During the Supergirl season five panel at San Diego Comic-Con, the cast and crew took to the stage to both debut the first trailer for the next leg of Kara’s adventure, and to shed a little light about some newcomers who are on their way to shake things up in National City.
This fall, Veronica Mars‘ Julie Gonzalo and Game of Thrones‘ Staz Nair will join Supergirl as media mogul Andrea Rojas, and William Dey, respectively. Gonzalo’s character is a tough-as-nails reporter who becomes something of a rival for Kara at CatCo. As the new boss, Andrea will be the more major arrival of the two, as she has big plans for change and media disruption that cause a kind of chaos in Kara’s life that she most definitely doesn’t need on top of being the Girl of Steel.
But what no one knows about the new power player, Kara included, is that Andrea is hiding a major, magical secret that gives her incredible power: superheroic power, that is. In DC’s comics, Rojas is the vigilante Acrata, who uses a magical artefact that allows her to use shadows to teleport herself from place to place.
Those weren’t the only new additions revealed, however. During the panel, Jesse Rath also announced that his sister Meaghan Rath is set to make her debut as, wait for it, Brainiac 5’s sister! See what they did there? Whether she’ll also end up getting in on the media game, or if her arc this season will focus more on Supergirl’s commentary on how technology’s changed society for better or worse, remains to be seen.
But there’s actually a reason for all these new arrivals: Supergirl‘s losing one of its own stalwarts. It was also announced just before the panel that, after season five, Mehcad Brooks — who’s been playing Kara and Clark’s trusted pal, James “please don’t call me Jimmy but occasionally call me Guardian“ Olsen, on the show since its pilot — will exit the series.
Executive producer Sarah Schechter bid a fond farewell to the actor as part of the panel’s proceedings praising that, for legions of fans, Brooks became their ideal image of Jimmy Olsen:
I remember casting this role and casting Jimmy Olsen, and what’s so exciting is because of Mehcad I think there’s a whole generation of people that are going to grow up thinking that he is what Jimmy Olsen looks like, and he is what Jimmy Olsen stands for, and I think that’s something we’re all so proud of.
Supergirl returns October 15.