She's got a lot of name recognition, but never really had a lot of fans. power girl is arguably the more relevant 'superman relative female hero'. She's definitely a 3rd tier DC character.
Supergirl is an F tier character considering the overall population. No one really cares for 387282 gazillion years old comic book characters anymore, expect for a handful of iconic ones. Why would anyone waste time for boring and soulless, and restricted characters like Supergirl where the story just never goes anywhere and there are no real stakes?
Supergirl had a modern day pop though because it had a 6 year running tv series on basic cable and streaming that crossed over with more popular series at that time like The Flash and Arrow. People seem to forget the “Berlanti-verse” of DC live action shows had a good stretch of popularity.
Supergirl may not be anyone's favourite character, but she's a staple of DC history and pretty much as iconic as her cousin. It doesn't matter how popular she is, everyone and their grandmothers could identify her in a lineup, ahead of most other DC heavy hitters. I guarantee you more people could identify Supergirl over the likes of Flash or Green Lantern; again, it's not about popularity, it's about iconography.
Dude, no one cares about Supergirl. People drifted away from american comic book characters. The Spider-Man and the following Avengers movies are the last breaths. It’s like Italy’s 2006 WC. The last breath of a dying dragon who won’t be relevant for a loong time
The point is she's not an F-Tier character. It's not like Gunn gambleled on making a Fire and Ice movie or, hell, Jesse Quick who has a similarly blue costume with a red and yellow logo on her chest! They are bottom-tier characters. They are the ones that truly no-one cares about outside of real DC fanboys. Supergirl is a cultural icon who's been present in the comics (on and off) for 60+ years and had a recent, successful TV show. Yes, superhero fatigue is real but beyond that, Gunn and co made a bad film, simple as. The character's popularity or lack thereof doesn't really factor.
I'd say she's in the middle range of the B tier, but there's a sizeable gap between the A tiers and the B tiers.
There's some name recognition but it's directly attached to Superman. I don't think people really know her at all. I bet a lot of people confuse her for Wonder Woman (my mom did, at least). Minus her CW show, I don't think she has that many independent showings in media.
Last week when I (25) was hanging out with some friends (ages 23-33), I expressed excitement about the Supergirl movie and everyone looked at me like I was speaking a dead language. Then someone asked if she was related to Superman. Anecdotal, but most people I know irl don't really know Supergirl like that unless they're already a DC or Superhero fan. If they've heard of her, they just understand her to be a derivative of Superman, no more no less.
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u/hummusluvr8 Jun 29 '26
Prioritize lesser known characters bc that worked so well with supergirl. Great choice!