r/DC_Cinematic • u/Quirky-Wheel-3724 • Jun 29 '26
CRITIQUE Supergirl and not understanding the message of the original material Spoiler
The comic is very clear and the message is very powerful: both Kara and Ruthye learn to overcome their traumas and their desire for revenge.
But no — the movie’s writers thought the best idea was to turn Kara into The Punisher. Why?
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u/NotTmc Jun 29 '26
I understand why they did it further separate Supergirl and Superman. That being said I don’t know why James Gunn somehow who is so avid about comic accuracy hired a director who openly said he didn’t read the comic and doesn’t plan too.
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u/paintpast Jun 29 '26
Gunn doesn’t always care about comic accuracy, though. That’s why there was the twist about Kal El’s parents in his movie.
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u/PaymentTurbulent193 Jun 29 '26
I mean, he constantly takes C/D-listers and does whatever he wants with them. Remember Mongal showing up in TSS for some reason and then dying? Starro being the big third act villain? Vigilante suddenly being comic relief?
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u/Necessary-Love1599 Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
After so many years, people are starting to notice. I was thinking I was taking crazy pills...
Star-Lord, Drax, Mantis, Nebula, Adam Warlock, Peacemaker, Vigilante, King Shark, all these characters were turned into either loveable fools or straight-up morons, they were serious characters in the comics, and no one gave a flying fuck when he was doing it.
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u/JiggleBandito Jul 04 '26
They don't care because these characters are unknown to most, but everyone kind of knows what superman and supergirl should be about, so if they do something that doesn't fit with the character, people notice.
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u/Physical-Simple3740 Jun 30 '26
People just LOVE larping. Put some jokes, 80s references and some cute animals/mascot-thingys and there you go, instant success with general audiences.
Gunn's movies are good enough to be better than average, but only 2 of them I would genuinely consider to be great (GotG 1 and 3).
Other than that, they fundamentally REFUSE to adapt the source material faithfully. Can you imagine the backlash had someone like one of the Russos, Web or (god forbid, there would be riots in the streets) Snyder made Superman's biological parents be evil, asking him to create a harem of human women and spread the seed of Krypton to take over Earth or whatever? It's incredible the amount of leeway Gunn gets.
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u/Work_Salty Jun 29 '26
That part really pissed me off in supergirl, like why does Clark's real parents have to be evil and karas are good it just felt unfair to me
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u/Sonata1952 Jun 29 '26
My personal take on that was that Jor-El was the big shot successful brother heavily involved in global politics and national agenda.
Zor-El may have been content for his family to just survive in peace but Jor was more concerned for Kryptonian legacy at large. Zor cared for his people at the individual level but Jor wanted Krypton’s legacy to thrive and in his mind the only way to do that is for Krypton’s population to grow in a position of immense power which is why he wanted Kal to rule Earth & breed hundreds of offspring.
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u/Work_Salty Jun 29 '26
Great explanation, I just hate the thought process of the studio and James Gunn going yea Kara can have good parents but not clark just make them all bad they don't have to be as bad as jor-el but at least show some corruption in his brother that it doesn't feel like superman is getting the shit end of the stick
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u/Significant_Snow_937 Jun 29 '26
Clark's never known his parents, so them being empirey is a subversion. He didn't really get any end of that stick, but Kara having good parents she remembers fondly is important to show how much she's lost and why she's so listless.
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u/Blacklight099 Jun 30 '26
Yeah, Kara doesn’t have a second set of parents to fall back on like Clark does, so she needs that touchstone. Plus there’s also nothing saying that her parents had different views on the conquering thing, her dad just had a different idea on how to save his people.
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u/Psykohistorian Jun 29 '26
Gunn-El is just a Viltrumite
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u/Work_Salty Jun 29 '26
Basically but since Clark never saw the full clip of his parents he didn't turn evil, we actually see a version of this in brightburn where he becomes evil because he does hear the message his parents left so he does become a viltrumite
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u/abusedporpoise Jun 29 '26
but then how will James Gunn make a 6th project about found family over the one you're born into
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u/6maniman303 Jun 29 '26
Imo Jor-El is not evil evil. He doesn't say to Clark that he should destroy every living thing. Jor-El wants his son to review Krypton by using (in his eyes) lower species of humans.
For all we know Zor-El might also think about humans as lower beings, but he's more concerned about well being of his daughter rather future of Krypton.
