotham or Star City.

Pretty much all of the DC shows airing alongside Supergirl make stealth references to other DC properties that they can't normally talk about (e.g. Legends of Tomorrow had Rip Hunter say that he'd seen "Men of Steel die and Dark Knights fall"). This is in a similar vein.

Argument for Star City

Greg Berlanti and Andrew Kreisberg are showrunners for both Arrow and Supergirl (with Kreisberg also being showrunner for The Flash). Because there is contradicting evidence (see below) it could have just been a reference made to those shows before it was decided to have a crossover with Flash and establish that it was in a different universe.

However… four episodes later, there was a crossover with the Flash, which established that Supergirl was not in the Arrowverse at the time (now that the show has moved to The CW, it is in the Arrowverse and will have crossovers with those shows). Since Supergirl didn't know any of the names of superheroes that Barry mentioned (including Green Arrow), that makes it less likely that on her Earth, there is an equivalent to Green Arrow and the other masked vigilantes.

So it's only Star City if the reference was written into the script before it was decided to make the Arrowverse an alternate universe (which sounds like a possibility).

Argument for Gotham

The fact that they have to indirectly talk about the city makes sense for Gotham, since it's currently tied up with the movies. But it would be strange if it were some other city that they can talk about (e.g. Coast City, which they have mentioned by name).

Gotham is another DC city where there are lots of masked characters (i.e. Batman, Robin, and the majority of his rogue's gallery). It's also currently featured in the show Gotham, which is currently airing right now. No other city in the DC universe have a high number of DC heroes or villains who wear masks, so it's the most likely candidate.

However… Arrow also has similar reference in its shown. Oliver says that Felcity's codename should be "Overwatch" because "Oracle had already been taken." This is in reference to Barbara Gordon (a former Batgirl). The first episode of The Flash also had a reference to Wayne Industries on a newspaper from the future. It seems strange that two parallel universes both have Gothams in it, unless it was just a stealth joke intended before it was established that Supergirl was in its own universe.

In the end though, it seems to be there for a quick gag, and shouldn't be taken seriously

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  • I'm almost certain in the Flash crossover, Supergirl stated she didn't know anything about Green Arrow, Flash, or even Star City. I thought maybe Gotham, but I'm confused why they'd be prevented from saying the name of the city.
    – PiousVenom
    Commented Sep 14, 2016 at 3:29
  • @MyCodeSucks You're correct, Barry asked about Green Arrow and she didn't know him. I still think it's possible that it's Star City, but there is probably more evidence towards Gotham. As for why; apparently the shows aren't allowed to talk about things that are happening in the movies, with Flash being the exception. Arrow even had the Suicide Squad, but killed them all off in time for the movie. Commented Sep 14, 2016 at 3:46
  • So, can we expect Dark Knight in Arrowverse? We don't know. As for the Gotham show, we are not even exactly sure which timeline the show is in. So, it would be somewhat uncertain whether Kara was suggesting to Dark Knight or any of his associates. However, such sort of dialogues are always vague and ambiguous.
    – user54646
    Commented Sep 14, 2016 at 4:04

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