Crisis on Infinite Earths drastically rewrote the history of Supergirl, yet the show barely examined how its characters' lives were different in the new Arrowverse. While the second half of Supergirl season 5 did touch upon the ramifications of how Lex Luthor and The Monitor altered the timeline, it still only scratched the surface of how, more than any other Arrowverse series, the ensemble of Supergirl had their personal histories rewritten.
Airing for one season on CBS before moving to The CW, Supergirl was the odd show out for most of its first five seasons. The show was established as being part of the same shared multiverse as Arrow and The Flash early on, with the season 1 episode "World's Finest" bringing Barry Allen to National City after he accidentally ran between worlds. This made it difficult to bring Kara Zor-El and her super friends into the yearly crossover events, as they were literally off in their own world; Earth-38.
Part of the reason why Crisis on Infinite Earths occurred was to eliminate this difficulty, bringing the various alternate Earths together (as the original Crisis on Infinite Earths in the comics did) so that every DC Comics show on The CW shared a single reality, Earth-Prime. This would make future crossover events easier to bring about and encourage the idea of a larger, living world that made the setting of DC Comics so appealing. The Arrowverse shows did offer up a number of nods during the second half of their 2019-2020 seasons to reflect the new reality, such as Batwoman outing herself as a lesbian in an interview conducted by Supergirl's secret identity. Yet Supergirl did surprisingly little to explore how radically different the events of the last five years should have been for its ensemble.
The biggest change as Earth-38 was folded into Earth-Prime was that the Luthor family was once again respected and Lex Luthor no longer had a criminal record. Indeed, Lex was viewed as one of the world's greatest humanitarians and was pleased to wake up on the first day after the Crisis to find that not only was he back in his mansion but he was also being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize later that day. This was apparently the end result of Lex's bargain with The Monitor, who resurrected Luthor and promised him the opportunity to "become the hero that you have longed to be."
Ever the opportunist, Lex leveraged his assistance against one bargaining point; a promise that his sister Lena would survive the Crisis and that she would retain her memories of the original timeline. When Lex discovered Lena asleep in his mansion, he concluded that The Monitor, despite having apparently died during the Crisis, had somehow made good on his word. Lex quickly confirmed that, in the new reality, L-Corp was still Luthor Corp, and that he and Lena ran the company together, with his mother Lillian Luthor overseeing the charitable Luthor Foundation, rather than serving multiple life-sentences for her activities with the anti-alien terrorist group Cadmus.
One other major change was made apparent immediately after Crisis: Lex was also running the Department of Extranormal Operations (DEO), having bailed out the organization financially. Lex also revealed the existence of the once-covert government organization to the world and ran commercials promoting them alongside Lena and Supergirl. It was never explained whether or not the DEO was still a government body Lex and Lena oversaw as civilian administrators or an independent peacekeeping organization. Either way, Lex Luthor had been placed in a direct position of authority over Supergirl, her sister Alex Danvers, and Brainiac-5.
The other major change that became apparent during the second half of Supergirl season 5 was how dramatically the life of Eve Teschmacher had been altered. Originally, Ms. Teschacmer was a teen beauty queen, child prodigy, and Yale graduate with dual majors in nuclear physics and literature, who was recruited by the terrorist organization Leviathan to manipulate Lex Luthor while posing as a supervillain groupie after Lex was imprisoned. Ms. Teschmacher became one of Lex's most trusted agents, taking a job at CatCo Worldwide Media purely to spy upon James Olsen and, later, shifting to a position at L-Corp to spy on Lena Luthor. Along with Otis Graves, Eve played a major role in helping Lex with his plans for world domination during Supergirl season 4. To her credit, she proved clever enough at playing the doting sycophant that Lex never suspected she was a double agent. Unfortunately, she came to a rather tragic end in the original timeline, when Lena Luthor overwrote her personality with that of her artificial-intelligence, Hope, effectively turning Eve into her psychic slave and, later, a scapegoat for her crimes.
