They’re trying to pull a X-23/Cassie Cain/Iron-Giant/ Son of Darkseid with this one.
First glance it looks like promise, but what’s going to make or break this decision is what they do after the fact.
Keywords: “-AFTER the fact”
What exactly are you going to do with the fact that she’s committed genocide?
And it’s very unlikely Brainiac wouldn’t just mindwipe her entirely, so that obedience mode she enters isn’t a mode, it’s her default state.
Why would he even allow her to keep anything close to a personality, that already doesn’t make any sense as it didn’t make sense when Supes got brainwashed in Legacy arc in TAS.
But this is Brainiac we’re talking about, if anyone has a method to wipe a persons mind clean it’s him.
See if they just have her become the usual stock Supertoken/supergirl, cape & all and just go about the script per canon/ mid/ usual then the backstory setup was a total waste and only served to just be edge bait, jangling keys and nothing more. Another waste of potential for this sinkhole of a character.
And if nothing is done further, there’d be no real purpose to it beside just showing Supergirl be edgy and provide the illusion that Kara is interesting. When being interesting comes from the track-record of actually DOING something with the set up not just the set up existing.
Now her wanting to be a hero would be a semi-sensible way for her to attempt to “do good” to make up for the wrongs buuuuut this is genocide, saving a cat out of a tree or putting away the same 3 villains isn’t going to even begin to make up for that shit.
So I sincerely doubt whatever they do after this is going to be anything close to an appropriate direction for what she did.
See with that said- there’s already brewing problems with this. And when I first saw it, I thought “Hm, okay, there’s potential here.”
Mainly because of how she reacted to the truth, which is the point of her emoting, to make you sympathize.
You feeling that way is the intended reaction on part of the show.
sidenote: I can’t stand Kara as a concept, I make ZERO attempts to hide that, and yes they did the bullshit cousin thing which annoys the shit out of me but they can still do something halfway decent here even if it’s mid per the show’s usual standard of writing.
Furthermore, even if the execution is shit, i’ll give the writers some credit here for introducing her with an (albeit lazy) attempt to make her somewhat interesting though (basically Young Justice S4 all over again), the best way they can give her intrigue is make her “evil” seemingly (always some mind control or conditioning, she’s never bad by choice, which defeats the possibility of her being interesting or engaging) and then turn her into an accessory after she is eventually/inevitably turned to the good side.
I don’t see why DC is so afraid of making Kara a legit Superman villain or taking risks with this character who desperately needs an overhaul.
Top 5 baddies, calculating, in charge, with a purpose. There’s nothing wrong with that, why the fuck does she always have to be a good guy?
When all that happens is she gets shrouded in the shadow of Superman anyway because despite the attempts of so many writers, she does not possess the impact, themes or narrative/symbolic legitimacy, she literally just exists.
And unlike Batman who can have many protege, Superman’s hook initially was being the last Krytonian. So not only does her existence null the impact of Kal’s survival in the first place but the world doesn’t need two Super-people, it’s just redundant.
The only reason why Conner gets a pass is he’s the clone gene-baby of Lex and Supes, thus nowhere near as powerful. And the fact that he’s not native to Krypton doesn’t in any way negate the impact of Kal’s survival narrative.
Back on the show, they really shouldn’t have made her his cousin, again.
That takes so much agency from her when her stake in the story is being Superman’s cousin like the canon, and not just a Kryptonian with her own stake that somehow survived, and she has her own name. Still a knockoff, still trivializes the original point of Kal’s surivial but that’s an improvement.
It’s why Kara In-Ze is a slight improvement that people don’t appreciate enough. Though there wasn’t enough done with her too.
The miraculous surviving cousin trope is bad fanfic and again it trivializes Clark surviving at all, hence why I hate Kara’s existence. But PLEASE stop using the cousin schtick, allow Kara to stand on her own two goddamn feet for once.
Otherwise, yet again my gripe specific to this show is I don’t think these writers are thinking this through. The one time they take advantage of the “Adult” in the Adult Swim and they overshot their shot with genocide.
I thought: “Oh? This might have potential for this version of the character.”
But then I thought, “Wait minute, they’re not going to revert her to a normal status quo & put her little ass in a cape and hero suit after showing her doing that shit are they?
