Argo City

Argo City
Argo City as seen in Action Comics #252
Race(s)	Kryptonians
Notable characters	Supergirl
First appearance	Action Comics #252 (May 1959)
Publisher	DC Comics

Argo City is a fictional Kryptonian city in the DC Comics Universe, and the birthplace of Supergirl. Argo City was first seen in Action Comics #252 (May 1959).

Argo City was one of the largest cities on the planet Krypton (the others being Kandor and Kryptonopolis.) Warned of the impending destruction of the planet by his brother Jor-El, scientist Zor-El convinces the Argo City leaders to construct a dome force (a later version of the story in Action Comics #316 (September 1964) has the city saved by a weather dome that Zor-El had constructed) around the city's perimeter. The dome force allows the city to survive the destruction of Krypton, and provides oxygen and light for the inhabitants (in earlier stories, the air bubble is kept in place by unspecified means). The same chain reaction that turned the rest of Krypton into Kryptonite begins to affect the surface of Argo City; the surviving Kryptonians manage to line the surface with lead, protecting everyone from the deadly rays. Zor-El and his wife eventually have a daughter named Kara, the future Supergirl.

About thirty years after the destruction of Krypton a large meteor shower pierces the lead lining of Argo City, dooming its inhabitants to a slow death. In desperation, Zor-El sends Kara in a spaceship to Earth, where her cousin Kal-El (Superman) helps her become Supergirl. Zor-El and Alura manage to survive in the "Survival Zone", a similar parallel dimension to the Phantom Zone, but the other inhabitants of Argo City perish.

Recently Argo is shown to still be in-continuity. In issue #6 of Supergirl, Supergirl and Power Girl travel to the bottled city of Kandor. There Supergirl claims that the city of Argo still exists, and that she is searching for it as it is a piece of her home.

In Action Comics #869 it is revealed that before Krypton was destroyed, Zor-El and Alura used Brainiac's shield technology to create a dome over their home of Argo City protecting it for a short time after the explosion that destroyed Krypton. Soon afterwards, sensing his technology in use, Brainiac found the floating city in space and integrated it into Kandor and any "unnecessary" people in the city were killed. Superman finds the city on Brainiac's ship.