For her human personality, see Julia Freeman.

"I am the scalding light. I am the flood that sweeps away sins. I am the word and cry of justice. I am Purity."

—Purity to Supergirl^[src]

Purity (1979-2018) was a Kryptonian Worldkiller.

Along with Reign and Pestilence, Purity was sent to Earth upon Krypton's destruction and was raised under the name "Julia Freeman". After many years in dormancy, Julia's powers began to manifest and this also "awakened" her alter-ego. This put her into conflict with Supergirl and the D.E.O., until eventually being recruited by Reign into her cause.

Biography

Creation and living on Earth

Purity was a genetically engineered Worldkiller created on Krypton by the Children of Juru, an ancient sect of Kryptonians who worshipped the Old Gods, including Yuda Kal. Purity and her sisters, Reign and Pestilence, were designed after centuries of research to cleanse the planet of sin in preparation for its rebirth and deliverance.^[1]

On 1979, the day of Krypton's destruction, a newly-created Purity was sent to Earth to grow strong and awaken once Reign was ready.^[2] Her pod presumably landed on Earth around 1989, the same time as Reign.^[3]

Purity's human half became known as Julia Freeman. Purity presumably remained dormant within Julia for many years.

Emergence and facing Supergirl

In January 2018 after Julia was crushed by a car whilst saving her friend, Purity began to manifest, saving Julia's life.^[4]

Several weeks later after Supergirl and the D.E.O. tracked down Julia, Alex Danvers frightened the latter whilst trying to capture her. Julia's terror of the situation triggered Purity, causing her to fully emerge and forcefully take control of her host. Purity unleashed a sonic cry, pushing back the D.E.O. agents. Supergirl used her freeze breath to trap the Worldkiller's cries, allowing J'onn J'onzz to place her in power-dampening cuffs. Purity was incarcerated at the D.E.O. headquarters.

While in holding, Supergirl tried to reach Julia but Purity adamantly stated that wasn't her name, introducing herself as the flood to cleanse sin and light to bring justice. Supergirl insisted on calling her Julia, but Purity simply scoffed at her fellow Kryptonian, claiming the latter didn't understand the scope of her power, unlike Alex. Alex warned Purity that she wasn't smarter or stronger than the former, vowing to force out the Worldkiller's secrets whether it took days, weeks, or months in this cell. Supergirl urged Julia to show herself while Alex demanded to know where Reign was. Amused, Purity simply mocked the duo over their conflicting tactics.

In her efforts to get through to Julia, Supergirl read her background file out loud to Purity. Purity was unmoved and brushed aside Julia as a role she needed to play, citing that "masks" were necessary until it was time for her and her sisters to enact their agenda. The Worldkiller claimed Julia Freeman never existed and it was just "little ol' [her]". When Supergirl brought out a photo of Julia's best friend, Vanita Ripson, Purity deemed her as "clingy". However, feeling her human host trying to fight back, she briefly struggled before regaining her composure. Purity gloated to Supergirl that she didn't care for humans, sadistically voicing her desire to rip apart the superheroine's bones and organs, much to Alex's fury. Purity then vowed to eat Alex's heart as a sacrifice and the D.E.O. agent, in turn, threatened to have the Worldkiller dissected. Supergirl broke up their match and led Alex away as Purity sinisterly smirked.

Shortly after, Alex returned and demanded again to know where Reign was, stating they already possessed Purity's crystal. Using her powers of empathy and clairvoyance, Purity threw Alex's words back at her, stating the agent wasn't smarter or stronger than her because she could see through the latter's facade. Purity deduced that Alex was trying to project her rage, fear, and helplessness regarding her failure to defeat Reign onto the former. The Worldkiller then prodded into Alex's heartache over breaking up with Maggie Sawyer, claiming that Alex threw away her chance at happiness and lost an essential part of herself, deriding the agent as a "broken little doll". Purity callously laughed in amusement as a shaken Alex stormed off, angering Supergirl.

In the midst of a standoff with the Girl of Steel, Purity warned Supergirl in Kryptonese that the Worldkillers would slaughter the human race to make way for "the new world". Supergirl then condemned her in the name of Rao. Just then, Purity's crystal activated and shorted out the D.E.O. facility's power. Purity escaped her cell and incapacitated Supergirl with a scream. Growing stronger, the Worldkiller began to control the sonic vibrations around her as she screamed at some D.E.O. agents. After retrieving her crystal, Purity escaped the facility.

