#sasha calle

Saw the set photos from the new Flash movie, and just had to sketch out Sasha Calle’s Supergirl. The jacket and word balloon are an homage to 90’s Superboy, by Tom Grummett

With the ending of the CW Supergirl show, and the promise of a new on-screen Supergirl guest starring in the upcoming Flash movie, fans are naturally wondering how the Girl of Steel will fit into future plans for the DCEU. Rumour has it that the version of Supergirl we will see in 2022 will likely be based on her Cir-El incantation, but the change of name doesn’t invalidate the core points of who the character is and what she represents within DC fandom.

Drawing on examples from across her 60+ years in comics, I’ve drawn up six character traits that personally I believe would be necessary to successfully translate Supergirl into a live action adaptation.

See if you agree with me…

1. She needs to be a girl first, and super second

When it comes to traditional superheroes, the type who don’t spend every minute of every day in costume, there are broadly speaking two approaches: either your hero is a god who masquerades as a mortal, or an mortal who masquerades as a god. The contrast is most stark when considering Golden Age Superman versus Silver Age Spider-Man. The Golden Age Superman was a near-perfect being, who was almost never wrong, always prevailed, and never doubted himself… but who hid behind the façade of a bumbling, stumbling, reporter named Clark Kent. The Silver Age Spider-Man was the the less-than-perfect Peter Parker, an awkward and unsure college kid… who found himself cursed with superpowers and realised he had a responsibility to somehow adopt the role of a hero.

Of these two models, Supergirl has traditionally leaned more towards the latter – she is more Spider-ManthanSuperman, so to speak. The in-world explanation for this is that Kara was a teenager when she arrived on Earth, never anticipating that she might have to assume the mantle of hero some day. As a child she was unremarkable from other children around her, and she had no reason to believe that that would change as she grew older. The real-world explanation has probably more to do with Supergirl spending her nascent years during the Silver Age reinvention of superheroes, when the square-jawed DC archetypes of the previous generation were giving way to the more complex and dysfunctional Marvel characters we love today.

Although it seems like an obvious distinction to make to dedicated Supergirl fans, adaptations of the Girl of Steel aimed at audiences outside the typical comic fandom have not always appreciated this about the character. Far too often we’ve seen Supergirl depicted as merely “Superman with boobs.” Any new tv or movie Supergirl needs to prioritise putting as much clear blue water as possible between the Kara Zor-El and Superman’s Big Blue Boy Scout image. Kara needs to act like someone who has found themselves thrust unexpectedly into the role of superhero, rather than someone who has grown up with the expectations that they were always destined to become a superhero.

2. She needs to have friends

There is a trend in modern comics to downplay the secret identity – to treat it as an unfortunate relic of a past era, a trope that is well past its sell-by-date. Many heroes these days either don’t have a coherent secret alter ego, or spend so little time in their everyday life that it is virtually redundant. But for Supergirl, a solid and well defined dual persona makes sense. If we dispense with the usual comical tropes surrounding the secret identity (the paper-thin disguises, the phone booths used as changing rooms, the silly excuses used to slip away when action is required), we are still left with a compelling reason to give Kara separate everyday and heroic identities.

The idea was demonstrated most effectively by Paul Kupperberg’s run on Supergirl, in what was probably her pre-Crisis zenith. Kupperberg’s Daring New Adventures…(akaSupergirl Volume 2) gifted the Girl of Steel with an eccentric cast of characters for her Linda Danvers life. She went to concerts with them, hung out in coffee shops with them, gossiped about men with them. She did everything that a regular nineteen year old college student would do. The Melissa Benoist tv show also surrounded its Kara with a supporting cast, but these were entirely collaborators in her career as Supergirl, thus tv’s Kara Danvers effectively became nothing more than Supergirl wearing different clothes. But the Kupperberg supporting cast belonged solely to Linda Danvers, not to Supergirl. Although her friends were occasionally caught up in her costumed adventures, for the most part their interactions were only with Linda, allowing Kara Zor-El to exhibit a non-superpowered aspect to her personality that was distinct from her costumed antics. The character became much the stronger and more rounded because of this. We were able to see the girl, divorced from the super.

3. She needs to have attitude

Another aspect of the comicbook character that is often forgotten when translated to audiences outside of comics fandom is Supergirl’s legendary attitude. This can range from the sassy and confident heroine we find in her later pre-Crisis adventures, to the kick-ass take-no-prisoners heroine of more recent comics. In her original Silver Age adventures Supergirl was, it has to be admitted, a bit of a Big Blue Girl Scout (but without the huge ego of her cousin), but as the 1960s rolled on into the 1970s her personality began to mature in ways that defined her as a very different hero to her cousin.