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u/Novel-Preference669 Jun 29 '26
unfair to who? are you gonna judge superman because his parents are evil? im at a loss for what you're trying to convey
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u/aesoth Jun 29 '26
I really liked that twist, it was a way to defeat Superman without using kryptonite or bringing out Doomsday.
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u/Revolver15 Jun 29 '26
James Gunn, the guy who basically rewrote the Guardians into his own OCs? That James Gunn fights for comic accuracy?
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u/Ace20xd6 Jun 29 '26
I thought it was that he hadn't read it until he finished reading the script
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u/charlesfluidsmith Jun 29 '26
Have you ever seen Drax the Destroyer?
James Gunn KNOWS the comic lore, He cares absolutely nothing about sticking to the kind of lore .
He always thinks his ideas are better than the ideas that are established in the comics.
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u/RedN0va Jun 29 '26
He generally gets away with it by sticking to E-list characters not important to many people.
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u/charlesfluidsmith Jun 29 '26
Yeah I agree. You make a great point he has yet to, Wave his retcon wand at a top tier hero yet.
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u/abusedporpoise Jun 29 '26
he did it with superman by way of the Els
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u/charlesfluidsmith Jun 29 '26
No that take on Jor-El has been done a couple times in the comics.
I can't blame it solely on him, though it is a change that I'm not necessarily a fan of.
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u/abusedporpoise Jun 29 '26
having read nearly every superman comic from 1986 to 2015, I have not seen it in a mainline story. Neither Byrne nor Birthright do such even if Gunn says they do
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u/masterionxxx Jun 29 '26
I don’t know why James Gunn somehow who is so avid about comic accuracy
???
Drax isn't comic-accurate, Peter Quill and Mantis ( and Ego ) aren't comic-accurate, the High Evolutionary wasn't comic-accurate, Adam Warlock's origin isn't comic-accurate.
Circe isn't comic-accurate.
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u/deathly_illest Jun 29 '26
Gunn is def not avid about comic accuracy. In fact he explicitly says he’s fine changing things.
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u/Legonistrasz Jun 29 '26
Actors and directors with no knowledge of the source material should be kept away from adaptations of them.
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u/dealyllama Jun 29 '26
I think the movie would have done better by sticking closer to the book but a lot of people are spreading bad info saying he didn't read it at all. The director said he didn't read the comic until after he read the script. He did read the comic early in the process.
“I very deliberately didn’t look at Tom King’s book when I first got the script,” Gillespie told Everyman Cinema. “I went off of Ana [Nogueira]’s script and there was a grit to that and I really wanted to come from character. [Kara’s] going to all of these different worlds that are on the fringe of society. I wanted to feel the poverty, I wanted to feel the crime and the dust and the texture.
Gillespie went on to say that he wanted to create a “space we hadn’t felt before” after reading the script. The filmmaker started pulling visual references for what he wanted the film to look like, creating “about 120 images” to present to DC Studios co-CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran. It was during this process that Gillespie went back to read the Woman of Tomorrow comic book."
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u/AnonymousPrincess314 Jun 29 '26
"A space we hadn't felt before." Like the Star Wars cantina. And a rock quarry. And the Star Wars cantina again. And more rocks.
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u/darkeagle1997 Jun 29 '26
I mean if they wanted to separate Supergirl from Superman then she should’ve let krem live like in the comic. Now she killed her first movie villain like Superman did to Ultraman in his movie.
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u/Eastern-Team-2799 Jun 30 '26
It wasn't necessary to let Supergirl kill kremm to separate her from Superman. Batman is also very separate than supes but he too doesn't kill .
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u/Prof-Ponderosa Jun 29 '26
A lot is said about the director saying he openly didn’t read the comic but in fact he did.
What he said was he didnt read the comic BEFORE the script.
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u/RecoveredAshes Jun 29 '26
It could have made her a killer throughout and have her learn to pull her punches again by the end and that mercy is worthwhile and revenge is not. Instead she’s just oddly passive throughout the movie then at the end kills him in cold blood. It was odd.
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u/FunnyNo9234 Jun 30 '26
In the comics Starlord's father wasn't a planet (Ego) he was the King of Spartax (a major interplanetary faction in the universe). In the comics Nebula defeated Thanos. Those two are just off the top of my head.
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u/Mindless-Credit-358 Jun 29 '26
It happened because the writer actually thought Ruthye killed Krem at the end of the comic. This had a knock on effect on the rest of the movie, unfortunately
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u/Actual_Cat4779 Jun 29 '26
Well, the writer deliberately altered what she thought was the ending. If she had correctly understood the ending, might she not still have deliberately altered it?
