This is a thing. Last night CBS debuted Supergirl. Or, as the character herself so succinctly put it, 'Why not Superwoman?' But this is only the beginning of a very slippery slope and I for one hope they can manage to pull this show away from these directions that it was beginning to inch towards.
Can I just start off by saying they actually cast the character of Kara Zor-El perfectly? Melissa Benoist embodies the just the right qualities of naive, inexperienced and confident. She's also a Supergirl who's refreshingly not been cast on qualities of pure eye candy. No sir, Laura Vandervoot you are not and thank you very much for that fact. This in itself creates a character that is more likeable and makes the whole down to earth, rookie hero approach much more...believable in that respect.
But sadly, despite that I found myself cringing before the title itself even came on. First we have the beginnings of the awkward love triangle - with Winn....who I will get to in a moment and then we have Jimmy Olsen, who appears to have taken those Terry Crews Old Spice commericals to heart and somehow become a big buff black man (complete with tight shirt and all) rather than the skinny white kid we're all familiar with. What.
Why are they introducing the pining co-worker and the eye-candy man before the title is even on screen? Why are they already hinting at the love triangle angle? I mean, I get it. The show is very much about a female superhero. Girl power and all that. Painfully thrust into our faces with Cat Grant and the opening spiel about her being the most powerful woman of blah blah and blah. Ok, we got it. We accept that.
But please guys. Let's not assume that this female empowerment gig means we need to go down the zany love triangle route. I mean, you had moments where you took the girly girl stereotype and slapped it away...the costume choice, Kara's protest about being named Supergirl and not Superwoman...all very good. But please don't drop hints as to other stereotypes that drag the genre down being there. It's just not needed.
Yes, yes, we'll get to Winn in a moment. Shh. Wait a paragraph or two.
Ok, so, cringeworthy beginning. Some elements are fine, some elements are very much forced and some elements are unknowns. But then, during the the whole costume selection and modification montage.... it happened.
'It's not an S.'
Anyone else remember this scene from Man of Steel (which was, by the way, name dropped like, five times)? Anyone else remember how it got criticised and ripped to shreds for being wholly unnecessary, meaningless and just downright stupid? I mean, come on. You've lived on Earth for at least a decade. You've learned our language. You've seen our alphabet. You know full well that the average Earthling doesn't know one fucking thing about Krypton.
So why the hell are these Kryptonians trying to correct us on their alphabet. 'Hey guys, I know you don't mean it but it's like, really rude that you get the alphabet of my dead planet, having exploded some 20+ years ago wrong, not that you even knew it existed and I've lived here so pretty much know your alphabet but haven't told one fucking person mine. Still, you shouldn't get it wrong.'
Can I just say the whole family crest thing that DC shoehorned in many years ago was one of the dumbest developments I've ever known. When Superman was first created, way back when the S literally stood for Super. Just like Batman had a great big bat on his chest. And Spider Man a spider. And Captain America had a great big A with the stars and stripes everywhere.
Seriously. There's a good reason for this. I should imagine, as a rookie hero, you would want to make your appearance memorable and have a symbol or letter that immediately ties to your identity. Sort of like creating a brand. You know, something that is recognisable.
But the whole 'family crest' thing or 'it stands for hope' approach makes it come across like some pretentious social justice warrior.
Actually I'm the Woman of the House of El, which also means Hope but you wouldn't know because you humans are too mainstream to know about my long dead planet and its obscure as fuck politics. And that is totally rude and unacceptable of you.
Guys. Can we not? Please? Can we just not go down this path? Female empowerment, fine. Fine even with the tacky enforced angles you are shoving in. But please, let's not have eye candy. Let's not have love triangles. Let's not have a social justice warrior approach to obscure alien languages.
Ok, so the fight scenes, the rescuing...all pretty much standard. Ok, acceptable.
But here's what really got me. The way in which they brazenly dropped names - your average TV viewer will have no idea who the hell these characters are. A comic geek? Well, as a comic geek I would like to confess I squeed.
Let's start with Winn. Short for Winslow Schott. Also the alias of an existing Superman villain known as Toyman. 'But this Toyman's not old!' Ok, fair point. However, remember that in the Superman/Batman comic series they introduced a younger Toyman - Hiro Okamura. And where the original Toyman was purely a villain, Hiro was something of a sidekick. It wouldn't be remiss for the writers to have merged the two characters, resulting in a younger Winslow - same name as the villain, same role and approach as the sidekick.
But that's not where the bomb dropped.
Who's that charming, alien hating hardcase? Is it the new Jimmy Olsen's dad? Well, thankfully no.
That my friends is Hank Henshaw. Now, like Winn that name won't mean much to you. Perhaps the following image may help.
The Cyborg Superman. The villain who at one point was locked up in the Green Lantern Corps' holding cells due to the threat he posed. The villain who joined the Sinestro Corps along with Superman Prime (you know, the one who punched through the Fourth Wall...yeah....) and participated in the merry slaughter of several Green Lanterns.
Better still, the fact that this show is being shown on CBS, rather than Fox leads to another positive thought for us all. CBS is kind of a sister network to The CW. What this means is that there is potential for crossovers, officially mixing the Supergirl with Arrow/Flash.
Now if that happens and someone at The CW or CBS can negotiate the rights to the Green Lantern then we can truly be happy. And it would be great too. After all Hal Jordan and Ollie were great friends...
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