Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl, joins forces with an unlikely companion on an interstellar journey of vengeance and justice when an unexpected adversary strikes too close to home. Supergirl (2026) was directed by Craig Gillespie; written by Ana Nogueira; and stars Milly Alcock, Eve Ridley, Matthias Schoenaerts, Jason Momoa and David Corenswet.
What are comics, or lit fic mythology tales, or even romcoms without talking about trauma with a dash of fun?
And one cannot properly tell a story of the last daughter of Argo City without talking about trauma. But in my experience, trauma doesn’t rear its ugly ass head in slow flashbacks that happen when you have a quiet moment to rest.
I mean it does. I’m literally on an SSRI because I couldn’t get any damn sleep without a trauma flashback.
Nah. Trauma flashbacks happen at the worst time. A sudden memory of reaching for a dirty puppy comes when you’re pulling a dumbass teenager out of a dive-bar fight. The memory of your mom dying in front of you comes when you’re killing someone in self-defense. The memory of puking your guts out alone because your parents didn’t want to get out of bed when you had the stomach flu as a kid. The memory of your dad dying from cancer and telling you he loves you comes when a patron at the library threatens your life because it’s his mom’s birthday and she died last year and can’t you be sorry? Can’t you just forgive them for treating you like you don’t have feelings of your own? Can’t you just be the better person when no one else is? Because it’s your duty.
Oh wait, that’s me. Sorry.
That’s also the thing about trauma. Sometimes you see it in others’ trauma projected on you, and as an eldest daughter you’ve got to not react to it. But it comes quickly. It comes on painfully. It doesn’t give you time to react. You just act. You act and you act and you act because you don’t want to sit still with it. That’s when it’s even worse. Can you believe what you’re really even saying or seeing? Maybe right now, but trauma makes it hard to do it often. You want to disappear for a bit into coffee or alcohol just to figure shit out.
That’s my only complaint about the movie, really. The pacing in those moments, the traumatic memories and chaotic moments were too slow. Like lettering in comics, pacing in a superhero movie can be off and make you think it’s bad when it’s not.
Well, one of two. The other is that it’s clear the male writer of this story from the original pages (who I won’t get into here, because I am just a girl on the internet and deal with enough already), the director and the producers clearly knew what trauma looked like in a girl but didn’t really know what it felt like.
Speaking of girls, men get to be men despite having lived through less while a woman has to be a girl because she’s SUPPOSED to be innocent and nice but the world of men keeps forcing hard shit on her with their mistakes. Too many of us girls have to face rape or at least sexual assault before we get our periods, domestic violence from our “loved ones” and strangers alike, but the moment we ask for equality we need to go back to being an unwoke ditz. Don’t get drunk. Don’t use naughty language. Don’t fight or talk back. Shut up. Sit down. Be a good little girl. Always do the right thing and we will still ask you to eat shit with a smile on your face.
So while I would have loved to take my eldest daughter to this movie and increase its box office earnings, this movie isn’t for her … yet. It will be. I hate that in a few years I’ll introduce her to it and she’ll relate. This is also why I maintain this is meant to be gritty, messy and full of a funny, badass woman who doesn’t let folks get away with shit. A woman who prevents another girl from going down that same path of seeking revenge and trying to numb the pain and still tries to make the world a better, kinder place.
Here’s to movies where the hero does the right thing while sometimes still choosing the wrong thing. Kara needs to be the foil to Clark. Her hope is born of seeing it in spite of everything that’s happened to her, while he was born straight out of hope itself. She lived that hard life and still chooses to make the universe a better place, sometimes in spite of her own well-being. Because the past catches up with you. The feelings catch up with you. It all does eventually. All we can hope is to have our dog at our side and keep floating on.
Milly Alcock is having a laugh while suiting up. She clearly has had fun with this role and loves the seriousness of Kara’s sad moments and the exuberant joy of her highs, however they come. Jason Momoa was born to play Lobo. I was hesitant about his inclusion at first, but I found I wanted more scenes with him and Supergirl. Eve Ridley certainly has the range of a girl who’s witnessed her entire family being slaughtered, and well, shoot, David Corenswet is a living, breathing Superman, isn’t he?
Supergirl was goofy fun while taking on some hard issues with a killer soundtrack. Producer James Gunn knows what he’s doing with that combo. Then again, I was raised on The Fifth Element, and there are a lot of similarities here. If you love a girl who fucks up and still chooses to do good, if you love public transportation with aliens, and if you just love the one superhero flick in a long time without multiple convoluted plotlines, do yourself a favor and see Supergirl. But maybe leave the bar crawl days behind, OK?
Cat Purcell is a career services librarian, cosplayer, artist and massive coffee consumer. Follow her @thatcatpurcell.bsky.social.
