What the Surprise Character Who Called Superman A B!tch Means for the Future of the DCU

This portion contains spoilers for Superman (2025) and Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow (2021)

Ever since the "Gods and Monsters" slate was announced by James Gunn and his co-CEO astatine DC Studios, Peter Safran, 1 happening has been clear: Kryptonians are astatine the halfway of the caller DCU. With Superman yet hitting screens, we've gotten to conscionable David Corenswet's delightfully axenic Clark Kent who volition intelligibly beryllium the beating bosom of the caller franchise. Just similar him, the movie is colorful, kind, and filled with compassion. It's a cleanable Superman and establishes a wide and expansive caller DCU with centuries of characters, adventures, and villains to excavation into. But arsenic the movie comes to an extremity we get an unexpected guest, 1 who volition beryllium cardinal to the aboriginal of the franchise.

See, it turns retired that Clark is not the lone 1 who survived the decease of the satellite helium erstwhile called home. And arsenic we larn successful the last moments of the movie, Clark has different comparative and we get to conscionable her successful unforgettable benignant earlier she headlines the upcoming Supergirl film.

Introducing Milly Alcock’s Supergirl

In an really shocking, not leaked, and precise amusive instauration we get our archetypal connected surface glimpse of the DCU's Supergirl. As Clark returns to the Fortress of Solitude to heal, Kara Zor-El clang lands into Kal-El's hideout looking for her favored canine Krypto. That's right, this is the foster concern that Superman alluded to earlier successful the film. He's been babysitting the iconic Super Pet for his relative who has been retired partying connected different planets wherever she tin really get wasted — much connected that later. But her instauration whitethorn person thrown disconnected fans of the sweet-hearted baby-faced Kryptonian from the comics oregon the fashionable CW Arrowverse, seeing arsenic this Kara is... a small different.

As you whitethorn person guessed from the information she loves drinking and she clang landed, this isn't the innocent, sweet, and often good behaved Kara that astir of america know. Instead she swears, stumbles, and adjacent calls Clark a bitch portion sarcastically thanking him for dogsitting. As Superman Robot 4 A.K.A. Gary (Alan Tudyk) and Superman sermon her intelligibly unhealthy manner arsenic good arsenic her unsmooth and tumble narration with Krypto, she exits signifier near with her faithful pup and heads retired connected different adventure, which — portion not a post-credits country — does springiness america a glimpse astatine what’s to travel for the contiguous aboriginal of the DCU.

How Superman Sets Up Supergirl

"I’m sick of the superhero title, colon, other-name thing," Gunn precocious shared successful an interview. That explains wherefore some Superman — primitively titled Superman: Legacy — and Supergirl — primitively titled Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow — ended up with their shortened names. That's important to enactment present arsenic the mentation of Kara that we get successful Superman is decidedly from Woman of Tomorrow, the 2021 eight-issue constricted bid by Bilquis Everly and Tom King, which manager Craig Gillespie and writer Ana Nogueira are adapting for their upcoming 2026 Supergirl movie. Seeing arsenic Supergirl is lone successful Superman for astir 2 minutes, you mightiness beryllium questioning conscionable however it's mounting up her movie different than introducing the curse-loving mentation of Kara. But it's each successful the details, particularly erstwhile it comes to her hard-drinking attack to heroics.

During a property lawsuit that IGN attended, Gunn described this Kara arsenic "much much hardcore and not the Supergirl we're utilized to" and that's underselling it. In the comic which inspired this mentation of our Kryptonian heroine, we spot Kara arsenic a hard-drinking 21 twelvemonth aged who has been touring planets with reddish suns successful bid to beryllium capable to get wasted. Why does she emotion to drink? Well, successful this mentation she was raised connected an exploded portion of her satellite and forced to ticker her loved ones dice arsenic she hurtled towards Earth. The communicative follows Kara arsenic she drinks her mode crossed the postulation with Krypto successful bid to observe her 21st birthday. She gets into fist fights, brawls, and finds herself successful much than a mates of life-threatening ruckuses, but it's erstwhile she meets a young pistillate named Ruthye Marye Knoll that her quest changes. Ruthye's begetter was killed by a brutal thief named Krem of the Yellow Hills, and she enlists Kara to assistance her termination him.

Inspired by the classical Western movie True Grit, with a chaotic phantasy sci-fi twist, this is simply a genre communicative dissimilar immoderate different arsenic Ruthye and Kara squad up connected a quest for revenge which feels similar a acold outcry from the sweet, heartfelt, and decidedly family-friendly Superman. By simply sanction dropping the comic that volition animate her upcoming film, Gunn and Co. aren’t shying distant from conscionable however antithetic Clark and Kara are. We’ve already seen her curse and stumble astir the fortress earlier clumsily flying distant with Kyrpto to — presumably — wreak much havoc. By establishing the ace cousins’ presumption quo early, fans already person a glimpse of what’s to travel erstwhile they adjacent conscionable the Girl of Steel connected her unsafe quest to assistance Ruthye get revenge for her father.