By the mid 70s there was a very distinct separation between Kara Zor-El and Kal-El, and the comics even liked to sometimes play up just how different the cousins were. Superman always seemed at home in his role as superhero, while Kara increasingly seemed to be at odds with it. Although she never doubted why she should use her powers to help people, she questioned why it must dominate so much of her life. She wanted a family, she wanted friends, and she wanted to have the kind of everyday life that she saw other young women having. Yet her Supergirl duties kept getting in the way.

By the time of her death in Crisis on Infinite Earths the cousins are even seen arguing over tactics, and this distinction has been made all the more prominent in more recent post-Crisis incarnations of the Supergirl character, whose outlook on life is sometimes said to be almost a 180 degree reversal of Superman’s. Kara’s life experiences are radically different to Kal-El’s, and this shows itself time and time again when comparing how the two Kryptonians choose to deal with the challenges they face.

A future movie or tv Supergirl doesn’t need to go to such extremes as having the cousins quarrel and fight, but at least some of Kara’s distinctive attitude needs to be present in any new live action version.

4. She needs to understand tragedy

One of the factors that has been a constant in the life of Kara Zor-El (you’ll note I’m excluding the Matrix and Earth Angel Supergirls here) is her tragic sense of loss. She is a young woman who has had everything she knew taken away from her – her home, her parents, her friends. No matter how brave she may appear, there is always a more sombre mood that haunts her quieter moments.

Although Supergirl is never depicted as a self-pitying character that wallows in her pain, her tragic past quietly informs much of her personality and interactions with others. In some incarnations of Supergirl it has given her a slightly jaded and cynical attitude towards others. In other incarnations it has been at the core of her desire to find friends and establish a home. Either way, any new live action Supergirl that ignores this aspect of the character’s canon entirely is not portraying the true Kara Zor-El.

5. She needs to be unafraid to show she’s human

Building on the points made above, a new movie or tv Supergirl needs to have empathy. Although she may have god-like powers, she nevertheless needs to be grounded by a sympathy for everyday people. Her core asset is not her physical strength, but her compassion. This has been a constant for almost every incarnation of the character since she first appeared in 1959.

Superman fights for “truth, justice, and the American way”(or“a better tomorrow” if you prefer the modern version), but Supergirl’s motto is “hope, help, and compassion for all”. Notice how different their mantras are. Kal-El defends lofty and noble ideals that relate to whole societies – but Kara fights for very intimate personal values that relate specifically to individuals. One wants to defend civilisations; the other wants to help the common people.

To borrow a line from Amazing Fantasy #15, “with great power there must also come – great responsibility!”. A live action Kara should interpret that responsibility as being primarily about people, rather than institutions.

6. She needs to be tenacious

Of course it is a defining quality of every hero that they don’t give up – they fight to their last dying breath. Kara has this quality in abundance, as she has proven time and time again across her many incarnations and reinventions. But Kara also sometimes exhibited another type of tenaciousness, a willingness to fight for seemingly hopeless causes and to learn from her failures.

We saw this right from the start in the Silver Age, when Kara experimented with ways of overcoming the Kryptonite menace that plagued Superman’s adventures. While her cousin scoffed at her efforts from the side-lines, Kara tried to come up with ways to transform Kryptonite into less deadly substances. She also experimented to see if repeated exposure to the substance would build up some kind of resistance. While both of these efforts failed miserably, it was the very fact that Kara tried to fix the problem, while Kal-El just accepted it as a fact of life, that first gave readers their a hint that this new superhero wasn’t just a carbon copy of her cousin.

As Supergirl has grown and developed over her 60+ years, this quality of being unafraid to tackle seemingly impossible problems (learning from her failures, dusting herself down, and trying again) has often made her stand out from her peers. So any live action Supergirl needs to retain that tenacious nature.

Conclusion

What did you think about the above? Agree… disagree..?

Whatever the future brings for Supergirl on the silver and small screens, all fans can hope for is that we get a character that is closer to the Supergirl we know and love from the comics. Sadly that has not always been the case. Previous live action versions have pulled their punches, often showing a lack of faith in the source material. But this is complete absurdity! Supergirl offers incredible source material; she has some of the greatest potential in the DC canon, yet she has been frequently sold short.

Hopefully this will change.

Did some repainting on the DCEU supergirl suit enjoy!

Just for fun, here is a poster for The Flash movie in the style of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.