Supergirl has me conflicted

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]It's me, Pup. How are you doing? I, for one, am I'm I'm just hoham. This is an off day for me, okay? But I really want to talk about the Supergirl movie here.

[00:00:09]It is the upcoming second feature film in the DCU, and I honestly feel really bad here because I made videos on Superman. I made a video on Peacemaker season 2 when that was in the pipeline, but I didn't actually review the show.

[00:00:21]I've talked about Clayface, and I've talked a lot about lanterns. There's been a lot of speculation for that one because it's made me very curious. But with Supergirl, I've just kind of drawn a bit of a blank. And I think it's just because I'm not that excited for this movie. I'm excited for Supergirl as a character, and I'm excited for the inevitable sequel. And there's a lot of things within this movie that I'm looking forward to, but it's not like Superman where I'm absolutely buzzing for this movie, and it is the very centerpiece of the year. And I'm also aware of the optics here, and I would apologize for that. I swear it's not because she's a girl. The real reason isn't much more intellectual than that, but I like to think it's at least a bit more benign. So, comic book movies by this point are well and truly an established subgenre. A subgenre possibly in the late stages of its lifespan. But there are also different kind of categories that comic book movies can kind of fall into. Like you've got your ground and gritty ones, you've got your uplifting swashbuckling ones. But there's kind of another subgenre here and it's one that I can absolutely appreciate the merit in. But it usually means that my first watch is probably going to be a little bit disappointing. The category is superhero movies where the superhero spends the vast majority of the runtime outside of their superhero costume. And I don't mean say movies like you know Spider-Man from Sam Ramy where like yes Peter Parker is in the movie more than Spider-Man is. What I mean is more movies like The Dark Knight Rises, Captain America the Winter Soldier. I guess I kind of put Fantastic 4 first steps in there. A lot of people include Iron Man 3, but I personally don't. You do see the Iron Man costume quite a bit in that movie. And I know what you're thinking. There there is nothing less intellectual than saying I am less excited about a movie based on how long a character is going to stay in a specific outfit. This is the farthest thing from objective film criticism. But it's why when just first watching through the Supergirl trailers, like I was like, "What? That looks good. I've got very little else to say." I was saying, "I hope she's not going to spend the entire movie in the brown coat and blondie shirt." And that does look to be the case. And that does seem to be confirmed as Craig Gillespie said that Cara wears her long brown coat and blondie shirt for the majority of the movie. She wears it all the time. In Variety magazine, when asked about the Supergirl suit, Millie Alcott definitely seemed to hint that yeah, we're not going to be seeing much of the costume and she says, "I don't know if I can tell you it's DC. I'm scared, but I don't wear it as much as people will think. It's a journey." And my immediate kind of gut response to this was, "Oh, it's one of those superhero movies." But to be fair, it's exactly as I expected based on all the trailers. They haven't exactly blindsided me with this. This is not like The Amazing Spider-Man 2 where the trailers are full to the brim of action shots of the superhero in costume, but that's not really reflective of what the film is about.

[00:03:05]So, immediately, I'm kind of on the movie side. And as I've said, there's nothing inherently wrong with a superhero movie opting to explore the character's alter ego a little bit more outside of the costume. At the end of the day, the character isn't the costume. The character is the character.

[00:03:19]But then there are certainly other benefits as well. Storytellers are often looking for new ways to kind of humanize their characters, even if that doesn't necessarily mean that they are literally human. It's ways to make them feel more compelling, but it also serves as a huge ramp up in stakes as well. It suggests unpreparedness. The superhero doesn't have their gear with them. and they have to rely on their wits, which works well for like third part climax movies like say the Dark Knight Rises. There's something incredible about like say the new Goblin fight in Spider-Man 3 where Peter is just totally unprepared. He's not in costume and he's just blindsided by the new Goblin. It gives this real sense of survival. Truth be told, I wouldn't be against having more fight scenes where the hero has no time to prepare and therefore isn't in costume.

[00:04:01]On the other hand, there does come the expectation. Obviously, this is a blanket statement. This doesn't apply to all superheroes, but like the superhero costume is a code and convention of a superhero. If a character is wearing a superhero costume, they're probably a superhero, unless they're a villain, which is also a code and convention of a superhero film. It can also just feel like a bit of an anti-limax if you've been waiting to see this character or this version of the character on the big screen or silver screen if we're talking about TV shows. You can feel kind of impatient to see Supergirl rather than just Cara. And when you have a movie where it feels like the entire movie is building up to them earning the costume and then they only wear it for like the final act, it can leave the film feeling like more of a prologue to something bigger. And that's something I noticed with Supergirl is it just doesn't really feel like the main event in the way that Superman did leading up to its hype.