Purity traveled in a subway train as she followed the signal of her guiding beacon to meet up with Reign. Upon sensing the arrival of Supergirl, the Worldkiller attempted to disorient the superheroine with sonic vibrations, only to find that her adversary had planned ahead by wearing special earbuds. Supergirl pushed Purity outside into the subway tunnels, where she was cornered by Alex, J'onn, and Mon-El, all of whom were also protected from the Worldkiller's sonic powers, much to her shock. As they closed in on her, Purity quickly screamed into the ground, pushing herself and her opponents onto the lower floor. She then used her screams to dismantle the subway's infrastructure, forcing Alex, J'onn, and Mon-El to protect the nearby civilians. 

Supergirl and Purity battled, with the Worldkiller quickly gaining the upper hand by trapping the Girl of Steel into a headlock and breaking both of her legs. Purity then tried to kill Supergirl by snapping her neck, quickly defeating Mon-El when he attempted to intervene. As she prepared to finish off the superheroine, Purity menacingly revealed that Julia could sense her other half's actions and decided to make her watch Supergirl's demise. Supergirl pleaded with Julia to fight this, causing her to briefly surface. Purity regained control but with Alex's encouragement, Julia overpowered her Worldkiller half, suppressing the Dark Kryptonian once more.

After Julia was captured and brought to the Fortress of Sanctuary, Selena's hologram worked to help Purity completely manifest, despite Julia's resistance.^[5]

The trinity

A few weeks later, Purity began taking complete control of Julia as the trinity of Worldkillers awakened. Searching for her sisters, Purity sensed that Pestilence was dying and rushed to save her with their Worldkiller link. Purity used her sonic scream to incapacitate Supergirl, Mon-El, and Imra Ardeen before flying off with Pestilence, overjoyed to meet her sister.

Later, Purity and Pestilence burst into a secret L-Corp lab to retrieve their leader, Reign. Purity used a sonic cry to push back Supergirl, Mon-El, Imra, J'onn, and Lena Luthor while Pestilence freed Reign from her medical cell. With the three Worldkillers finally together, they released a powerful energy blast, paralyzing their opponents, before escaping to begin their plans for Earth.^[6]

Death

After the team found the Fortress of Sanctuary, a battle ensued between everyone and the Worldkillers. In the process, Julia and Pestilence killed each other. After her death, her and Pestilence's powers were absorbed by Reign who escaped before the fortress collapsed.

Personality

"The three will walk across the land and the blood of the weak will water the new world."

—Purity's warning to Supergirl^[src]

As Purity, Julia was cold, cruel, sadistic, ruthless and aggressive, she was unfazed by Alex Danvers' threatens of being incarcerated for months, as she saw right through the latter's arrogant and tough demeanor (mainly due to her empathic powers) she also mocked Alex by stating that "you want me weak, because you weak, you had your chance of happiness, but through it all away, and now you're just a broken little doll", referring to a breakup with Maggie Sawyer; which is not entirely untrue.

Powers and abilities

Powers

• Dark magic-empowered Kryptonian physiology: Purity's physiology was altered due to genetic experiments and dark magic from the Kryptonian Witches. Normally, Purity's capacities were no greater than a normal human of her host, Julia Freeman's, physical conditioning, However, once charged by the energy of a yellow sun and metabolized into her body, she becomes able to perform a variety of otherworldly feats. Due to the Worldkillers' dark magic enhancements, Purity's powers were naturally greater than any normal solar-powered Kryptonian. It was said that she and the other Worldkillers were born from Rao's fire. It's presumed that Purity was just as powerful, if not more, than Superman since she had been on Earth for at least 28 years. With her augmented, much more potent powers, Purity was one of the most powerful beings in the entire multiverse.
  • Superhuman sonic scream: Like Silver Banshee, Purity can vocally emit a focused, high-frequency sonic scream that was powerful enough to knock a fully grown Kryptonain many feet away into a wall. She was also able to instantly knock Supergirl unconscious with her scream. Winn Schott's studies confirmed that Purity emitted a specific sound frequency intended to be particularly harmful to (presumably normal) Kryptonians. That said, the Dark Kryptonian's screams were just as effective against Daxamites, seeing how Mon-El himself reacted after he became recipient to Purity's augmented vocal outburst in Julia's home. Purity's scream can also be used as a force projectile, as she was able to break down an entire subway station just by screaming at it.^[5] If properly channeled, Purity's screams can be fatal to even her fellow Worldkillers, as demonstrated when Julia used a sonic cry to take out Pestilence at close range.^[7]
    • Sonic inducement/Sound projection: With a slight clench of her hands, Purity was able to induce vertigo, vibration, and a sonic sound in her immediate vicinity, extending outwards omnidirectionally in an expanding sphere-like fashion from where she was. She could shake and vibrate the entire D.E.O. headquarters, causing anyone near her to feel the effects of migraine and have ringing in their ears. The effects of this power even allow Purity to stun, explode, and push back multiple objects at once, including fully-grown humans.

