Here's What Happened to the Woman of Tomorrow
Sep 28
5 min read
September 28th, 2026
Last night late to the party us prisoners got treated (if your gonna call it that) to "Supergirl" so I could fortify my sight-unseen assessment of this Hindenburg DC dropped in June. Lighting my investigational fuse was this:
Was I in the ballpark? Let's go with parking lot. Short answer: WB/Discovery had a genius property and miser-ed out hard. Now Krypto is a family dog being blamed for wreckage. GONNA BE SOME SPOILERS UP IN HERE "Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow", the movie's prior title is lifted off a celebrated 2021 comic miniseries (available as a Target DC Compact Edition line of 9.99 novel-sized trades) by Tom King, former CIA counterterrorism agent whose robust background produces that type of storytelling. His "Maid of Might" I described as "...a Vietnam vet trying to follow the order to 'be a good girl' and live up to the outfit her baby cousin made into an insurmountable chore" gets that way through unspeakable and harrowing but habitable horror. Months of a community collapsing as she hammers lead shields into the firmament alongside fellow doomed Kryptonians, mother dying from radiation underground, emotions suppressed as they're reared. Her exodus is eloquently dysfunctional with her father's reservation resembling British upper-crust stoicism he ships her away forever. Brilliant artist Biliquis Evely managed showing Karas buried breakdown betraying all facial expressions veil. Comic books delivering their potential to tell meaningful tales with boundless graphics here.
WBs 'adaptation' barely scored that adjective. Argo's tragedy as the survivors of Krypton experienced a drawn-out hell vs Superman's kin blown to bits in minutes was cut undoubtedly like lattes from a working girl's weekly allowances. Thus, imbalance results. Her impetus for being who she is embodies the saga of "Woman" while she and revelatory narrator Ruthie Marye Knoll travel a galaxy besieged by Ruthie's fathers killer and cohorts. That element plus fascinating planets filled with political intrigue and rare new science fiction tropes build a threat rivaling the Star Wars Empire. It's struggle supersedes such as Krypton's last daughter walks the wreckage while surveying the human costs of fascistic cruelty impelled to help without caving to her own detonation. Evely gets backhanded tribute with a planet getting her first name while the topographies and trappings she lovingly erected for this celestial saga are erased.
"Supergirl's"villains, the Brigands, on-screen abduct girls to birth members of their all-boy armada reducing this story intellectually, fiscally, and qualitatively. Ruthie's observations that insert the audience into the book get reduced to the rhetorical re: why "-girl" not "-woman"? Again, cheapening by checking boxes to a trickle of feminists who maybe needed that. Congratulations womyn, you got your shout-out in a flaccid bomb that might've downed superheroine cinema, excluding the audience it required for success. Alongside you they'd have celebrated the template co-created by a gifted woman without a sexualized Supergirl packing punches and exhibiting transcendental wisdom to her celebrated cousin. What was gotten, pardon the parlance, was a pity-screw. Naturally, Tom got no nod for his germination of the entire project because he's a he, and this is about celebrating "equality". More troll logic.
Stripped off King's story is Kara's emotional range and depth exemplified in a scene where farm-girl Ruthie receives a hand-washing seminar from Kal-El's cousin clearly to distract this tormented youth from the horror in their moments or finding an abandoned infant alien in a scorched aftermath, Supergirl handles it with the kind gentleness of a seasoned nanny. Instead, she zips from drunk to angry to sad with little else from a capable actress cheated out of a defining role.
"Woman's" conclusion becomes a brutal but beautiful statement about the bonds of war and failure of the death penalty as satisfying revenge mechanism that left readers speechless. Naturally the film shredded this beyond recognition into a cliche girl-buddy-cop happy ending with Superman shoehorned to I guess in the eyes of the filmmakers whose resignation is obvious by its end to "save the day". Kal-El never appears in the book.
Answering to those same charges is Mamoa's long-awaited Lobo. I'd be remiss to leave him out of this comment I guess, so there, I didn't. Take that at face value.
All this is typical for Warner who I wish could have DC wrested from their clutches. These geniuses wrecked "Batman: the Animated Series" when its animation department with FOX Network crafted a classic iconoclast with staying power, birthing industries like Harley Quinn. As the toon shifted from their afternoon schedule to "WB" Network Saturday mornings, the artistic budget was scrubbed so hard The Joker went from nightmare fuel to silly cartoon clown among other lameness in a season nobody buys nor discusses anymore. Think about the abomination of "Batman and Robin" being a 2-hour toy ad, making Diane Nelson - the bean counter who never held a comic and New 52-birthing big boss, or torching the 90 M "Batgirl" after casting a cocoa-colored Latina to play the beloved red headed, freckly librarian ass-kicker. They got wunderkind James Gunn's magic touch but unlike Disney with their cash cow refuse to pay for and demand quality, then blame all else when time comes to count major losses like this.
Therein lies the rub - this company built lasting pop culture legacies on quality. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies are immaculate love labors still hitting screens a century afterwards. Classics that grow with the viewer, all parts clarifying with wisdom of aging, jokes understood*, plus appreciation for the work ethic. Warner keeps going for the cheap lay and awakening with regrets. Tent-poles get extra TLC so they generate new audiences and revenue eternally. This movie has nonesuch potential. Making beloved Babs Gordon "Other" improves the product nil. Viewers of all stripes will pay, even while ideologues bitch and nitpick as binary culture trained 'em to. Supergirl's devoted audience, meanwhile, suffered hardest and that's pitiful.
My advice to DC: stick to comic books. They'll always be better, and take whatever the parent company doesn't destroy. When you discover your fave character is headed to the Cineplex, anticipate awfulness and maybe you'll get happily surprised, says a realistic optimist watching a multiversal industry I waited decades for eat itself. My positive? Krypto sure is somethin'. Next round give that pooch his picture as he's the best leftover from "Superman". "This industry really has gone to the dogs" he said, socked in the snout by a closer.
*Yesterday I remembered the scene where Charlie Dog trying to hook a new master whispers something into Porky's ear after referring to "his condition". Mr. Pig suddenly picks up the mutt's suitcase and gingerly carries him home. Next, Charlie's kicked back in an easy chair eating soup when PP asks his name which Charlie gives. Seconds later, he flies out the front door resulted from a severe kick in the ass. Breaking the 4th wall, the Brooklyn dog says "There WAS such a case in Philadelphia". Probably 15 years down at 25 it hit me the dog told the pig he was knocked up and dumbassed it by giving his gender and I cackled. To this day I'll stop to watch a Charlie and Porky joint, providing my point perfectly.
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