Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Supergirl In Man Of Steel Prequel Comic


In what should be great news, Kara Zor-El is prominently featured in a prequel comic of the Man of Steel movie. In what should be even more phenomenal news, the story is written by Supergirl wunderkind Sterling Gates and drawn by legend Jerry Ordway.

The idea of Supergirl being around in the 'movie universe' is incredible and it makes me thrilled as a Kara fan.

But ...

This prequel is only available as a download and only if you purchase the advance movie tickets from Walmart. So no Walmart tickets, no prequel comic.

I guess I can understand the idea of giving perks to folks who are dedicated enough to buy the advance tickets. But it seems cruel to deny me (yes I am being selfish) this story.

And from what I gather from perusing all the websites which have covered this story, this story probably has a big impact on the movie story.

Here are the pages which have been released to the public.


My understanding here is that Kara has just passed some sort of endurance test/course and is declared eligible to be a sort of Kryptonian space explorer/pioneer.

Here Zor-El and Lara give her a gift of a sunstone complete with a picture of Kara hugging someone in a 'happy moment'!

So a strong Kara gearing up to explore space and colonize a new world.


It is interesting that such a space fleet of ships is part of this world's history. I suppose it explains how Zod and his troops can be around in the movie. But it makes that 'last son of Krypton' tagline much less applicable. Are there all sorts of Kryptonian worlds out there?

One of the applicants for this service is Dev-Em. Dev-Em murders someone in that trial and is sentenced to life in prison. Here Dev-Em escapes.

Dev-Em in the Silver Age was a Kryptonian juvenile delinquent who survived the planet's explosion. Initially a villain, he reforms and becomes a hero in the 30th century Legion books.


Kara places herself in suspended animation for this space trip. Unfortunately, Dev-Em is on the ship and kills everyone of the crew except Kara.

Eventually Kara awakens, discovers her crew dead, and battle Dev-Em on the ship.

The battle damages the ship such that it has to crash on the 'nearest' safe planet which turns out to be .... Earth!

Incredibly, the ship crashes in prehistoric times. Apparently we see neanderthals outside the ship as it crashes into northern Canada.


Does Kara survive? Is she able to place herself into suspended animation again? Will she be part of any sequels that happen? Who knows.

But my guess is her ship and the sunstone somehow tie into the Fortress of Solitude. The book ends with Clark in his 'fisherman' guise, presumably nearing the crash site.

How I wish I could read this book in its entirety! Hopefully it will make some trade at some point.

But let's not miss the big picture. Supergirl is prominently mentioned and is a plot point in an upcoming mega-movie. No complaints here ... unless Clark discovers her skeleton in the Fortress/ship.

If anyone has read this thing fully please comment and let me know if I missed anything!

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I dunno DC has a long unsavory history of getting our hopes up and then casually and cruelly misusing Supergirl all to generate some short term cheap heat for Superman.

I think we ought to be sure that it's a worthwhile Superman franchise before we toss Kara Zor El into the mix. This is absent any effort to develop Supergirl as a standalone property (tv or animated series being her natural venues).
I suspect ere' this Summer is done we are all gonna be nostalgic for Brandon Routh...
Hope I'm wrong though

JF

Martin Gray said...

Well I'm gonna be the anti-John and be optimistic - what a treat this looks, Sterling Gates and Jerry Ordway together on Kara. How fab to see sunstone - wasn't that a Sterling creation? - and the Return of the Knave from Krypton.

Sterling being a friend of the blog, perhaps he can swing you a comp for review? (Hi Sterling!)

Diabolu Frank said...

I LOVE this. I sincerely hope it means Kara will be in Man of Steel. I'm so used to Superman movies living in their own bubble of Gene Hackmanesque Luthors and cringe-inducing comic relief and made up alternate villains that something as simple as integrating Supergirl into his film seems revelatory. The non-comic sci-fi angle has been pushed hard since J.J. Abrams, and all the easter egg talk has been related to the Justice League, so drawing from actual Superman lore threw me for a loop.

LJ-90 said...

"Unless Clark discovers her skeleton" That made me laugh, not to be mean, but that would be kind of funny.

But really hoping that's not the case and eventually we can see another Supergirl movie!

LJ-90 said...

After watching the "Fate of your planet" trailer I think (Sadly) you may be right Anj, and we'll see Supergirl in skeleton form.

Unknown said...

If this story is more or less 'offical' then it might be in the novelization that's coming out on June 18th.

Anj said...

Thanks for all the comments.

I am going to go with the optimism that maybe this leaves an opening for a Supergirl in film at some point. There are parts in the book that seem foreshadow-y. But the ending is ambiguous.

That said, we do see a skeleton in the new trailer!

Unknown said...

The corpse may simply be, and is more likely, one of Kara's female crew members, Ho-Paa. In the Prequel comic, we see Ho-Paa in her suit, in skeleton-ized form - just as depicted in this latest trailer, "Fate of your planet".

I would say there is still plenty of room for Kara to pop up either at the end of MoS or as part of the main cast in a MoS II.

SPOILER ALERT:


In the Prequel comic, we see Clark on his lobster ship; as anyone who knows about catching lobster, lobster is caught in and around the northern shores of North America; and guess what - that's exactly where Kara's ship has landed.

I envisage that as Clark is roaming around doing odd jobs trying to 'find himself', (as Kevin Costner has been encouraging him to do), following his 'Deadliest Catch' phase, he happens upon the Kryptonian ship, brought there by circumstance, (rushing to the aid of a burning oil rig perhaps lol). This wreckage may well become what we refer to as Sup's 'Fortress of Solitude'.

We have good evidence to support this claim as the interior facade we see in the trailers, of Clark walking out of an alien structure in some frozen tundra, (right before he kneels to burst into flight), is depicted EXACTLY as the interior facade of Kara's ship in the Prequel comic.

Now this next part is just my supposition, but perhaps before Clark even arrives at the wreckage, Kara has already stumbled out of the ship, or even been pulled from the wreckage by the same Inuit people. The Prequel comic story reveals what look like Inuits, hunting in and around the crash site and reveals drawings they have scribed on some canvas, of a ship falling from the skies and culminating in the house of El symbol \S/.

What precipitated Kara's ship to crash, was Kara and Dev-Em getting into a fierce physical fight. What I got from the comic strip was, while on Krypton, Kryptonians have powers/strength proportional to what we have on earth, but as these two start fighting, just above earth, in one scene, Dev-Em is surprised when one of his missed punches leaves an enormous fist print in the side of the ship ...they have super strength! As they wrestle around fighting, the ship gets trashed as these super beings smash everything, not realizing their strength.

Why is this important? It means Kara can survive the crash! .......and so can Dev-Em! Dun-dun-daaaaaah!!

...and now you have the seeds for a Supergirl story!!!!


Anonymous said...

Good eye, Henry. ;)

Glad you guys enjoyed the comic!
-Sterling

Unknown said...

http://imgur.com/a/mMCZm

Anonymous said...

OMG!!! THIS STORIES WITH THE KARA IS NOT NICE, IS WRONG, I HOPE NEVER MUST BE IN THE HISTORY THE MAN STEEL MOVIE, SORRY!!! I NOT LIKE.

Gustavo Delamarques said...

I hope this stories of the kara stay only in the Hq comic, the sequence of the man steel movie, be different, I not like.

Anonymous said...

I have an admiration for Zack Snyder, but I do not approve of this story, the origin of supergirl, after crisis infinite earth, the origin her turned an anomaly wrong.