[00:04:50]Then there's just also the integrity of these comic book characters as well.

[00:04:54]Comic book characters are old. They've been around a very long time and as such fans hold a lot of reverence for them.

[00:05:00]And the same applies to their designs.

[00:05:02]It's why even though sometimes we can get perfectly fine superhero costumes that don't resemble the ones from the comics, you kind of want to see them look the way they did in the comics.

[00:05:10]Part of the fun is the translation of that. See how people approach those design elements. When you trade out the suit, which is the iconography for civilian clothes, it can feel like the eraser of the iconography and feel just kind of disrespectful to the source material as like, did we really need to put this movie out there incognito so that people would accept it? The thing is though, all of this is fanboy discussion. It's insular stuff. And you can have movies where the character is in costume the entire time that absolutely suck butts. Look at Thor: Love and Thunder. He's virtually in costume the majority of the movie. and the film is just 50 cc's of [ __ ] irritating. At the end of the day, what matters is ultimately the film's quality. What themes do we have? How do we explore those? How does that impact the characters? And I will always take a movie that is like that and keeps the character out of the costume than one that keeps the character in the costume the entire time, but is just absolutely vapid. Not because I lack joy and whimsy, but because I I just I want the films to resonate with me. It doesn't feel good when a film slides off of my brain. And that's not something that I think we have to worry about with Supergirl. And I think a lot of ways in them choosing this path that I'm less excited about. I do have confidence that this is going to lead to better overall storytelling in the DCU. Our first two feature films of the DCU focus on Kryptonians, the super family. So, we're hitting the ground running with the dichotomy between the super family. And with this version, they are playing up the differences between Superman and Supergirl. If you look at the Supergirl TV series starring Melissa Benoy, Supergirl is much more kind of girl Superman. But Supergirl isn't like Clark. And this movie, at least in its marketing so far, wants to make a really big point of that. Superman is your quintessential comic booky superhero movie. It's not just light-hearted action hijinks by any stretch. There are some really heavy thematic elements in there, stuff that relates to realworld geopolitical [ __ ] But you got lots of Superman in action fighting kaijus.

[00:07:11]You've got Lex Luthther. It's a very comforting experience to watch. But another point the film really emphasized in Superman 2025 was that Clark is human. Biologically he's Kryptonian, but ideologically he is as human as anyone >> and that's my greatest strength.

[00:07:26]>> He doesn't have any memory of Krypton blowing up. And he was first found on Earth as a baby, raised by two genuinely good people who were able to raise this paragon of goodness all by themselves.

[00:07:37]That's honestly something I loved about Superman 2025. That was a controversial element. People didn't like that they made the elves evil. Sending Superman to conquer Earth rather than be that ideal to strive towards. And I think that pivot from the source material only helps Supergirl as well. If Superman is human first, Kryptonian second, Supergirl is Kryptonian first, and she's not human. Being human doesn't come naturally to Cara Zorel. Again, this isn't really something we leaned into much with the CW Supergirl TV series, but Cara was a young woman when Krypton was destroyed. We did not see the destruction of Krypton in Superman 2025, but we will be seeing it here. And I think saving that for Supergirl's story and having that immediately follow Superman is genuinely a stroke of genius. There's going to be a really nice juxtaposition between these movies.

[00:08:25]And there's a moment in one of the new TV spots where we've got Clark seemingly giving Cara her Supergirl suit or at least introducing her to it. He mentions that it's colorful and that's so that humans can know that you're good. And I like that line. I like that line so much. And it further befuddles me as to why they went down the the Superman costume is a uniform route when Superman is here introducing Car to the costume saying it's colorful so that humans know you're a good guy. He wears a costume to be approachable and non-threatening, yet we felt the need to make it look like a uniform. Stop with all this. But I do think that's a lovely and inherently Superman sentiment. And again, it helps that juxtaposition. Why does Supergirl need to look good for humanity? Who does she owe it to to look good? When I say good, I I mean like it doesn't matter.

[00:09:12]Of course, she looks good. And this kind of establishes that she's not really feeling the whole Supergirl thing. We're also seeing in the trailer a lot more of Supergirl's destructive power than what we saw in Superman. The action in the Supergirl trailers feels a little bit more akin to how Snider handled Superman in that it's very visceral and violent.

[00:09:29]Like, she's making some serious kicks here. And I don't doubt that the action is going to go really [ __ ] hard. And again, it's because she spent most of her life so far on Krypton, so she's never really learned the muscle memory of being super gentle like Clark did.

