Supergirl

When the outlaw, Krem of the Yellow Hills, injures Krypto, Kara Zor-El, the last daughter of Krypton, together with a young woman named Ruthye Marye Knoll, goes on a quest of interstellar vengeance.

In the world of comic books, the “Big Two” are Marvel and DC.

They’re the Big Show. They're the Main Stage. And they have always been “friendly” rivals. It’s Marvel with Spider-man, Hulk, Thor, and Wolverine vs DC with Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and the Peacemaker. Marvel used to refer to DC as “The Distinguished Competition” in their letter columns. For years, their offices were within blocks of each other in Midtown Manhattan, easy NYC walking distance. It was common for writers, artists, and editors at one publisher to go “across the street” to do work for the other. So it makes sense that when the MCU movies suddenly became a huge success that DC/WB wanted to get some of that sweet golden goose shared universe action too.

And why not, their guns are just as big as Marvel's, bigger even.

So DC/WB turned to filmmaker Zack Snyder, and The Snyderverse was the result. Ill-conceived, wrong-headed, an ugly muddy mish-mash of grim and gritty nonsense, and an absolute misunderstanding of the characters of the DC Universe, especially Superman, the whole effort cratered at the box office, and was rejected by critics and audiences alike (outside the Snyderbro cult members, of course). And as I said, this was despite having some of the most recognizable characters in comic books, and during the height of the public's interest in superhero stories too. The outright failure of the Snyderverse was the result of a bad idea they're still trying to recover from, and it is a significant part of the reason why Warner Bros is struggling with its current financial downturn, which is why it's so vulnerable to more bad deals from opportunistic money-men douchebags.

In the meantime, it's still chugging along, and one of ways that Warner Bros is currently trying to turn things around is that they finally took the keys to the DC Universe away from Zack Snyder, and they put them in the very deserving hands of James Gunn and Peter Safran. Finally, sweet relief from the Snyderverse garbage, and the promise of a total reboot.

This was good news for fans, because James Gunn has proven multiple times that he understands, and loves, and is interested in comic books, and also has good taste and a good sense of humor, while the Snyderverse, as I said, was a bunch of ugly garbage. Well, except for the time Batfleck beats up a roomful of bad guys. Also, Sasha Calle was really great in her brief stint as Supergirl, and I really liked Hawkman in Black Adam. Dr. Fate was cool too. Honestly, the best part of the entire Snyderverse was Micheal Keaton returning as Batman in The Flash. That was actually pretty awesome. I loved that.

But other than that... (Extended fart noise)

Gunn and Safran hit the ground running. They had big plans. The first phase of their plans, referred to as Chapter One: Gods and Monsters, included a brand new Superman film, more Peacemaker, a Creature Commandos cartoon, a new Green Lantern show, AND...

A new Supergirl film.

Even better, the new Supergirl film was going to be based off of the 2021 comic by Tom King and Bilquis Evely, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. This was good to hear, because that was not only one of the best comics that year, it’s also a very non-traditional kind of comic for a character like Supergirl. Ana Nogueira was hired to write the script, and while she was an unknown quantity, she seemed to have Gunn’s vote of confidence. Then Craig Gillespie was brought on to direct, and he’s made films like Lars and the Real Girl, and I, Tonya, so that’s not too bad a pedigree either. Finally, Milly Alcock, who played a young Rhaenyra Targaryen on House of the Dragon, was cast as Supergirl, and she is a perfect choice. Right look. Right attitude. All in all, from all the pieces involved, it was looking pretty good.

But it didn't quite work out.

Supergirl premiered on June 22, 2026, but the film went on to only ("only") gross about $126 million against a budget of $180 million. And that's a flop. Undeniably, that's a flop.

Which is too bad, because it’s a decent little film.

Honestly, I’m a little surprised that it didn’t find more of an audience. I mean, I understand what happened, but still, it's not like Supergirl is a bad bet.