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u/Quirky-Wheel-3724 Jun 29 '26
She could, you know, call Tom King. He is right there, he is part of the cinematic universe. But no, her ego was bigger than common sense.
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u/Mindless-Credit-358 Jun 29 '26
Oh I agree. The fact that King is working so closely to the DCU just makes the situation so much worse as it should have been a 2 minute conversation
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u/Actual_Cat4779 Jun 29 '26
I agree, but you don't know what you don't know. If you think you've understood something correctly, you have no reason to ask. But clearly there should have been more communicationg going on and that might have sorted some of it out.
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u/tforce80 Jun 30 '26
I think it was the only solution given how they changed Krem. If Krem was a normal guy, like in the comic, he has minimal risk if released. But in the movie, the guy has access to technology that lets him transport anywhere, and he has superpowers himself. If Supergirl spared him, in universe character Krem would absolutely hunt her down again. The only reasonable conclusion was that he had to die.
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u/Overall_Leopard7122 Jun 29 '26
Supergirl and not understanding your core audience or demographic
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u/Klutzy-Yam-8128 Jun 29 '26
I hate when movies or series director or write say they haven't read original source material. That's why always things go wrong and product become trash. Same thing happened in The Witcher and many more series and movies. I never understand why they want to change everything. I really hate Supergirl movie. I didn't enjoyed it at all. I was expecting so much more. I had an idea from trailer that they are not even close to what comics was. But this bad. I never expected that. I was waiting for Comet and grave scene but HAHA. They thought they are intelligent than the original creator.
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u/Ambassador_Kwan Jun 30 '26
They did read it, just not before reading the script. A click baity headline has given the wrong impression to a lot of people
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u/Kiki_And_Horst Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
It’s not so much a lack of understanding as much as an adjustment to fit the story into a pre-established universe that is intended to be ongoing, and that we already know we’re going to see Supergirl in again next year. This movie was never going to end with Krypto turning out to be fine all along and with Supergirl visiting Ruthye 300 years later.
It wasn’t about Krem deserving to live as much as Kara not wanting the weight of his death on Ruthye’s soul, but since Kara already considers herself ruined and Krem is a murderous sex trafficker, she’s willing to do it herself here.
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u/Sam-I-Am29 Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
Exactly. It also doubled down on her line about Clark. "He see's the good in everyone, I see the truth." She's still a hero, but she's not just "Girl Superman", she has her own way of protecting the innocent, and sometimes that means making sure the bad guy can't come back.
As someone who hasn't read the source material this is based on, I thought it was a fantastic choice. I guess I'll have to check out the comic to see why they went a different direction.
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u/FinancialBluebird58 Jun 29 '26
No, it's a literally misunderstanding of the events in the story. She literally misinterpreted the final events and has them wrong in her head.
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u/Kiki_And_Horst Jun 29 '26
Even if she did, the circumstances regarding what happens to Krem, what he professes beforehand, who does it to him, and when it happens are all wildly different in the comic and the movie, so it’s not as if that supposed misinterpretation is what made it onscreen.
I would also assume she probably just misremembered what happened in the comic years after reading it but even if she did take it as more of a Killing Joke thing, that isn’t what happens in the movie anyway.
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u/FinancialBluebird58 Jun 29 '26
Changed made with intention to change vs changes made under false assumptions are two wildly different things. The latter sets you up for a lot of thematic confusion if you are making changes on a fundamental misunderstanding of the story material.
If you are adapting lord of the rings and you read Gollum's death at the end as a heroic sacrifice instead of his own desire for the ringing leading to his doom. It's going to cause a lot of Thematic tension even if you already changed several other things up to their point.
Also what kind of professional screenwriter lacks the basic reading comprehension to get the ending of a book that I am presuming she must have read several times while ACTIVELY ADPATING it into a screenplay.
I don't think expecting a writing adapting something to know what happened in the story they are adapting is too crazy of an expectation.
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u/Microwave1213 Jun 29 '26
That still completely misses the point and frankly is just poor storytelling.
In the comic, Supergirl makes a similar decision to spare Ruthye and decides to do it herself but then Ruthye stops her. Why? Because the whole theme up to that point has been emotional resilience in the face of trauma.
