I have uploaded this as a YouTube video, but here is the script for it in pure essay form!
DC has no idea what to do with Supergirl. Her very existence is probably the biggest retcon in comic book history, and she has struggled to maintain relevance in the mainstream public consciousness since 1984 up until now, with her newest movie being an enormous flop both critically and financially. And yet, Hollywood has felt confident about giving her a movie 2 times due to the success of the comics, both the silly and serious, and both times have failed. So why? Why do people even like Supergirl comics in the first place, and how has their success in the past pushed DC into making movies about her? And how did they miss the mark so badly both times? lets jump into it, try to keep up.
If I could describe the 2026 movie in one word, it’d be “corporate,” it feels like a movie focus tested into being the most Perfect And Palatable movie for audiences, which is ironic considering how her character began. The biggest market for comics in the 50s were little boys aged 6-10, and DC wanted to make a girl version of Superman for a while to expand that audience to girls as well. Their rival Archie Comics had made a successful spinoff about Betty and Veronica, and DC tested the waters for a bit with a fake Supergirl showing up in a JImmy Olsen issue to see if readers and young girls would like it. She was popular enough to become a full supporting character and had her own backup short stories at the end of each AC issue. Her earliest comics are extremely kiddy and are meant to teach girls lessons apt for the 1950s, and Kara has to learn to have fun while accepting the secret identity and life that Superman forced upon her; he wanted Supergirl to remain seen and not heard as a superhero, just in case he wanted her to be his secret weapon in the future, and she gladly agreed because girls had to listen to boys in the 50s. Like most mainstream comics in the silver age, they had some very weird and sexist undertones, but were very sweet and sincere with a twinge of sadness. All the little sisters of the world got to grow up while looking to the S-symbol as a role model, just like their big brothers did. These Supergirl stories were largely based on the Superboy comics that were also coming out at the time, with a generically small town and a rotating cast of love interests including a merman and a distant descendant of Brainiac from the 30th century. Supergirl’s adventures remained very kiddy until Marvel decided to change the target audience of comics from 6-10 year olds to 10-15 year olds with Fantastic Four debuting in 1961; a little less than a year later, Supergirl was no longer Superman’s secret weapon and was allowed to be her own public hero and she continued to grow up alongside comics in the 1960s.
This kiddy version of Supergirl is when she was the most popular, and it’s the version of her that would stick in most people’s minds through the years. It became what her first movie was largely based on, and what the newest one would try to subvert. Both movies had a corporate origin, the former had the producers of the original Superman movies try to pivot much more towards children and using the kiddy Supergirl as the basis for that, with Midvale, magical girl transformations, and a plot pretty much solely involving romance with men. The 2026 movie tried to go in the opposite direction and made Kara very rough around the edges and a crass imperfect party girl who has to earn being Super, the opposite of the silver age Kara and the polar opposite of the extremely elegant Helen Slater; this was done to try and make her more of a real character with flaws and a personality. And yet, despite both coming out years after kiddy Kara was a thing of the past, none of them were able to actually tell a story that captured the actual good aspects of Supergirl, the full mature life as a superhero with adult problems and her own cast in comics that tried to appeal to young women. In other words, they’re what both movies should’ve been. How did Supergirl progress, mature, and change for the better in the 60s through the 80s? And how did a disastrous first movie that learned all the wrong lessons from the comics get all that progress completely erased by the 80s? The next 2 decades saw rapid evolution for Supergirl as she became her own character more separate from Superman than ever, she got adopted and stopped having to be Superman’s secret weapon, being a public hero of her own and eventually becoming more powerful than her cousin by having her weakness to Kryptonite be removed, 10 years before Denny O’Neil would do the same thing to Superman in the 70s to make him more mature, or, in other words, trying to catch up with Marvel. This was a result of Jerry Siegel, the original creator of Superman, getting to experiment with Kara in her backup features and creating a serialized story in Action Comics. Supergirl was one of the first Western superheroes whose comics had full arcs and storylines besides recurring villains and characters. She spent a lot of the 60s growing and flourishing into her own character in her own stories, culminating in her headlining her own series with Adventure Comics as the next decade rolled in and the stories from this time were so unique and interesting, but DC canceled it after 10 issues and she merged with Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane into the Superman Family book, and even then eventually she would replace Jimmy and Lois and the book became her own again before its cancelation, which brings us to the 80s when she had her own run relaunched in 1982 and, eventually, her own movie.
