WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Supergirl Season 6, Episode 16, "Nightmare in National City," which aired Tuesday, October 19th on The CW.
Season 6 of Supergirl has shown Kara facing some of her greatest challenges. From getting trapped in the Phantom Zone to squaring off against the 5th Dimensional Imp Nyxly, Supergirl has barely had a moment to catch her breath, much less live her life as Kara Danvers. That makes her decision to quit her job at CatCo and become Supergirl full-time not all that surprising.
In the latest Supergirl episode, the titular protagonist's hunt for Nyxly affected her life as a civilian and as a hero. This culminated in her failing to get to an important interview on time. Kara then decided to quit her day job and focus her efforts entirely on finding Nyxly. Although it may be an indirect reference, this decision is a callback to a certain Dark Knight and his decision to abandon his civilian identity in the comics.
Everyone knows Batman's public persona is Bruce Wayne. He always utilized his civilian persona as a way to hide any possible connection between the Dark Knight and his civilian counterpart. Playing the role of a billionaire playboy whose only focus was dining with beautiful women, Bruce managed to convince Gotham City and the world beyond that he was the last person who'd put on a Batman costume.
Yet when Bruce was accused of murdering his girlfriend Vesper Fairchild in the Bruce Wayne: Murderer? storyline, Batman decided it was best to simply abandon his civilian persona instead of exonerating himself. Frustrated over being kept in jail as Bruce Wayne instead of finding the real killer as Batman, the Dark Knight escaped his cell and abandoned his playboy alter-ego.
This continued into Bruce Wayne: Fugitive when Batman and the Bat-Family investigated the conspiracy behind the murder. It was during his search that Batman saved a wounded criminal because it was what his father Thomas Wayne would have done. Realizing that it was Bruce Wayne that was affected by his parents' deaths and not Batman, Bruce officially re-embraced his civilian persona and proved his innocence.
Supergirl and Batman each abandoned their "day jobs" for different reasons, though Batman's approach was much more extreme due to both circumstances and his own decisions. In Supergirl, Kara can still walk around as "Kara Danvers" if she wants to. Without CatCo, however, she will operate as Supergirl essentially all day long, basically removing any time she spends in her civilian identity.
Similar to Bruce, Kara will likely find herself in a situation where she realizes being Kara Danvers is just as important as being Supergirl. Of course, one way she could rectify the strain a double-life causes is by abandoning it as her cousin did instead of Bruce's methods. Superman (Vol 5) #18 depicted Superman revealing his identity as Clark Kent to the world, stating he wanted to continue living his life as both Clark Kent and Superman but felt he had to be honest with the world.
Kara may make a similar decision on Supergirl and come out publicly to inspire hope and no longer bear the strain of living two lives. However, with Alex and Kelly recently taking in a daughter, Kara may continue to hide her identity to keep her young niece safe. Whether Supergirl fully abandons her civilian persona or reveals her identity to the public, Kara is bound to go through some soul searching in the quest to find her equilibrium.
To see what Kara decides to do, Supergirl airs Tuesdays on The CW.