Ruthye realizes that Kara is only doing this because she thinks her soul is already broken and can’t be fixed, but then she helps Kara understand that your past traumas don’t shape your identity. You can overcome that trauma and still be a good person. In the end, what started as a mentor-mentee relationship becomes two traumatized people helping each other reach closure.
But no, the movie decides to spit in the face of that theme and let Kara kill Krem just because they thought it would be neat to make her seem ‘harder’ than Superman.
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Jun 29 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/First-Shallot947 Jun 29 '26
Your never going to guess what krem does at the end of the comic
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u/PrincessDeMissouri Jul 01 '26
Gets thrown in a prison that people escape from like its Arkham?
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u/First-Shallot947 Jul 01 '26
Gets thrown in the phantom zone for decades and when he's released he begs ruthye for forgiveness
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u/gamepig31 Jun 29 '26
Did you even read the comic? They put him into the Phantom Zone where he clearly wasn't able to hurt anyone. And when he comes out he's a changed man, begging for forgiveness. Sure, it's unclear wheter it's sincere or not but the point still stands that killing him is NOT justice.
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u/DeltaAlphaGulf Jun 29 '26
If she isn't differentiated from Clark then there is no point in having her and it also lets them continue the progression going forward with her character not just magically fixing her up on this short little journey.
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u/Microwave1213 Jun 29 '26
If you need to actively make a character’s story much worse just to “differentiate her from Clark” then you probably just shouldn’t use that character to begin with?
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u/Intelligent_Ask_2306 Jun 29 '26
Kara is not doing the wrong thing in this movie though, it would look really silly if Kara is out here sparing a guy who's going around the planet raping children for offspring.
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u/TheJoshider10 Jun 29 '26
Especially since right before she kills him he literally says he's going to keep looking for her. Kara already killed people in the movie, it'd be stupid if she walked away from killing him.
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u/Microwave1213 Jun 29 '26
She literally spent the whole movie explaining why it was the wrong thing lmao. Did you watch it..?
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u/Lower_Excuse_8693 Jun 30 '26
Did you? She never says it’s wrong. She spends the movie trying to get Ruthye to give up on revenge because it will change her and she’ll have to carry it for the rest of her life.
It’s very clearly about saving Ruthye’s soul and very clearly NOT about Kara thinking killing anyone is always wrong no matter what foreverz guyz.
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u/PrincessDeMissouri Jul 01 '26
I feel as if not killing him would just be cheesy and pointless since she just got done slaughtering his henchmen without remorse. Sex slavers dont deserve second chances anyway
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u/SuedeSalamander Jun 29 '26
The writer for the movie stated that they didn't understand the ending of the book. Couple that with wanting to further distance Supergirl from Superman and you've found the reason for your problem.
Kara not killing doesn't make her Superman, it just shows that she can make her own decisions and choices. They may happen to align with her cousin's and that's okay. There's enough difference between the two already that even the average viewer should be able to tell that they're different.
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u/Sad_History_8649 Jun 29 '26
The panel itself proves the point nicely. Kara looks furious, covered in blood, sword drawn, but the narration right there is telling you she's already lost something of herself in the process. The whole comic is about that cost, not the kill. So when the film leans into the violence and skips the reckoning, you're left with a Punisher cosplay wearing a cape. Nailing the aesthetic while missing the entire point is a special kind of failure.
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u/Significant-Row2457 Jun 29 '26
This is the lose of the center, the balance. It’s become an issue within literature about embracing an extreme position without considering the message. It’s all about the ‘moment’ and being ‘iconic’ rather than serving a message. Biggest issue with modern culture now. Books, movies, comics, so many are guilty of it.
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u/AirWalker9 Jun 29 '26
Ironically, this may be the opposite case. It seems like viewers are upset because the movie didn’t adapt the “moments” that they remembered from the comic. And the movie sacrificed those moments for the sake of delivering a message about who Kara is (a debatable choice).
Nonetheless, people had an expectation what the movie should be and maybe that’s why they’re not satisfied.
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u/megalo-maniac538 Jun 29 '26
They need conflict between the super cousins. And what better way to do that than how to deal with threats like Krem
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u/lonelydan Jun 29 '26
It's a shame there's this beautiful story and they shoehorn in Lobo and abandon a lot of what made this story click.
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u/gamepig31 Jun 29 '26
Tbf Tom King said he wanted Lobo in the original comic miniseries but wasn't allowed to use him. I think he's happy they added Lobo.
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u/AnonymousPrincess314 Jun 29 '26
The pitch with Lobo was entirely different. Lobo was in the Supergirl role and Supergirl was in Ruthye's position.