Supergirl had been a flower growing in the desert for a long time, every time she had gotten canceled or her stories stagnated, the creator’s and audience’s love for Kara shone through and she came back stronger than ever, it’s like people were physically incapable of getting enough of her. So imagine how shocked the WB executives and producers were when they realized their 1984 Supergirl movie was an enormous flop. The first Superman movie was transgenerational, it was truly a film for everyone in a family from the 50 year old parents who grew up with Superman in the 40s and 50s, the teenagers and young adults who had read the silver age stories, and the little kids who were awed by seeing their cartoons brought to live action. For some reason, however, the producers of those movies really only gave a fuck about that final group in the Superman sequels, and that can be seen clearly in Supergirl. I mean…. Just look at it. The Empire Strikes Back came out 4 years before in 1980, Raiders of the Lost Ark in ‘81, Blade Runner in ‘82, Return of the Jedi in ‘83, and you look at Supergirl and it just… doesn’t even compete. The creators very clearly had not realized that the Silver Age of comics had ended more than a decade ago and that audiences clearly did not want anything like this, they wanted their movies to evolve and be filled with more spectacle, more special effects that aren’t just charming, but that actually get you to believe them. This decade saw the birth of modern society turning into nerds, and Kara Zor-El was not up to the task of appealing to them. Combined with the out of touch male producers, we got a Supergirl who was a literal angel on Earth and had not suffered any hardship beyond comical antics, she had no depth to her character and merely fit what the producers thought was a good role model for the girls in the audience. At the same time, it was trying to appeal to mothers watching with their kids, leading to some extremely weird and horny scenes with a fun villain whose only evil deed is trying to control men, as if tying Kara to men was the only way to give her a conflict. Again, they were trying to bring the Silver Age to modern children and they included all of it, including the sexist undertones. I still think there’s some value in the movie, mostly the crazy funny special effects and the extremely small moments Kara actually has to be her own character, still innocent and whimsical but with a twinge of sadness. These moments are few and far between, and the movie is still a failure that was so terrible and mocked so much that it led Kara to be killed when the comic DC Universe rebooted in the 80s, and she wouldn’t be seen again until 2005, and she just sort of lingered in the public consciousness for a while. Her spirit was kept alive for a bit, but as far as this video is concerned, this version of Supergirl died forever and her character has largely moved on since then to be reimagined, keeping some of what worked but largely being changed, some for the better and some for the worse. As comics increasingly became for immature teenagers through the 90s and 2000s, Supergirl had her role return as the character made for the young women who read comics, but now she was a rebellious teenager and this energy stayed with her until Kara eventually came back in the comics, followed by other 2 adaptations in straight-to-DVD animated movie based on Kara’s return to the comics, and Smallville which merged both versions of Kara. Her role as a human ray of sunshine had been depleted, and she had become much darker while still having some of the naivete of the older comics. Eventually, she became more chill and her role in the public consciousness went closer to the Kara of old thanks to the CW spinoff show about her, which I actually haven’t seen, and I have no idea if the ‘CW Kara is just a genderswapped Superman’ critique actually holds water. The Supergirl character had been so many things by then: an innocent orphan from Krypton who grows up into a mature woman; a rebellious teenager who has little to do with Krypton; a deeply angry girl oversexualized by DC; it was only a matter of time before someone tried to unite the different faces worn by Supergirl over the years and turn her into the true Woman of Tomorrow.
I’m going to be real with you: I don’t really like this comic and I think the movie it gets turned into is much worse. I think the edgier Kara has its merits and I respect her fans, at least the ones who aren’t weird, and I think trying to bring all of Kara’s history together in 1 grand story is a cool idea, but I really don’t think it’s done well. The book is from a child’s perspective, and the narration from Tom King treats Kara almost like a goddess, but in reality its clear that this is just another chapter in her journey from a perspective of awe, similar to his Superman story Up In The Sky. I don’t really like this choice in either book, it makes it feel like King doesn’t trust his readers to understand the impact of every moment just with the great art and emotions in the plot, so he has to explain it. This wouldn’t be as big of an issue to me if the story she was put in was good, but I think the story is just not that solid or bogged down by the narration. To quote a wise man, it insists upon itself. It doesn’t really work as a grand deconstruction of her character or showing an evolution of it that I’m a fan of, I guess I’m just not really a Western person? I won’t dive too deep into it, but at the broadest level, the epilogue of the book shows that Supergirl became Superwoman, which to me states that King thinks Supergirl becoming a surrogate mother to a child over the course of the story was very important for her to grow from a girl into a woman. I don’t like that because A) Superboy didn’t need to be a dad to become a man, which to me feels like King making womanhood defined by the ability to raise children. I’m just not a fan of the book and find the universal acclaim it’s gotten for its writing to be strange, and then it was announced that it would be turned into a movie for the 3rd attempt at a DC cinematic universe, this time with James Gunn as the new co-CEO largely in charge of the creative direction of the universe. Eventually I watched it and… it goes wrong in many ways.
