SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t seen the most recent episode of ‘Supergirl’, entitled “Bunker Hill” and want to avoid SPOILERS, you may want to turn back now.
The most recent episode of ‘Supergirl’, “Bunker Hill” revealed the secret origin of Nia Nal (played by Nicole Maines), teased her connection to the comics and set her on the path to eventually become the superhero Dreamer. In the episode, Nia has been falling asleep at work constantly, despite drinking gallons of coffee. It is revealed that she has also asked her roommate to keep her from falling asleep. It turns out, she has been tormented by incredibly vivid precognitive dreams.
She reveals to Kara and Brainy that she is not human, but that she comes from a planet called Naltor. In addition to that, in her family, every so often, females are born with the power to dream the future. Brainy is familiar and at one point, accidentally refers to her as “Nura.”
The character Nia Nal was created for TV but is based on the comic book hero Nura Nal, alias Dream Girl from the Legion of Superheroes, the same team that Brainiac-5, Mon-El, and Saturn Girl are members of in the future.
While it has always been pretty obvious, this confirms that Nia is an ancestor of Nura, a person that Brainy obviously knows from his native time period. Of course, Nura goes by the name Dream Girl. However, in an early 1990s storyline, the remains of the Legion of Superheroes, now battle-hardened adults, discover “Batch SW6” which turns out to be teenage versions of the Legion, basically the team as it existed in the 1960s. Long story short, that version of Dream Girl (left) adopted the name Dreamer, so that’s the source of that name.
Maines will not only adopt the name Dreamer but will even get a super suit. Will it be a skimpy bathing suit, like those worn by the various Dream Girls and Dreamers in the comics? Probably not, but Maines is thoroughly excited for fans to eventually see it. As she stated previously:
“I’m so excited. I’m trying to conduct myself on set in a professional manner and be like ‘I’m not completely obsessed with the super-suit,’ but it’s all I think about. Every morning I wake up, ‘I’m getting a super suit!’ I’m going to sleep, ‘I’m getting a super-suit!’ I’m really, really excited. It’s gonna be gorgeous! I have the best super-suit. I do.”
Hannah James and Kate Burton recently signed on to portray Nia’s older sister Maeve and their mother Isabel, respectively. Perhaps they can shed a little more light on things for Nia.
“Bunker Hill” ended with a teaser for the upcoming ‘Elseworlds’ crossover event, which occurs on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights next week. After that, ‘Supergirl’ and the other CW shows will be going on winter hiatus to return early next year.
Source: ComicBook.com