[00:09:42]There is something truly wonderful about the story of Supergirl. really Superman does deal with struggles of otherness and masking, but he had a nurturing family. Cara doesn't have that. She's the new Kryptonian on the blog. It's why I think it's just great that there are so many little parallels between Superman and Supergirl here. One of which being in Superman, he wears the costume with a great sense of glee. Any excuse to put that [ __ ] on. Supergirl, on the other hand, is going to get [ __ ] done in her casual civies. One thing I will say is I do kind of understand some of the complaints that the film does kind of look like it was ghost directed by James Gunn. And I think we'll definitely see more of Craig Gillespy's influence when we actually see the film.

[00:10:18]The thing is, the film feels very different from Superman, but James Gun wasn't really playing as much to the James Gunisms with Superman. Sincerity, occasional irreverent humor, and the occasional needle drop were in there, but it was overall a much cleaner, vibrant movie than what James Gun would usually go for. That underlying sincerity of a lot of James Gun movies was at the forefront from start to finish in Superman. Supergirl on the other hand feels a bit more like a typical James Gun film. You've got a very grimy, rusty space punk aesthetic, very akin to particularly the first Guardians of the Galaxy. I want to say Paul Me by Blondie has been kind of the needle drop of this movie throughout the trailers and that is again a very James Guncoded decision. He's not the first guy in the world to do needle drops, but it is a quintessential part of his movies and his directorial style. Gags like Krypto the Superdog pissing on a picture of Superman. Again, that feels very James Guncoded. And so, I guess I'll say it's a it's a little disappointing that the first non-James Gun DCU project does feel kind of as guncoded as this does, but I think we're going to see Craig Gillespie become more into his own, particularly in like the action as well. It's just right now this is being marketed in a very sort of Guardians of the Galaxy adjacent way.

[00:11:32]But I'm not going to say it's like a Guardians of the Galaxy cloner or anything. There there's something distinctly more somber about this. I will say with the production design in general, it's by no means bad, but I am just a little bit disappointed that it doesn't resemble the comic Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow a bit more than it does. This does not just boil down to I want my comic accuracy. I mean, that's not the worst argument to make in the world. If you want a bit of comic accuracy, no, there's nothing wrong with that. Does it mean that that criticism holds weight all the time and in every context? Not necessarily. You're not invalid for feeling that way. The reason it disappoints me just a little bit is because from what I've seen of Supergirl Women of Tomorrow, there is a lot of very psychedelic imagery, psychedelic use of colors. Now, a lot of discourse when it comes to cinematography just boils down to, "Oh, I want my pretty colors to look nice and pretty." But the Woman of Tomorrow comic did look really unique. It had a really cosmic dystopian vibe to it, and that psychedelic stuff really added to that feeling of being away from home, drifting. This movie doesn't feel like that. and his color palettes are a lot more earthy, a lot more kind of browns. And I just don't know if that's going to sell Supergirl's plight in the same way. I don't know. I just think we can be a whole lot more ambitious with the way space looks. But there is this image here of Supergirl on like it looks like she's about to bomb a plane, but like it's some kind of public transportation thing and she's on there and she's holding something. And I got to say that interior looks fantastic.

[00:12:51]That's the thing. This feels like a good movie, but it doesn't look as interesting as I think it could have. I know it's got narrative reasoning, but we traded out the Supergirl costume for a duffel coat and a shirt. And now we've traded out these psychedelic skylines for environments that look like they could have come from Guardians of the Galaxy just on a very sad and nihilistic day. But I think that's my bigger concern than anything else. It's just the Supergirl of it all. I love what this movie is doing in juxtaposition to Superman 2025. I love the dichotomy between these two movies conceptually, but Supergirl's own adventure just on its own two feet, I'm just not sure yet.

[00:13:29]It feels like there's a lot of cool stuff that we could have done that we probably won't get to see, but I might be wrong about that. The film's not even out yet. So, what are you guys' thoughts? Does just not wearing the costume much just end up completely inconsequential to you? Is it something that bothers you? Do you like the production design? Like the video if you liked it. Dislike the video if you disliked it. Subscribe if you want more DCU news and updates and just discussions. And apparently hyping the video helps or just just do none of that. You can do none of that if you want. I don't take that for granted. And now a special thank you shout out to my patrons in the $5 and above tier. They are Manelza KB Twilight Botan Serious Skeptic and Mr. SP. Kale Bennett refusal to play rock paper scissors means I whip fine rock dead any sad Goku ghostly phantom Xandwolf channel life form data successfully. Car Peter, thank you.

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