Sure, the 1984 film—meant as a spin-off from the Christopher Reeves Superman franchise, that was supposed to be set after the events of Superman III—was… not good, and also flopped hard at the box office, and honestly, if Superman IV hadn’t killed the franchise, then Supergirl would have. Still, Helen Slater didn’t just play Supergirl, she also played Billie Jean, and that should count for something.

She's invincible in both roles, for God's sake!

But the Supergirl tv show was much more recent, and much more popular. It ran from 2015 to 2021, and became one of the central shows in the Arrowverse on the CW. You’d think that more of that particular crowd would’ve shown up, but I guess they didn't. Too bad.

Anyway... on to the film, and its main players of note...

Supergirl

Supergirl is a character with a long and convoluted history.

The name has been used by multiple characters in DC Comics. This includes several weird versions during the 40s and 50s before her first appearance, like a foreign queen named Lucy from the fictional Latin American nation of Borgonia, who ran from her responsibilities as queen to… Smallville, Kansas, where she met Superboy, and they decided to put on a show (?) and acted like she had powers as she wore a costume and called herself Supergirl, and then she went back home and apparently ghosted Superboy... But mostly, they were just Lois Lane in a wig. Late in the 50s, these appearances started to be used as a way to gauge whether or not audiences were interested in a Supergirl character.

Turns out they were, because in Action Comics #252 in 1959, the original Supergirl made her debut as Kara Zor-El, Superman's cousin, created by Otto Binder and Al Plastino. It turns out, making teenage girl versions of existing male characters was apparently kind of Binder’s thing, as he was partially responsible for the creation of Mary Marvel too, the sister of Captain Marvel. Like Mary Marvel, Supergirl wore a similar costume to Superman, just with a short skirt instead of pants. Pants, of course, being the bane of all female superheroes.

In the time since, other characters have used the name of Supergirl too, but they were basically all the same idea... The powers of Superman, but a girl. While she's had multiple popular runs, they have all eventually faded. To combat this, DC has tried a myriad of different retoolings in an attempt to make her more interesting, more popular, to sell more comics, and all of these retoolings weirdly strayed from her original most successful formula. Most of the time she was Kryptonian like her cousin, but not always. Sometimes they aren't even cousins. Over the years, she’s been aged and de-aged, killed and brought back to life, human, alien, and artificial, and even an angel at one point. She's mostly been a blonde, but sometimes she's had dark hair. On and on and on. Luckily, DC comics reboots their entire universe periodically, so she's been able to shake off all the weird baggage that didn't work, and now finally, she has come back to square one...

Kara Zor-El, cousin to Superman, the last daughter of Krypton.

Lobo

First created by Roger Slifer and Keith Giffen for Omega Men #3 in 1983, Lobo originally looked and acted much differently from what he would later be famous for. As a result, he was quickly forgotten, because he sucked and was boring, and was relegated to comic book limbo.

But then in the 90s, Lobo was pulled out of limbo, and while he was still an alien from the planet Czarnia, anhd an interstellar mercenary and bounty hunter, he was now portrayed as a one-percenter Hell’s Angel-type outlaw space-biker. Partially due to the fact that most comic fans love them a cheap power fantasy, but mostly due to Simon Bisley’s fantastic artwork, Lobo became a fan favorite overnight.

I still think he sucks and is boring, but... the people love him.

I mostly don't like Lobo, because he is one of those characters, much like Judge Dredd or the Punisher, where writers tried to use him as a parody of the excesses of the 1990's love of “grim and gritty” comics, but this went over the heads of most of Lobo’s fans, who enthusiastically embraced him as a prime example of the very thing the writers were trying to skewer, and because these attempts at parody were taken at face-value, Lobo ended up becoming the poster boy for the very thing he was supposed to be skewering.

There was a time in the 90's where the character basically became DC's version of Wolverine. He was everywhere, all the time, in comics, in cartoons, and because of all this, now finally, here he is... in the movies.