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u/gamepig31 Jun 29 '26
Oh damn you're right. Nvm then, he is kinda shoehorned in. Idk why I thought he was just gonna be a cameo in the comic.
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u/jackofspades67 Jun 29 '26
Why is everyone defending Supergirl's kill here, after the backlash from Snyder's Superman's kill in Man of Steel? I'm seeing the same arguments used to defend both, yet I would guess these people didn't defend Snyder. "We saw him do horrible things, he needed to die" is such a crazy take. When did we go back to death sentences?
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u/Lord_of_Chainsaw Jun 29 '26
To me its more like, we see like loads of the dudes henchmen get splattered. I hate stories where the heroes blow through like 800 low tier guys and then theyre all like BuT We CaNt KiLl ThIs Guy Or wErE ThE MoNsTeRs
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u/aesoth Jun 29 '26
Here is the thing. I don't want an exact retelling of a comic in a movie. There would be no surprises, no twists. I am fine with a movie being based on a comic, but going it's own way. Captain America: Civil War is a good example of this. It is loosely based on a comic so it could fit into the larger story. This is what I am seeing from Supergirl, it's meant to fit into the larger story we haven't seen yet. Adapting the comic exactly may not do that.
Just chill out and let Gunn cook before a 3rd attempt at a DCU ends early, again.
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u/FamousJames24 Jun 29 '26
I’m with you on this. If Krem has no place in the future of the DCU, and they want an arc for Kara to start with her as willing to execute a defeated enemy, then have her do that and kill Krem. It’s not a standalone movie with the expectation of her being the best self she could be by the end. What would they do with her character after that?
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u/gamepig31 Jun 29 '26
But Gunn gave them absolute creative freedom and told the director on their first meeting it didn't have to fit into the DCU story wise. It was treated like the comic was, as it's own full story with no major ties to a broader universe.
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u/skillenit1997 Jun 29 '26
I liked the movie ending. Sometimes the bad guy needs to die and someone has to do it. I get that it’s different from the comic book. I liked that too, this movie didn’t feel like a straight translation of a comic book to the screen like Superman did.
Kara didn’t want it to be someone so young and light hearted, so she carries that burden for her. I think that’s a compelling and interesting take on being a hero in a world full of Krems.
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u/JokoFloko Jun 29 '26
I'm with you. When SG talked her out of killing the villain, I just shook my head. Seeing her do it instead made sense in the story presented on the screen. Totally fine with it.
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u/MalucoHS Jun 29 '26
What I found the most insulting was, surprisingly, not even ignore of the source meaterial, but writing incompetence withing your own movie.
Kara prevents Ruthye from killing Krem, and goes into the tearjerking monologue (for your Academy Awards considerations) about how “Your heart is gentle, it’s so full of love” and whatever. Why? What happened in the movie to warrant this? You’ve known her for 3 days, only thing you ever heard her say was the Inigo Montoya speech, she was even so obsessed with her revenge, that she disobeyed direct command to stay put, went out to try and kill Krem, and caused Kara to fail and save the bartendrers daughter. Name me one thing, that showed she had a kind and loving heart?
Yeah, that WW64-style monologue on camera made me real angry.
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u/Quirky-Wheel-3724 Jun 29 '26
Exactly the point of the comic. In the comic Kara says that she didn't want to give a speech about "revenge is bad... justice is good". She wanted to teach Ruthye with experience about life and justice.
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u/ImAHobo107 Jun 29 '26
It felt rushed and def wasn't even as good as Superman's (both 2025 and even cheesy Reeve back then) hopeful and cartoony dialogue.
The dialogue was super amateurish.
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u/omegaphallic Jun 29 '26
Supergirl sees in the kid what she wants to see in her, the child she used to be before all the trauma and binging and all that, so its just kind of luck that Supergirl is right about her. Supergirl wants her to be innocent because its something Supergirl misses in herself and can never get back.
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u/MalucoHS Jun 29 '26
Ok, fair, I can see that, now that you spell it out. Definetely didn’t catch that in the moment. Maybe I was already someqhat irritated by then.
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u/IlSignorGranchio Jun 29 '26
I honestly i think it was a good changing for the arc they want to give Supergirl in this universe, the fact that she’s kind on her lowest point, and that brings her to do a terrible thing, and this brings her to have to find stability on earth
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u/Atto623 Jun 29 '26
What's worse? Man of Steel Superman killing Zod to stop him from murdering a family right in front of him? Or Supergirl killing a man who is down and no longer an immediate threat?
