Supergirl’s Biggest Weakness? It’s a Bad Adaptation

Spoilers for the plot and ending of Supergirl ahead.

For the most part, big superhero movies from DC and Marvel tend to be a hodgepodge of adaptation, with filmmakers borrowing freely and nebulously from decades of winding comic-book continuity. The newly-released Supergirl, on the other hand, is a direct adaptation of a single standalone comic series from 2021: Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, which also happened to be the title of the movie when it was first announced. Like that series, the film from director Craig Gillespie and writer Ana Nogueira follows a drunken, traumatized version of Superman’s cousin Kara Zor-el on a mission to retrieve an antidote for her poisoned canine Krypto. Played by House of the Dragon’s Milly Alcock, Kara’s path crosses that of an angry, sword-wielding teenager, Ruthye Marye Knoll (Eve Ridley), who seeks revenge for her slain family. Together, the two travel to far-flung corners of a grimy galaxy, in pursuit of their common enemy, the jewel-faced perpetrator Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts), leader of a band of ruthless space pirates called the Brigands.

Alcock creates a directionless, sometimes-withdrawn version of the character who just wants to party and be left alone, at least until she has a personal stake in the matter at hand. But the movie never seems to have a grip on its hero’s moral code; despite urging Ruthye not to kill the villain, Kara’s outlook on her own use of lethal force remains frustratingly vague. This isn’t the case, however, in Supergirl’s comic blueprint. Artistic departures aren’t inherently bad, but this movie’s changes to its source material appear to have been made with conflicting end goals.

Written by Tom King (now a member of DC Studios’ writers room) with art by Bilquis Evely (whose first name shows up in the film as the moniker for an alien planet), Woman of Tomorrow is narrated by Ruthye from some future vantage, as she recalls episodes from her time alongside Supergirl. The comic’s emotional core surrounds Ruthye’s revenge mission, as Supergirl gradually convinces her that vengeance is a self-inflicted wound — an outlook that makes Supergirl’s morality central to the story too. The film, however, apes these themes only in the broadest of strokes. It turns Rutheye, the comic’s protagonist, into a supporting character, losing vital insight into her psyche and her relationship with the Girl of Steel. And it rushes through the story beats of the 8-issue series, effectively sanding down their edges.

In Woman of Tomorrow, Ruthye is forced to learn about the complicated, compartmentalized nature of atrocities when she and Supergirl pass through a metropolitan society hiding a genocide on the other side of town. This informs her outlook on the world, and eventually, her own actions too. In the movie, Krem and his bandits are revealed to be child sex traffickers, though learning this information doesn’t impact how our heroes see him or the conundrum of how he should be punished. In one scene, the heroine stops Ruthye from killing Krem, only for him to turn around and murder three other people — including a young girl he’d kidnapped, not much older than Ruthye herself. Ruthye blames this outcome on Supergirl, who doesn’t acknowledge this chain of events. Instead, the film rushes to its next action beat. The girl’s death doesn’t factor into the story or impact Supergirl’s approach going forward.

The ethics of justice and revenge are central to the comic, and remain an ongoing, ever-evolving debate throughout its story. The movie only briefly alludes to these ideas, making it hard to pin down what Supergirl’s outlook really is. She’s clear about one thing: she doesn’t want Ruthye to kill Krem, because as someone who similarly lost her family, she knows nothing will close those emotional wounds. But the Girl of Steel is all too content to violently dispense with other henchmen (do they die? Maybe; she doesn’t seem to go out of her way to avoid fatal blows) and she eventually kills Krem herself without much thought. Is this meant to be a response to Ruthye’s accusation that her inaction has consequences? Or was this Supergirl’s plan all along? It’s genuinely hard to say. 

Woman of Tomorrow eventually revealed that Supergirl chose to accompany Ruthye purely to guide her, in almost maternal fashion; Krypto was never in need of an antidote from Krem. The movie at times seems like it might be leaning toward a vital role-reversal of this ruse. The alien healer who first inspects the injured canine speaks a language Supergirl doesn’t understand, but which Ruthye translates for her; it’s through Rutheye that we learn of the antidote Krem keeps on his person. Up to this point, Ruthye has begged Supergirl to help her exact revenge on Krem, which the heroine has refused, so the alignment of their goals ends up a convenient happenstance. What if this had eventually led to a rug pull, where it turned out to be an intentional mistranslation to spur Supergirl into action? That might have made for some interesting friction between the pair. Instead, their relationship — more distant acquaintances than the mother-daughter dynamic of the comics — is grounded only in the aforementioned argument over whether Ruthye should kill Krem, a debate that never evolves, or adopts a degree of nuance.

The film can’t even quite articulate why Krypto is so important to Supergirl. Her flashbacks to her initial years on Earth barely feature him (he’s always either out of focus or off screen), even though he is her last remaining connection to her life on her dead home planet. When she tells him, in the present, that “home is wherever you are, buddy,” it feels like a case of telling rather than showing. By crafting a revenge mission driven by a canine companion, but without fleshing out the emotions behind it, the movie ends up robotic in its unfurling. Supergirl killing Krem without much buildup, or hesitation, despite her advice to Ruthye, could have been framed as the heroine succumbing to her impulses, or accepting some dark truth about her own nature. But in Supergirl, emotion never seems to dictate big decisions. Things just happen.