Thankfully, Eve was saved from this sticky end on Earth-Prime. In the new timeline, she was still recruited into Leviathan and still employed as an assassin, but she was never sent to manipulate Lex Luthor as Lex was never imprisoned in the new reality. This time, knowing that Eve was a Leviathan agent thanks to Lena, Lex manipulated her into working for him to bring the organization down from within and set her up to insure her loyalty by tricking her into killing Jeremiah Danvers; the father of Alex Danvers and Supergirl's foster father. Supergirl season 5 ended with the Super Friends saving Eve from Luthor's influence, though they have yet to learn about the murder she was tricked into committing at Luthor's request.
The changes Crisis on Infinite Earths wrought on Supergirl's first year in action were surprisingly minor. The invasion of Earth by Kryptonian criminals armed with the mind-controlling Myriad device would likely have been a major news event, out-shining even the battle between Green Arrow and Damian Darhk in Star City or The Flash's battle with the other-worldly speedster Zoom and his metahuman army. With Superman himself falling under the control of the invaders, it's likely Lex Luthor would have used this incident to start subtly sowing the seeds of distrust against aliens publicly. Indeed, this could explain the lack of trust Oliver Queen and Wild Dog displayed towards Supergirl when they first teamed up during the Invasion! event one year later.
One subtle change in Supergirl season 2 was Lena Luthor's motivations for coming to National City. Originally, Lena was trying to find a fresh start for herself and her family's company, in the wake of Lex Luthor's incarceration. This led to her changing the company's name from Luthor Corp to L-Corp. This time, the impetus could have been Lena's falling out with both her best friend, Andrea Rojas and her boyfriend, Jack Spheer, both of whom Lena had arguments with shortly before she came to National City in the original timeline.
The biggest change in Supergirl season 2 was Lillian Luthor not going to prison for leading the anti-alien Cadmus group. Indeed, there's a fair chance that it was Lex, rather than Lillian, who was secretly overseeing the group's activities in the new reality. Lillian had become involved with Cadmus so that she could seek revenge on the aliens she blamed for driving her son insane. With Lex never having attempted to kill Superman by turning the sun red in the new timeline, there was no reason for her to get involved with Cadmus. It's known that Cadmus existed in some capacity, however, since Jeremiah Danvers, who was blackmailed into working for Cadmus, still went into hiding to protect his family in the new timeline. This was confirmed (along with Jeremiah's death) in the season 5 episode "Alex in Wonderland." The DEO would also have had a major role to play in fighting the Dominators during this season.
Surprisingly, the events of Supergirl season 3 would have played out largely the same after Crisis on Infinite Earths. It seems likely, however, that coupling the Daxamite Invasion of Earth and the Dominator Invasion from the previous year with the coming of the Kryptonian Worldkillers would have hastened Lex Luthor's anti-alien agenda. The more visible elements of The Thinker's Enlightenment may also have been written off as the result of alien technology run amok and contributed to the growing feelings of hostility against aliens, as Team Flash seemingly did nothing to educate the public as to Clifford DeVoe's plans once he was defeated.
Presumably the budget crisis that allowed Lex Luthor to take control of the DEO came sometime between the end of Supergirl season 3 and the start of Supergirl season 4. This seems likely given the increased role the DEO would have had to play in dealing with four alien invasions over three years, in addition to their normal operations. Given the role Kryptonian witches had to play in the rise of the Worldkillers one year earlier, this also would have allowed Lex to start arming the DEO with Kryptonite weaponry, despite whatever objections Supergirl or Superman might have. It is also likely this increased the public outrage when US President Olivia Marsden was revealed to be an alien, assuming that she was the American President in the new timeline. All this may also have had a hand in pushing J'onn J'onzz to resign from his position as DEO Director, as he did around this time in the original timeline.
A glance at Lena Luthor's computer screen as she read up on the history of Earth-Prime in the Supergirl season 5 episode "The Bottle Episode" revealed that the public thought that Lex Luthor and Supergirl joined forces to fight Agent Liberty and the Children of Liberty during the final battle of Supergirl season 4. It seems likely, however, that Lex still had a hand in training the Supergirl clone known as the Red Daughter and managed to hide his involvement with the Children of Liberty from the world. This was seemingly confirmed by the 100th episode of Supergirl, "It's A Super Life," where a flashback showed that Luthor's henchman, Otis Graves, was still working for the Children of Liberty in an alternate reality based on the new timeline.
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