People say this movie feels corporate and it does, you can tell it’s been focus tested and cut to hell in the editing room according to someone’s whims, but it’s not really clear who that someone is, but now that we’re armed with our new knowledge on Supergirl’s history, I think we can go through the movie and try to trace back a lot of the choices it made as an adaptation and as a movie. I think the movie tries to combine the various versions of Kara and the various tones of her story throughout and I don’t think trying to mesh them together really works together well in 1 coherent story. WoT was very quiet, contemplative, it treated everything that was happening like it was the most important thing ever, and this movie is not that. It tries to take the pathos from WoT with the emotional significance and the threat of Krem, but the movie doesn’t really take itself seriously because it’s trying to be a quippy GotG-esque adventure full of needledrops, and it just doesn’t mix together well. It also tries to take Kara’s characterization away from the exhausted hero to a messy alcoholic who Superman thinks is throwing her life away, her drinking in the comic was because she had just turned 21 and wanted to take part in that Earth tradition, but in the movie it’s made an integral part of her character arc because this version of Kara has no history and nothing we can get attached to beyond a 10 second cameo at the end of a different movie. Kara’s arc throughout the movie is learning to appreciate Earth and the life she has or had there, but we don’t know anything about her relationship with Earth besides she thinks Superman is a bit lame and doesn’t want it to replace Krypton as her home. But how does her adventure with Ruthye teach her that Earth is awesome? The final 2 scenes that demonstrate the lessons she’s learned are contradictory to me. Is she continuing her space adventures with Ruthye free of baggage or is she trying to settle down on Earth? If it’s the latter, why? Again, we don’t see anything about Kara’s relationship with Earth besides things tied with Superman so I really don’t know how this final scene of the movie is supposed to hit. Supergirl’s adventures have always been mostly on Earth and this movie ends with her staying on Earth, so I guess this is an origin movie of sorts where Supergirl has to earn her costume, but why would you take the deconstructive Supergirl comic made to take place after a bunch of crazy adventures and turn it into an origin story? I just don’t get it. They want to appeal to young women like Supergirl always has, but they also throw in Lobo and the needledrops to keep any men watching engaged, and Superman giving Kara her iconic costume is an integral part of her arc, so her main story is still kinda about her accepting the influence of men. Combined with the aspects of motherhood that’s taken from the original comic and that her being independent is only ever shown as something she needs to get over, and I really don’t think this is a very compelling feminist piece about empowering women. If it is, it’s about how a woman needs to be empowered and learn her place by taking care of children or listening to the dominant male figure in her life. It’s like they want to turn the disillusioned Kara into a Kara that loves Earth like in the classic comics, and I just really don’t think that story works, it feels like it was made in a lab to appeal to the biggest audience possible.
Also… have you seen the clips from this movie?? It looks horribly ugly and there’s a poop brown filter over it, no wonder no one wanted to see this on the big screen bc I imagine these visuals would look much more terrible. Just like how 1984 Supergirl got lapped by other blockbusters from its time, this movie is being similarly mogged in terms of quality, cultural relevance, and the box office by extremely good and popular blockbusters that actually appeal to what people wanna see like The Odyssey and Spider-Man BND, it’s an absolutely brutal comparison that DC brought upon themselves by trying to compete in the summer blockbuster space with them. This movie's plight can be best understood when we understand the true villains of this story: male executives. They are the people who created Supergirl to boost market share amongst girls, and they are the people who drastically misunderstand Supergirl and put that in her movies. Neither the 2026 nor 1984 movie were created to tell an actual story of a young woman, they were created because she was seen as a great way to expand the universe and earn some extra cash amongst the Women Demographic, which Hollywood tries to capture with their blockbusters every once and a while, usually failing. The 1984 movie wasn’t trying to do anything besides expand the Superman Brand to younger kids, and Kara was at her most shallow as a role model. Ironically, it followed in the comics footsteps by having weird sexist undertones and barely trying to appeal to anyone besides children. The 2026 movie is the second chapter of DC’s 3rd attempt at a cinematic universe, and it really, really shows both in its quality and its inability to resonate with wider audiences. If there’s anything relatable from Kara in this movie, it is largely from Milly Alcock doing a great job with what she’s given, because she really does shine at times. But to me, it’s really hard to see this movie as anything else but a corporate attempt at expanding a brand rather than an actual story, and it certainly doesn’t help that the story there also isn’t very good. It makes me sad, because I really do love Supergirl, I hope you could tell that from the former half of this video. I wish this movie didn’t sink her reputation in the gutter because of its quality and how it bombed, because I truly think she can be so much more, and this movie killed any chance Supergirl has of being more than a punchline in a lot of people’s minds.
If only there was a modern Supergirl story that keeps her up-beat characterization of old while still acknowledging the deep tragedy of her character, something that acknowledged her history and made it an actual part of her story in a way that feels natural while still giving her new things to do and new characters to explore, where she gets to be a woman lost through the world and forming new connections, all in a story written by an actual woman who loves Supergirl as much as a lot of us do… Wait, that exists! The current Supergirl ongoing comic by Sophie Campbell has all this and more, it tries to continue the spirit of the classic Supergirl comics while exploring all the modern baggage that’s been established in recent years, and it’s really good! If you found Supergirl compelling in any way from this video, I highly recommend it!