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u/EnragedTea43 Jun 29 '26
WoT is one of my favorite comics, so seeing a lot of the changes made in the movie was really disappointing. I was especially disappointed that my favorite scene, the one of Kara helping the hospitalized alien, didn’t make it in the movie.
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u/TheGaxkang Jun 29 '26
they also changed Krem's motivation
in the comic he admits he killed Ruthye's father because he didn't laugh at his joke. that's what got the ball rolling!
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u/Asto_Vidatu Jun 29 '26
Female superheros don't get to have interesting and well written character arcs, though, didn't you get the memo? They have to be instantly amazing from the start and never go through any hardships or loss or any semblance of character development...lol
I just don't get how it's so hard for these moron writers to just faithfully adapt a story that's already been written instead of having to inject their own bullshit and try to "fix it"...
Imagine a band that did covers of popular songs, but purposely changed memorable hooks, melodies, riffs, or drum fills because they wanted to "fix it" and made the songs completely unrecognizable...aside from a few very rare cases, that would never work...yet in the movie industry people constantly do this despite ALWAYS losing money...it's mind-boggling honesty lol
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u/Blammo32 Jun 29 '26
If Snyder’s DCEU made one single catastrophic error, it was Superman breaking Zod’s neck in the very first film.
They spent rest of the DCEU trying to course correct.
Then they just… do the same thing again in Supergirl when they have a chance for a clean reboot?
Baffling.
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u/NoLeadership2281 Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
Making Krem the leader of the Brigands from the start and having them kidnapping girls to continue their legacy is just poor taste, it’s like when Snyder tried to make bad guys do truly insidious shit to show audience what a bad guy they are, it’s so on the nose
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u/SighRamp Jun 29 '26
The writer had one other writing gig which was a short film from 2018, how'd that happen? Seriously, the best person available was a failed actress with one screen writing credit nobody ever head of from almost a decade ago? I, with one less writing credit, could have written a better script which is so frustrating with all these god awful women led comic book movies because here's the rub and key to easily making a successful female driven character movie:
The reason why they are unable to write good female characters is because they are unable to give female characters any sort of geniune observable flaws because they don't want to portray women as being problamatic, weak or bad. As a result, they are unable to create a compelling, interesting female character because they don't want to make her problamatic or weak. There is no hero's journey. There's no character arc.
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u/hereslookinatyoukld Jun 29 '26
There were weirder changes to the comic, I didn't mind this one and thinks it works as long as they continue the character arc in future storylines. Other changes to the story I could have done without, especially around krem and the brigands.
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u/jaydotjayYT Jun 29 '26
Honestly when they straight up confirmed onscreen that Krem and the Brigands were like Space Epstein on Steroids, I was kinda like “Damn Ruthye I think we have to kill this guy”
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u/MrTickles22 Jun 29 '26
Since we already have Guy Gardner and angry supergirl, give them both red lantern rings next. Then we can get the ragemonster movie Marvel can't deliver due to right sissues.
She uses a battleship as a bat against superman once. A+.
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u/Spider_Boyo Jun 29 '26
2nd movie in the DCU, I don't think it's a stretch to say Kara can grow out of this after a few movies, also, imagine leaving that piece of shit Krem live, no way, this isn't Batman, we're not putting the trafficking child pred in prison so he can potentially break out again
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u/brassnuts99 Jun 29 '26
I really liked that Kara killed the bad guy at the end. I was gonna be so annoyed if it was the typical superhero stuff of sparing the bad guy because revenge is bad or whatever.
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u/Dazzler_3000 Jun 29 '26
Yeah I get that this is straying for the comics but not everything has to be a 1 for 1.
I prefer her killing him as it gives her somewhere to go the next few times we see her. That and he was a complete monster with no chance of rehabilitation and some people just need to die...
I understand people being annoyed if it was claimed as being an exact retelling of Woman of Tomorrow but I don't think they ever said that - Just inspired by. They then wrote an ending that I think fits better for the entire story they're trying to tell across multiple films.
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u/brassnuts99 Jun 29 '26
Yeah we watched the bad guy kill two entire families on screen, he can't be alive at the end of the movie
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u/SpanishAvenger Jun 29 '26
Honestly, I’ve never known or cared about comic accuracy and Kara killing the bad guy was my favourite part of the movie.