"I see right through you, Alex Danvers. It's a gift I have, to see inside people, to know them."

—Purity ^[src]

• Empathy: Purity stated she could "see" into people, able to read their personalities and look deep into their psyches, though it was unknown if this was merely perceptive insight on the Worldkiller's part when she mentally profiles an individual she meets. Unlike a telepath, Purity cannot see into her victims' minds or read thoughts, but she was able to feel emotions and experiences from people within a matter of minutes. For example, Purity psychologically attacked Alex Danvers by noting that the agent was antagonizing her in captivity because of the emotional stress and baggage that Alex was struggling with and that attacking someone as powerful as a Worldkiller, despite being human, was the agent's way of voiding her own vulnerability.
• Super strength: Purity demonstrated extraordinary levels of superhuman strength, as she was able to contend with and eventually overpower Supergirl in a one-on-one brawl. She also broke the superheroine's legs by slamming them into the ground and nearly choked Supergirl to death. With a single punch, Purity sent Mon-El crashing into a stand, which shattered on impact. It was unknown if her super strength is as powerful as Reign's, but from what was seen of her powers, Purity was undoubtedly stronger than Supergirl.
• Flight: Purity had the ability of self-propelling herself through the air at tremendous hypersonic speeds. Though she had only been seen using this ability once, it was implied that she can fly at speeds as fast as Supergirl, and had been shown to be able to hover and levitate as another application of her ability to fly.
• Invulnerability: Purity was able to take multiple punches from Mon-El and Supergirl without being fazed. She was even able to fly through a hard glass wall without showing any signs of injury. Purity also survived being crushed by two cars.
• Worldkiller link: The Worldkillers appear to have a link with each other, using Reign as a nexus point. This was evident as Purity and Pestilence didn't awaken until Reign did. Purity did not have children, so this did not inhibit the development of her powers like Reign and fully manifested after Reign emerged.

Abilities

• Expert hand-to-hand combatant: Purity was a capable hand-to-hand combatant, she was able to keep with Supergirl, effectively dodging streams of the latter's heat-vision at close range, and Mon-El in hand-to-hand combat - culminating to even beat them; Purity even succeeds in putting the former through a head-locked back-breaker move that damaged the other Kryptonian's legs and compromising her locomotion, rendering Kara virtually helpless and putting her out of the fight by the time of Reign's arrival. She could also fight on par with J'onn J'onzz before defeating him.
• Bilingual: Purity was capable of fluently speaking English and Kryptonese.

Weaknesses

• Split personality: Julia's full powers were not truly available to her own discretion. Apart from her invulnerability, only in moments of extreme stress can she access some of her other powers, and not at full capacity. Once her programming was awakened, as Purity, she had full access to her powers, but becomes completely unaware of it. Her separate persona as the World killer is completely void of all her past memories as Julia and upon reverting to her normal-self, remains completely oblivious to all actions as Purity. Though according to Purity herself, Julia was fully conscious even while the former was in control; the latter just doesn't remember it when Julia's conscience resurfaces. Just before she died, Julia regained control of her body and was able to use her powers, being able to kill Pestilence.
• Vocal cords: If someone was able to grip Purity's throat tight enough, her vocal cords will be inoperable, preventing her from screaming.
• Sonic dampener: Sonic-dampening technology can suppress Purity's sonic scream but due to her dark magic-augmented physiology, it won't be completely successful; Purity was able to use her powers to escape from the D.E.O. when Reign's link boosted her powers.^[5]
• Power-dampening cuffs: Just like with any other alien, Julia's powers can be dampened by technology specifically designed to weaken her powers.^[5]

Equipment

• Purity suit: Julia wears a protective suit as her super-villainess alter-ego, Purity.

Appearances

Supergirl

Season 3 "Fort Rozz" "For Good" (dream) "Both Sides Now" "In Search of Lost Time" (mentioned) "Of Two Minds" "Trinity" "Shelter from the Storm" (pictured) "Make it Reign" (mentioned)

References