Why Supergirl's New Attitude Works successful the DCU

During Superman we conscionable Rachel Brosnahan's fiercely driven Lois Lane and Nicholas Holt's obsessive Lex Luthor alongside the heroic titular Kryptonian. But the movie isn't conscionable acrophobic with the halfway formed arsenic Gunn pulls from heavy comic publication canon to bring characters similar the Engineer (Maria Gabriela de Faria) , Eve Teschmacher (Sara Sampio), and everyone's favourite Lex Luthor minion... Sydney Happersen (Stephen T. Blackehart).

This is simply a satellite profoundly acrophobic with the nether utilized oregon unexpected takes connected characters, and it's what makes this Kara consciousness truthful right. Instead of taking from the astir well-known mentation of The Girl of Steel, we alternatively get the hard-drinking, depressed, and hilarious mentation from Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. It opens up imaginable that could woody with immoderate of the astir absorbing and nether explored aspects of Supergirl and her past successful comics.

It's not conscionable innovative, though. It really makes a batch of sense. In the comics Kara was ever expected to beryllium the elder Kryptonian survivor, sent to look aft babe Kal-El arsenic helium heads to Earth successful bid to past the demolition of his location planet. No substance what mentation of her communicative you read, you larn that Kara was fundamentally frozen successful clip arsenic she took years to scope Earth, starring her to look younger than her relative and get connected Earth aft he's already an established hero. That's not an casual happening to unrecorded with, and portion Kara has often taken a much hopeful attack inspired by her celebrated relative, it's bully to deliberation that we mightiness spot her get to research and explicit the world of that, which is acold much horrifying and bittersweet than you mightiness think.

This isn't adjacent conscionable thing that is explored successful Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow either. Throughout Kara's past she's been dealing with this trauma — and the nightmare of being killed and resurrected during the archetypal Crisis connected Infinite Earths, thing you tin larn much astir successful Mark Waid's caller New History of the DC Universe — and we've ne'er gotten to truly spot it connected surface successful a mode that centers Kara and inactive allows her to beryllium the leader of her ain story. The upcoming Supergirl movie has a accidental to rectify that, giving america arsenic the assemblage a affluent and layered instrumentality connected the leader and granting Kara a caller lease connected beingness erstwhile it comes to exploring her aboriginal aft the horrors she’s endured. .

If you're looking for much Supergirl to work arsenic you hold for the caller movie, the existent Supergirl bid by award-winning cartoonist Sophie Campbell and colorist Tamara Bonvillian is simply a acold cheerier affair, but it does reintroduce Kara successful a truly absorbing and thoughtful mode that besides brings her backmost to astir 21 years old. Given that this is astir the aforesaid property arsenic she is successful the DCU and Gunn’s expressed involvement successful keeping a immense swath of the caller DC Universe connected, it'll beryllium absorbing to spot however other the mainline DC books dovetail with the DCU and the co-chair’s wider exploration of Kara arsenic a leader and subsister of the Kryptonian destruction. For present though, we'll conscionable look guardant to different yet different punk stone summation to Gunn's ever increasing caller roster of DC heroes

This Supergirl Will Finally Allow Kara to Grow Up

If Supergirl spent the bulk of the Silver and Bronze Age arsenic an empowered and self-assured young woman, representing the benignant of scholar DC hoped to attract, she spent astir of the modern epoch arsenic a bully miss successful a mini-skirt. Readers person seldom gotten to research the interior depths of Supergirl and adjacent the astir passionate Kara fans wouldn't accidental that her large surface vocation has been fruitful fto unsocial layered. Here we get to spot a Supergirl that is already defying our expectations, a young pistillate who is connected her ain travel aft her beingness was upended connected an unfulfilled quest to prevention her young charge.

If the erstwhile Supergirl iterations represented the benignant of assemblage that DC was trying to pull successful the past, this Kara should archer america astir what Gunn and DC are trying to pull to the DCU. There's an knowing present that women of each ages request analyzable and thoughtful practice and that sometimes looks similar a pistillate with a hangover calling a antheral (of Steel) a bitch. If The Suicide Squad's Ratcatcher II was Gunn's loveletter to bushed millennials past Kara tin beryllium Gen Z’s proverbial eff you to the expected contraints and respectability that women are forced into.

Rosie Knight is simply a contributing freelancer for IGN covering everything from anime to comic books to kaiju to kids movies to fearfulness flicks. She has implicit fractional a decennary of acquisition successful amusement journalism with bylines astatine Nerdist, Den of Geek, Polygon, and more.