Last Saturday, this picture was forwarded to me, a post on the Pre-Crisis Supergirl page on Facebook. They knew I would love it. This one would have missed be completely because Facebook is one of the social media platforms I am not on.
To give credit where credit is due here is a link to that Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/176AkvCbYD/?mibextid=wwXIfr
I thought the post was brilliant, talking about how at times DC 'scoops out' Supergirl's hope and optimism and replaces it with 'trauma and disillusionment'. This is, for me, especially true of her portrayal in Woman Of Tomorrow. So seeing this picture of Supergirl chucking the Woman of Tomorrow book in the trash and saying 'That's not me.' was great.
I posted it on X with the simple words 'perfect post'. I feel this 'not me' sentiment about trauma and disillusionment is not only true of the pre-Crisis Supergirl, but the post-Crisis ones too - the Loeb reboot, the New 52, and the Rebirth ones. They all dealt with their history and rose above.
The tweet has grabbed some serious traction, one of the biggest ones I have ever had. As of 7a this morning, it was one of my most viewed tweets with 10K views.
I love the character of Supergirl for many reasons. One is that despite the tragedies in her life she has worked through them, beyond them, above them to be bright, optimistic, and hopeful. She wants to make sure no one else has to suffer like her. 'Help, Hope, and Compassion For All' was the perfect mantra for her.
I think some of the best stories I have covered on this site have been arcs where she has done just that - BizarroGirl by Sterling Gates/Jamal Igle/Bernard Chang stands out. As does 'Red Daughter' by Charles Soule, Tony Bedard, and others.
DC seems to think that Supergirl an interesting take for the character would be to turn her dark but time and again that has failed. I think that is because it doesn't work for the core of the character.
And frankly, Woman Of Tomorrow's dark take failed for me there as well. The drunk, angry woman who wants to be alone rather than with family isn't right. The young woman screaming in a sun, living 'a life of pain' isn't right. A Supergirl who brings a young girl to a stoning execution and allows a prisoner to be beaten to death after serving his sentence isn't right.
It isn't right for me and how I think of Supergirl.
This doesn't mean I want her locked in amber, never growing or changing. I think Joshua Willaimson and Phillip Kennedy Johnson had her grow tremendously under their run.
This doesn't mean I want her stories to be saccharine fluff. I love Supergirl because she is so complex, still learning her way, still fallible.
I do not want her without hardships. Of course, in all her incarnations, she has had them. I just want her to have worked through the trauma, not wallow in it.
I want her hopeful and optimistic.
I actually believe the movie, unlike the book, is going to lean that way. I think the movie is going to have the traumatized Kara seeing Lobo as what she will become if she stays on her current path and deciding she needs to change. I think in the end, this movie Supergirl will be hopeful.
We shall see.
And kudos again to 'Tommy Cheatham' for the original post. Brilliant.
5 comments:
Woman of Tomorrow is a book pretty much made for people who don't really care or know Supergirl that's why it's resonated with general audiences they always see the character in other books but never really read anything with her as main character pretty much until this book and book been cannon to the main continuity doesn't helps but I think the story going to work better for the movie because unlike the comics we don't really know anything about DCU Kara so her being like in that book be like a default for her is better because that way she can become more proper Supergirl in the future
I saw this on FB as well, I stuck with it, until the inevitable taunting and gloating kicked in...this will be the tone of the discussion until the movie finally drops some fourteen weeks from now. JF
Thanks for comments.
Yes, the responses on X took a similar taunting/gloating turn which is why I felt I needed a long form response here.
I enjoyed Woman of Tomorrow.
I don't think it was a great story, I certainly do not think it was without it's flaws and there are parts of it I do not agree with at all (especially the drinking (not that she was out drinking/drunk as it was her birthday and that seemed like a reasonable thing for her to do but, and the Superman movie has made it worse, this has somehow become she's regularly drunk (which is a comment I see more and more) that just isn't borne out by literally anything else (I seem to recall an issue of Countdown where she (and might have been Cassie) spend Black Canary's Hen Night trying to get a drink only to dislike the taste when she eventually does))).
But I do also think it contains some shining examples of what makes her such a great character in the first place like her casually brushing the bullet out of her eye when confronting the people behind the massacre (the first of far too many massacres in the book) of purpletown, helping the gravedigger on Escalm both dig the graves and find his daughters remains so she could be laid to rest, helping the woman called Irasaan mourn her lost family and holding her whilst she wept, her grief over Comet and, despite everything he'd done, prevented Ruthye from killing Krem of the Yellow Hills.
Even the panel you've used as an example comes after her witnessing yet another massacre (seriously what is wrong with Tom King) and is only Ruthye's interpretation of what was happening (she does say something about her story contradicting what Supergirl herself says happened) and immediately following she is back trying to protect Ruthye from what is still to come.
Hopefully I have been polite in this response, and I'm not trying to change your mind/say you're wrong in not liking it, but there is a lot to like in there if you just ignore the bits you don't like (as a Star Wars fan too this is a skill I use increasingly regularly)
I wrote a mini essay and posted it on YouTube under the trial. I used quotes from Marv Wolfman from his Crisis novelization, which emphasized her hopefulness and strength of character. It's sad we live in a world where a hopeful, compassionate Supergirl who wouldn't stoop to being a lonely cursing drunk who lets people murder others is an insult, and insulting people who know and care about the character as we do is the normal response. Super heroes were aspirational characters who gave hope to people during dark times and that's a thing of the past. I sincerely regret ever receiving a comic book as I wouldn't be feeling so sad and hurt and upset over fictional characters.
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