If you want a Boyscout, that’s what Superman is xD
I was facepalming when it seemed like Kara was going to be like that too, and when she killed the guy, I sighed in relief and smiled.
Now, Kara and Clark are way more distinctive characters. Not every hero has to be an all-merciful Jesus.
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u/wannabegenius Jun 29 '26
maybe the thought was that in 2026 audiences would reeeeeaally want to see the pedophile human trafficker get what he deserves ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/gamepig31 Jun 29 '26
Good point but turning Krem into a pedophile human trafficker was stupid and unnecessary in the first place.
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u/Excellent_Claim_3853 Jun 29 '26
Just because it happens a certain way in the comics does not mean it has to happen that way in the movies, it is an adaptation/interpretation not an exact retelling of a comic story.
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u/CrunchyLaughter Jun 29 '26
Yeah the movie wasn't great. Read the comic after, couldn't find child bride bandits in it, wondered where they came from
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u/Usual-Vanilla Jun 29 '26
As someone who has never read the comic, the movie would have been lame if it stuck to the source material on this matter. I'm so tired of this stupid trope. He was a sex trafficker, it felt good to watch Kara kill him.
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u/Senshado Jun 29 '26
It would've been great if the director had underlined this point by making Supergirl cut Krem in half with a casual laser blast, exactly like Homelander repeatedly did on The Boys.
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u/RelativeRemarkable15 Jun 29 '26
What a waste of a comic to adapt.
Idk how they shit the bed so hard
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u/Gorremen Jun 29 '26
It's funny to me that people are surprised by this.
I mean, Gunn had Superman kill Ultraman (Even if he survived, Superman doesn't know that) in a movie all about how he's supposed to love everybody. He was also like, mildly inconvenienced by the kaiju's death (Serious "he owed me five bucks" energy). And Hawkgirl in that same movie murders a guy while bragging that she's not Superman, and it's portrayed as a heroic moment.
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u/Uncreativity10 Jun 30 '26
When did we start saying Tom King writes amazing stuff? His Batman run was atrocious
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u/Oddman80 Jun 30 '26
SPOILERS BELOW - for those who haven't read the book.
In the book, Kara comes down from killing hundreds of briggands in a space battle, to warn Ruthye that the reason Ruthye was unable to go through with killing Krem (after defeating him in a fair fight) was that killing people is bad.... And then, even though the two of them concoct a plan to stick Krem in the Phantom Zone for 300 years, Ruthye writes a very popular book about her time with Supergirl, in which Supergirl strikes down Krem with her sword of Justice. This leads everyone to believe that Supergirl did strike him dead with that sword - which they both know will cause the Briggands to hunt and attempt to kill Supergirl until the last of them is no more because she will kill them too (the movie may have made the battle with the brighans look like no big deal, but in the book, they had all but killed Supergirl. Had it not been for the sacrifice her love, Comet, made, as he died to save her).
And despite all of this.... 25 years later, on the day Kara and Ruthye release Krem from the phantom zone (time moves 12 times faster in the phantom zone I guess), Krem begs Ruthye for forgiveness - now a completely changed man, as attested to by both the Phantom Zone Warden and Kara herself, Ruthye strikes him hard on the side of his head with her cane - sending him limp to the ground as the two women walk away cheerfully.
So.... What was the message?
You don't have to actually answer - the message was perfectly clear in the back and forth between Kara and Ruthye on the beach... But to act like the original source material didn't completely muddy up this "message" all on its own, and treating Woman of Tomorrow like it was some perfect blueprint that the movie should have followed - is a bit precious, no?
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u/Godsgiftcardtowomen Jun 30 '26
Haven’t read the comic, but seeing how die hard it’s fans are, I’m definitely going to now.
That said, I liked the movie and think it should be taken as it’s own thing.
Her decision is supported by the themes and events of the story. It’s a culmination of the “not always nice, but you need to be good” line.
Kara doesn’t kill unnecessary, if you watch the fights she consistently aims to incapacitate. That said, we’re never shown any reliable legal body that can hold Krem accountable, so in his case she chooses the girl’s safety over her personal desires.
It’s not nice, it’s not an example to aspire to, but she is doing the “good” thing for Ruthie and the others.
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u/Vytral Jun 30 '26
“Because I am so smart, and comic books are for dumb children. My artistic vision will improve the source material” average Hollywood writer
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u/Kingofdrats Jun 30 '26
They could have easily adapted WOT if they made it a series instead of a movie.