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow

As I mentioned, Supergirl (2026) is an adaptation of the eight issue comic book miniseries Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow by writer Tom King and artist Bilquis Evely, with letters by Clayton Cowles and Colors by Matheus Lopes. The comic tells the story of Kara Zor-El traveling around space with her Kryptonian dog, Krypto, but it’s all told from the perspective of a different character, Ruthye Marye Knoll. Ruthye is an alien girl who is looking for justice for her father's death at the hands of Krem of the Yellow Hills, and she has asked Supergirl for help.

Lobo isn’t in the comic—although he might have been a part of an earlier pitch. Either way, he was added because Jason Momoa has long campaigned to play Lobo in a live-action movie, and with Gunn now in charge of the DCU, Momoa saw his chance, so he carped the diem out of that shit.

Anyway, the story of the comic is basically the Charles Portis novel True Grit, with Ruthye in the Mattie Ross role, and Supergirl as Rooster Cogburn. As I said earlier, it was one of the better Big Two comics that year, and was nominated for the 2022 "Best Limited Series" Eisner Award.

It didn't win.

But maybe even better news for the comic, it's now been adapted into a movie.

Supergirl (2026)

As the planet Krypton collapsed around them...

Scientist Zor-El and his wife Alura evacuate with other Kryptonians to Argo City, where Zor-El activates a force field, separating the city from the rest of Krypton as the planet's core explodes, and leaving them floating within a bubble in space.

Eight years later...

Alura gives birth to her and Zor-El's daughter, Kara. Around this time, it is discovered that the destruction of Krypton created a mineral known as Kryptonite, which is slowly killing the citizens of Argo City with its unique radiation. The years pass. Alura dies from Kryptonite poisoning. Zor-El, who is also dying of Kryptonite poisoning, decides to send Kara and her dog Krypto to Earth, on a ship similar to the one his brother Jor-El used for his own infant son, Kal-El.

Upon arriving, Kara and Krypto are greeted by Kal-El, who has surpassed her in age during her journey, and is now living a double life on Earth as Clark Kent and Superman. He is very excited to see her, and to no longer be the last Kryptonian.

But in the days and weeks and months that follow, Kara struggles to adjust to her new life on Earth, to living with the new superpowers bestowed on her by Earth's yellow sun, and the crushing weight of the responsibilities foisted upon due to her new moniker as Supergirl. Angry, sad, tormented by the memories of everything she has lost, crippled by survivor's guilt, and feeling like she is all alone on an alien world, even with her cousin right there, whose offers of love and acceptance are too much for her to handle, Kara and Krypto spend an increasing amoung of time off-planet. Kal-El often calls her, just checking in, hoping she’s doing okay, but he is clearly concerned with her being unable to settle into life on Earth.

In the present, Kara is on the other side of the galaxy, knee-deep in a drunken interplanetary bar crawl in celebration of her 23rd birthday. She's there because it's only on planets with red suns that she can get absolutely hammered, and as a result, at least for a time, numb the pain.

And so it came to be, that Kara, while getting smashed in a rough frontier bar on the planet Holzherr, encounters a young woman named Ruthye Marye Knoll of the Danastia Clans. Ruthye is an orphan like Kara, and the last survivor of her family, who were all recently murdered by a man known as Krem of the Yellow Hills, the leader of a ruthless gang of outlaws known as the Brigands.

Ruthye is looking for help on her quest for vengeance. She knows that Krem is near, as her father destroyed Krem's ship before he died, stranding the outlaw on the planet. So she is offering a sword that was made by her father, a well-known swordmaker, as payment for a warrior's assistance in quest, once she is finished using it to dispatch Klem herself.

When the sword is taken from her by a smirking alien asshole, and Kara, drunk enough to be willing to get into a fight, gets it back for her, Ruthye asks Kara to help her, but Kara turns her down

Fate, it seems, has other plans…

The next morning, a hungover Kara is confronted by Ruthye, and during their argument, Krem happens upon them, as he and his men are looking for a ship off planet. They hijack Kara's ship, and when Krypto tries to stop them, he shoots the valiant dog with a poisonous dart.

