The new DC Superhero Girls series has really hit the ground running. Mixing in 'full' episodes over on Cartoon Network and shorts over on YouTube, Lauren Faust and crew have been giving us all the material we need to learn about the new takes on the characters and their environment.
A recent YouTube short is now available titled #KaraCare. Here is a link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBF2tO_aE7A&feature=youtu.be
Now I will admit, this is an interesting take on Supergirl. She is brash. She is rough around the edges. Here she is downright duplicitous as she takes advantage of a friend's kindness. This isn't the kind, dorky, awkward Shea Fontana Supergirl. But she is very likeable as a sort of 'bad girl' for this group, albeit one with a soft interior that occasionally gets shown.
I have been loving this series from the beginning and already know I need to cover the Cheetah main episode. So there will be more coverage soon!
On to this episode.
The episode starts from a far where we see a green explosion in the city.
A close up shows Wonder Woman cheering herself that her idea on how to vanquish Metallo worked.
Of course, we know saying Metallo and seeing green dust means one thing ... Kryptonite.
As the dust starts to settle, we see the unconscious form of Supergirl at the epicenter of the explosion. She looks dead.
In fact, she looks so dead that the DCSHG folks throw in a clear Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 reference. Amazing. 30+ years later and we are still seeing Supergirl carried this way.
Luckily she isn't dead. Just injured and weakened. Feeling guilty for sending Kara into the fray, Diana decides to personally nurse Supergirl back to health.
And Kara decides to take full advantage.
Diana's tray isn't good enough because the water doesn't have ice.
Supergirl says she is too weak to operate the TV remote and has Diana flip the channels at a very slow pace.
She makes Diana feed her ice cream, but only if each scoop has the perfect amount of sprinkles.
And every time Diana seems to tire of this treatment, Kara brings up how she is still having lingering symptoms from flying into Kryptonite ... you know ... that thing Wonder Woman told her to do.
Kara even uses this 'illness' to skip school. Not getting on the bus with Diana and racing back inside.
This is too much, even for the guilt-ridden Amazon.
She decides to trick Kara into revealing that she isn't actually hurting.
And it is clear she isn't suffering or weakened.
We see Supergirl rocking out on her bed, head banging to music.
That is until Bumblebee and Green Lantern show up to check on her. Then Supergirl flies under the covers and again begins her moaning and shuddering.
But then Wonder Woman contacts Bumblebee and Lantern. Doomsday is loose in the city. They need to mobilize.
When the girls run, Supergirl can't help herself! Doomsday loose! She can't wait to throw down!
I love these extreme angles of Supergirl flying into battle. We seem to get one every episode!
Of course, this is a ruse by Diana to lure Kara out of bed and back to 'normal'.
So what do you guys think? Bad representation of Supergirl? Teenage antics? Silliness?
I'd like to think that her rushing to fight Doomsday means she wouldn't let people or friends be hurt to keep her ruse up. And it *is* funny. That scene of her rocking out on her bed is wonderful.
For me, I like it. It is one interpretation of Supergirl with enough of the core Kara present to keep me happy.
4 comments:
I'm not sure that I like seeing Kara taking advantage of her friend's gentleness and guilt. Then again, another short has Babs throw her friends out of their hideout when they have the gall to ask her to clean her mess up. So I think the characters' negative traits are being played up by the sake of loony sociopathic comedy.
In the last week's proper episode, though, Kara blatantly states she will not put up with anybody hurting Diana. So maybe the tv-show will not play that "Loony Toones comedy" angle up.
On the short: Oh, look, another COIE reference. Are people aware that COIE #7 is NOT the only story Supergirl has ever been featured in? It's like they don't know what else to do with Kara other than showing someone carrying her injured/lifeless body.
I guess I should be patient. The Danvers, Zor and Alura, Streaky, Midvale, Argo City and even Lena Luthor and Dick Malverne are making her way to mainstream media. Her mythos are better represented than in the DCAU era where she was Kara Kent, Superman's adoptive cousin raised in Kansas by John and Martha Kent.
I'm surprised she is SO eager to battle Doomsday. Or Doomsday apparently already exists in this universe, even though the heroes are still very young. She wants to prove she can succeed where Superman failed? Or she wants to avenge her cousin? Maybe both?
It's funny how annoyed her friends look, except for Diana. She seems amused, so maybe she didn't mind much.
I don't think an entire episode of Kara taking advantage of her friends would be a good idea. However, in a four minute episode which also displays her rallying to the side of those same friends without hesitation to defend them and the city of Metropolis against Doomsday, it is tolerable. Her heart is clearly shown to be in the right place when it counts. Also, diving head on into Metallo's chest plate almost certainly through a beam of deadly kyryptonite radiation certainly qualifies as one of the most awe inspiring Supergirl moments of the year even if it does happen offscreen.
The first sentence above should read an entire twenty minute episode.
This new direction is bittersweet to me.
There are things they do really well. Then there are things like the personality changes that make me cringe a bit, but that I can accept.
But then there are a few things that make me desperately yearn for the old days.
1) Continuity - I would have needed a few episodes after Sweet Justice to follow up on them working from their lair, cementing friendships, getting to know each other. The old version made me feel like I was watching a long story being developed. This one just feels like a bunch of disconnected glimpses, and even if I enjoy the tales, it leaves me unsatisfied.
2) I miss emotions that feel ernest. Friendships that feel wholesome and true. Between Dianas focus to duty, Batgirl living in her own world, Kara's facade, and Zee's shallowness, there is nothing beyond the mission that makes them work as friends.
3) I miss Shea on the comic so much. The new comic writer isn't walking that line where the comic works for all ages. I get that this is made for kids, and that's the most important, but I really miss the comics, and this new writer just doesn't work for me at all.
I feel that this new direction has potential, but it needs to be a lot more like Sweet Justice - on the show, the shorts and the comics.
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