Supergirl Has Always Been More Interesting Than Superman

Clark Kent may be an A-list hero, but his cousin Supergirl is the more compelling character. Over nearly seven decades, she’s been a shapeshifting goo, had magic firepowers, dated her superpowered horse and wrestled with real trauma. Superman is stronger than a locomotive, yes, but he’s also duller than watching paint dry if his critics are to be believed. DC’s iconic boy scout is too powerful to be beaten, too goody-goody for modern-day audiences. It’s not only the Man of Steel who’s fighting for his life, though, not when it comes to such unfair accusations. Superman’s cousin Supergirl has fared much worse over the years, dismissed as merely a pointless carbon copy of Krypton’s Last Son. Even her successful CW show, which ran for six seasons from 2015 to 2021, couldn’t dissuade some of the notion that Supergirl is essentially ‘Superman in a skirt’. Director James Gunn went out of his way to dispel all that with his Superman reboot last year, reminding people of not just Superman’s star appeal but Supergirl’s too. With a scene-stealing cameo, Milly Alcock’s take on Supergirl redefined the character as loud and brash in ways Kara Zor-El had never been portrayed before. Here at last was a Maid of Might who really was made of sterner stuff, setting up a whole new interpretation of Supergirl ahead of her solo outing this summer. But the truth is that Supergirl was interesting long before she crashed Superman’s Fortress of Solitude on a bender. In fact, she’s always been a lot more interesting than her cousin – and not only because she once dated her own superpowered horse Comet. Making her debut in 1959, Supergirl got into the usual wacky hijinks that many did in the Silver Age of superhero comics, each more ridiculous than the last. Horseplay aside, Supergirl did everything from fighting tiny Superman duplicates to casting black magic against her cousin. Outrageous, sure, but none of this really differentiated Supergirl from the Man of Steel or any of the other DC heroes on newsstands at that point. As such, Supergirl was considered fair game when DC executives decided someone needed to die in the Eighties comic-book crossover event Crisis on Infinite Earths. After a brief period of mourning, the character was retconned into being the daughter of an Atlantean wizard who’d been tricked into believing she was Superman’s cousin. Things got even weirder when a new ‘Supergirl’ introduced in the Nineties turned out to be a shapeshifting glob of goo called Matrix that just so happened to take on the form of Supergirl. She made out with Lex Luthor a lot around the time, back when he’d been randomly de-aged and sported surprisingly luscious locks of hair. As if that wasn’t strange enough, the interdimensional creature now known as Supergirl went on to lead her own series where she transformed into an ‘Earth-born angel’ with magic fire powers. Eventually, a more typical version of Supergirl was reintroduced, as seen in various cartoons and that aforementioned CW show. But, beyond all those bizarre quirks of history, this modern take on the Girl of Steel is fascinating regardless – especially in comparison to Superman. And that’s because she’s a survivor. Across almost seven decades, Supergirl has consistently been mistreated far more than other heroes of her fame and stature. From sacrificial martyr to amorphous goo and everything in between, the Girl of Steel has had to be as resilient as her namesake. Even when Hollywood took a chance on her in the Eighties – hoping to capitalise on the success of Christopher Reeve’s Superman – Supergirl’s solo movie bombed both critically and commercially. Still, 1984’s Supergirl, the first in live-action, has since become a cult classic, enjoyed for its campy dialogue and cheesy special effects. Supergirl actress Helen Slater later appeared in different roles across various Superman-themed projects, demonstrating the enduring legacy of her Eighties spinoff. One such title, the CW’s Supergirl show, was