That bastard…

Upon learning that Krypto has three days left to live, and that Krem has the poison's antidote, Kara decides to go after him, reluctantly taking Ruthye along.

The pair cross the galaxy, mostly on bus, fighting space pirates and thieves and crappy convenience store food along the way, before they finally catch up with the Brigands on the planet Bilquis. There, they learn that the Brigands have also been kidnapping young women from across the galaxy to both sell and to keep, forcing them to become their brides. They almost get caught themselves, if not for the fact that Bilquis has a yellow sun, as well as the rather serendipitous assistance of the bounty hunter Lobo, who happens to be there to claim a bounty on the head of the Brigands' lieutenant Drom Baxton.

Amidst the battle, Kara stops Ruthye from killing Krem, allowing him to escape. Guilt-ridden over all the dead so far, and what this journey of vengenence is doing to Ruthye, Kara decides to pursue Krem alone. But when she gets to the Brigand's home planet of Barenton, she collapses, realizing too late that the planet revolves around two suns. One sun is yellow, which is good for Kara, but when that sun sets, a second sun rises, a green sun, which is poison to her.

Luckily, Ruthye secretly followed Kara, and drags her to shelter.

Unfortunately, when Ruthye goes to get some water for the delirious Kara, the Brigands capture her and take her to their floating headquarters, where it turns out that Lobo is also imprisoned. Soon enough, Krem figures out who Ruthye is, and he decides to kill her.

And that's when the green sun sets, and the yellow sun rises...

So yeah, like I said, this movie, and the comic it’s based on, is basically True Grit. And I want take this moment to say that if you haven't read Charlie Portis's novel, then you definitely should, as the way it presents its story is surprisingly insightful and sophisticated for the time, and is really just an all-around pleasure to read.

Unfortunately, Supergirl (2026) isn't as good.

It's still a decent film. I liked it. I didn't love it, but it was good. Not great, but good. A fun but flawed watch, and at this point, as it's on the streaming services, I don't think you can really go wrong if you choose this movie for your lazy saturday afternoon matinee at home. Personally, I loved the very diverse and very working class vision of the DC outer galaxy presented here. Some people say it's too much like Guardians of the Galaxy, but that's only because they're dilettantes, and they see that James Gunn is Producing. What's really going on here is a vision of the Star Wars universe, but seen through the superpowered lens of DC comics. It's a very lived-in, a very much worn down, and a very “built by hands” galaxy. There's magic here, sure, but its nuts and bolts and bad welds are showing, and I loved that. I hope this is how DC shows the galaxy moving forward. I'd love to see a Green Lantern in one of these settings.

Plus, the throwaway joke about how the weird convenience store popcorn, which we saw comes out of this little alien slug’s butt, then turns out to taste like shit... is a pretty good joke.

At least, I thought so.

Either way, who doesn't love a film in the vein of John Wick, a reality where, if someone should hurt your animal, it is 100% reasonable to be respond with the kind of vicious and unflinching brutality that will make grown men turn pale at the very memory, deeply scarring them in ways that no amount of time nor money will ever properly heal should they be the ones so unlucky as to happen upon the bloody results of your righteous vengeance? I know I do.

Plus, maybe the most impressive part of the whole thing, is that underneath all of the "outer space and capes" frivolity, there's a clear attempt to make some strong feminist points here. Through Kara and Ruthye's mirrored origins, the film pushes back on the misogynistic idea that women must be compliant and pleasant at all times, that they must smile and bear it, and it does this by outright stating that a woman can still be "good" without having to be "nice." It also tries to talk about the nature of grief and its residual anger, about the horrifying reality of sex trafficking, about violence against women, and the trauma that can come from being a refugee.