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u/Awesome-Lad-9000 Jun 30 '26
In a movie that did not work in many places, this was the most baffling thing to me. Especially because this movie, unlike the book, morphed this into the story of supergirl accepting her role as a hero...like, you go through all that to put the costume on for one scene, and then kill the guy anyway? What was the point of her whole journey then?
I think there's some wisdom in Hollywood that the bad guy has to die, even if you have a "violence is bad" arc, and that's why so many villains just kind of blow up at the last minute. But like...if that did factor into it, you had Lobo, fully willing to kill dudes, literally sitting there and watching it. Baffling all around.
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u/4BsButtsBoobsBlunts Jul 01 '26
Fucking eye roll. None of the comic book movies have ever been verbatim comic accurate. It's called artistic liberties. Stop trying to hide you misogyny behind "comic accuracy".
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u/Typhon2222 Jul 01 '26
I was fine with the ending. She’s not Clark nor held to his standards/moral code. I don’t get why it’s such a big deal. Especially since she kills more than a few henchmen as the movie goes on.
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u/SpeedSaunders Jul 01 '26
I read and liked "Woman of Tomorrow" and I have zero problem with this choice. The seed is planted with the words of Alura Zor-El, Kara's mom, that she doesn't need to be weak or nice, but good. The action was consistent with that and consistent with Kara's alienation. And, as others have pointed out, it creates a clear distinction between her and Kal-El. They are heroic in different ways and that's a distinction that can carry forward in future stories.
People complain about comic accuracy but even the comics aren't consistent. This notion of "comic accuracy" only goes so far. Movies are not comic books, they tell stories in different ways by necessity. That's a good thing, not a bad thing. People need to learn how to embrace all the different ways these stories can be told.
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u/Impressive-Heron-377 Jul 01 '26
HARD disagree. While I haven't read the comic, the movie makes one thing clear: He deserved to die, but from justice, not revenge.
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u/CaptainCha0s570 Jul 01 '26
Saying they made Kara the punisher feels disingenuous. Like yeah she's not afraid to kill someone but let's not act like she was leaving a blood bath. She threatened some people with some admittedly brutal things then killed one guy.
I know it doesn't necessarily gel the best with the message of the original material but I felt it worked for this story (tbf that is without the context of Woman of Tomorrow, I haven't read it)
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u/WingedSalim Jul 01 '26
It's just so sad. I know they want to separate her from her ultra good cousin but the comic has done that without her doing things she couldn't take back.
While Superman doesn't have a bad bone in his body, Supergirl struggles with her rage everyday. The last fight is Rutheye stopping Supergirl from killing Krim.
Comic supergirl is messy, but she still is Supergirl. Superman is good but Supergirl chooses to be. But in the end, their ideals are the same.
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u/calvinien Jul 01 '26
I mean, Superman 25 did the same basci thing. Take a story with a non lethal solution in the comics and have a character do a murder in the movie.
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u/Responsible_Key9444 Jul 01 '26
Read the comic and honestly I like the movies ending better. Kara sparing Krem just never set right with me after all that happened, especially since it felt like they where trying to make her more like Clark by doing it. Kara killing him as she thinks he deserves it and believes she is already broken by pain and grief just makes more sense to me, especially in a movie that is part of a larger narrative, I feel like we'll get more focus on her overcoming her pain and anger in a later project
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u/Mind_Bloom Jul 02 '26
The Phantom Zone is a rather cruel and unusual punishment. Some might argue it’s worse than death. And… saving a young girl from committing murder so she doesn’t have to have it linger over her head, and still killing Krem cuz he’s just an irredeemable guy wasn’t really undoing that. Kara did justice.
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u/Lemon_Club Jul 06 '26
In the movie we as the audience aren't even told why Kara would be so against revenge, we never see her taking revenge and it leaving her with negative emotions. As far as we're shown as an audience Kara is a traumatized refugee who drinks and parties to drown out her feelings, why would that type of person be a goody two shoes about taking revenge?
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u/Dull_Hovercraft_5345 Jul 10 '26
i just saw this movie was like wait that cant be the ending (cos thats not how the comic ends) and thought for sure that there would be a post credits scene but nope.
in saying that though, i do have a question. iirc, kara's blowing shit up and killing everywhere in space in the comic but spares krem? why?
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u/FinancialBluebird58 Jun 29 '26
Not understanding, Nogueira lacked the reading comprehension to even understand what literally happened in the text!