Does it all land?

Not quite, sure. That's fair. Some people will complain that it "ruins" its message by being so overt about it at times too, and they'll say this without understanding that the film has to be loud and clear about its message, because the majority of the audience is fucking stupid. Still, your mileage may vary, but I always hold that a noble failure is much more interesting than shallow art with nothing to say, and say what you will about it, Supergirl is at least trying to say something.

So, I appreciated that, even if it didn’t quite work, or go far enough.

That said, one thing that bothered me?

Supergirl lives like an absolute pig in this film. It's gross. Her ship is gross. I bet the inside of her ship smells like feet and underwear and dog piss. Okay, sure, she's depressed, but still it's too much. Way too much! It's like first season Rick in Rick & Morty, there's just too much belching and vomit. Too much! I get it. I get the reasoning! But it's too much.

Clean up your room, Kara!

Also, I normally don’t do this, but the film's climactic ending was all wrong. Instead of Supergirl stopping Ruthye from killing Krem again, convincing her that it would do nothing to ease her pain, and then, afterwards, Supergirl picking up Ruthye's discarded sword and using it to kill Krem herself, before then recovering the antidote to Krypto's poison... it should’ve been that when Ruthye has Krem at her mercy, she decides on her own to not kill him , telling him that he isn't worth her father's blade, BUT THEN, she uses her father’s sword to cut the antidote that Krypto needs from the thong around his neck, handing it to Supergirl, dangling off the point of the blade, turning her weapon of death into an instrument of life, and then the two of them leave together to save Krypto. THEN, just as Krem thinks he's safe, as he struggles up to his feet... Lobo runs him over. Boom! Sends him flying. And as Klem lays there in the dirt, groaning, Lobo pulls up, and stands over him, puffing his cigar, and informs Klem that it tuns out, he actually did have a bounty on his head after all. Then Lobo cuts his head off.

But maybe that's just me.

Either way... Spilled milk. Nothing to be done.

Although, that does lead into the film's main problems, which is a jumble of awkward, weird, and incongruous choices that all together keep the film from ever finding its stride, and ultimately, from ever working the way it should. There's the constantly terrible needle drops, for one. Kara is presented in this film as an angry riot girl, but the pop song choices are all over the place. They not only never seem to fit the moment that they're playing over, but even who Kara is as a person. The teaser trailer featured Call Me by Blondie, and that was so much better than anything they used in the film, that I was reminded me of the time the first Suicide Squad movie had that incredible trailer that used Bohemian Rhapsody and how the tone it set turned out to be the total opposite of what the released film was like, which was terrible. To be fair, Supergirl is not a terrible movie, but, and while yes, it's been a bit since I watched this film, I honestly can't recall a single song choice that actually worked. In fact, the needle drops were so off the whole time, so bad, that in my opinion, if you needed proof that James Gunn wasn't directly involved in this film, I think this fact tells you that.

Worse, there's so many odd tonal changes in this film, so many moments that never come to fruition, or that undermine the attempted big emotional moments, that then never quite get earned. Also, the film seems to be missing whole chunks of its character arcs. When does Ruthye and Kara actually bond in this movie? For the ending to make sense, when do they become actual real friends?

Making things worse, parts of the film are so muddy, so ugly color-wise, that it's sometimes too hard to even see what's going on, forget about being able to follow the action. Not being able to see the action? In an action movie? What is this, Bay's Transformers? Following the action, being able to see it, that's the whole point. Even worse, a lot of the action that I could see... it wasn't great.

How does this happen?

But then, I heard that Director Craig Gillespie had been using AI generated concept "art" for the film, and well... that wasn't just disappointing–as only hacks, losers, dipshits, and wannabes assholes use GenAI for anything, because it's not only morally wrong and unethical to do so, but using it actively makes you stupid too–that seemed to provide me with a very unwanted answer as to why a lot of the action in this film was pretty unimpressive. Of course, not all of the action was like this, but still, that some of it definitely was is why it's all so disappointing.

But all that said, after seeing the movie, the answer to why some people are out there acting like Supergirl is the worst movie ever made is a pretty simple one: It's misogyny. Plain and simple. It’s yet again the same loser bigots and weirdos who’re ruining everything else. And sure, fine, that's not true of every negative review and reaction out there. I mean, it’s cool if you don’t like this movie, you don't have to. But rest assured, when you start talking about why you don’t like the movie, that's when you'll show your ass, because guess what?

Everyone can fucking tell what you're really saying, dude.

In fact, nothing is more obvious when someone, especially people who don't normally occupy these nerd/genre spaces, are suddenly so concerned about shit like... Supergirl being too angry, or that she wasn't shown as a role model. "Won’t someone think of the children!” It's especially noticeable because these kinds of tv shows and films, these "non-traditional" takes that take place in these traditionally white and male-dominated spaces, but have the audacity to feature someone who isn't white and/or male, always seem to get these complaints, and yet... those same fuckers have nothing to say about the new Batman movie, or the Penguin tv show spinoff being too "dark" or "angry," when that happens, they're all like "Fuck them kids." Nothing is more obvious than their actual agenda at that point. And the worst part is, because this dumb bigot sexist shit is the default in our society, whenever something like a superhero film with a female lead comes out, a parade of misogynistic assholes get a bunch of coverage in the press as if they're not just bigot trash, and then, as the wall-to-wall bad press ensures that the casual movie-goers don’t show up, because the only thing they’re been hearing on tv is that it’s bad, so the movie doesn't end up making two billion dollars worldwide in 1 month like Spider-Man: Brand New Day just did, these bigot misogynist assholes all caper about happily, and act like it’s the fault of feminism.

So yes, Supergirl flopped, but two things can be true as to why this happened...

1. There's some definite issues. Script, tone, and character arc issues, and the action wasn't great either. It's definitely gots its flaws.
2. Whenever a "female-centric" product is released in the Nerd/Genre space, it instantly becomes the target of the white supremacist and patriarchy culture war just for the crime of existing, and then a small army of pieces of shit with nothing else in their lives rage on the internet about it and generally disrupt the release of the film. This matters, because for a lot of the Normies out there, this is all they hear on tv, or they rely on the websites that the assholes review-bomb and post bad reviews on. Plus, a lot of these terrible (usually white and usually male) nerds are the "pop culture guy" in their social circles, so they spread the pre-release poo-pooing, and of course, no one says anything about their sexist bullshit. This is because, in white America, much like with bigotry, misogyny is tolerated from white dudes, because the greatest crime of all in white America is to call a fellow white person a racist or a misogynist, because if this happens, that means potential discomfort and inconvenience, worst of all, there's a risk of not being liked by the rest of their social circle because of the disruption, for bringing "politics" to the nice time. And that... is how shit like Gamergate is allowed to evolve, which is how Donald Trump got elected in the first place.

For want of a nail, as they say...

I know, I know, this is very hurtful of me, what I'm saying. I know. I'm just too dedicated to “Che la mia ferita sia mortale" as my own personal axiom. This is just me being mean because a movie I wanted to like didn't quite work out, right?

Sure, buddy, whatever helps you sleep at night.

But chew on this a bit... if you're out there like: "Well, how am I supposed to talk about my very legitimate concerns without everyone always saying that I'm a sexist bigot?" The answer is: "Gosh, I don't know, but if people seem to assume you're a sexist bigot every time you open your mouth, maybe it's past time for you to do a little self-examination, huh?"

Anyway...

Supergirl is a decent but flawed film, one that makes an attempt to discuss real issues amongst all the derring-do, all while clearly naming misogyny as a true evil. And in the end, at the very least, even if it falls a little short, it's a much better film than you’ve been led to believe, and I think it's still worth checking out.

Just, y'know... cheap is good. Free is better, if you can.