-How the fuck is she going to integrate, when she’s technically an intergalactic war criminal?”
Now if you gave her legal immunity or some kind of galactic supervision fine, but one of the only legitimate ways to set that up is if Superman asked John or Hal to put in a word or pull strings with the Guardians but a seasoned Justice League (where that possibility would make sense) doesn’t even exist- so that prospect is completely null.
See this is what happens when you don’t think this shit through, and unfortunately this doesn’t get the excuse of being a “kids” show, and it really should be because it’s written like one, just not as good as better kids shows.
Because despite My Adventures clearly being written for 13 year old girls/Shoujo fans going through their shipper phase, this tripe is actually on adult swim- for some reason.
(ATLA is also leagues more mature in writing)
Point being: Just edgy backstory is setup, set up can create intrigue but what makes one interesting is what exactly do you do with it, where you take that is what makes a character, that’s the ONLY reason why Zuko works as a character, it’s the ONLY reason why MCU Tony Stark isn’t the worst character in the MCU, somehow.
She better have some serious issues from this beyond just curling up in space with the pouty sad anime girl face, mid.
Don’t want her to look too ugly with her bawling her eyes out, snot & shit, because you know-
it’s only GENOCIDE, right?
Really that broken up about it huh Kara?
See this is why I cannot stand this show. It’s so half assed. And the fact that S2 was lit before Episode 3 of Season 1 dropped is a disgrace before the show could earn the right to continue someone had the connection to get their brain baby 2 seasons before it could prove that it deserved to even finish season 1.
And then by sheer fucking luck Lois-Chan and James just HAPPENED to TP in front of her, are you fucking serious? LMFAO, that’s amateur webcomic levels of convenient.
This show apparently has not changed since I last dropped it like a bad habit. Holy shit.
To wrap this turd sandwich up,
Drug problem, feverish nightmares, violent hallucinations, some kind of serious brutal trauma. Because HELLO? ADULT SWIM, maybe use that to your advantage writers? Use it to your benefit with some serious storytelling, HELLO? Goofballs.
You wanted Kara here, just like I predicted since Season 1 Episode fucking 2 (Because DC/WB can’t get over their Kara boner and neglect to give other better lady characters in DC time to breathe)
Well now she’s here, now do something with her or keep doing what you’ve been doing and just set her up…aaand then she crashes and burns into obscurity. Like she’s been doing for the a past 30+ years.
I’d settle for her not becoming a “Superhero” and living her own life figuring how to cope with what she did, saving people on the side.
Or? For a better take if we skip tween shit and just debut her as a grownass woman like Smallville did to an extent.
Be like Victoria or Valora-El and have her be a Supe in a position of infrastructural status where she can make another brand of difference that isn’t just sloppy seconds of what Superman is already doing. ie. Being a redundant character in deed and name.
Anything less or to the contrary is cop-out, and yet another waste of potential, which is a classic fate for Supergirl.
If she killed a few people, okay still bad, but it’s doable, but multiple GENOCIDE?
I repeat: MULTIPLE GENOCIDE?!
Ohhhh buddy. These writers better hope they know what they’re doing pal. Not me hoping they know what they’re doing-
No THEY better hope THEY (guys/& gals/writers) know what they’re doing.
Cause this can easily go messy mode if they don’t treat this with the appropriate care and direction.
Jfc.
And yes, I have pitched many times to make her dark, but that was the make her Superman villain permanently, clearly that isn’t their agenda here.
The difference is, I would’ve had her be a recurring Top 5 Superman foe. Not some superpowered “uwu kawaii” girl next door gimmick who’s stake in the fandom is exactly that or just being a female superman DLC vs her actually being taken seriously for once in her history.
One can try to argue that her having memories of Krypton makes her pain & anger stemming from that sort of interesting, not really- her concept is the same as Superboy-Prime’s origin but for her: without everything that made him iconic- his mental issues, his very real, very realistic ramification of a teenager losing too much, too soon all at once. Intrigue, something was actually done with the fact that he was traumatized, and it wasn’t backtrack it was expanded upon for better and worse.
And he was manipulated on top of that, sort of like Kara is manipulated by Brainy here.
But it’s likely not going to lead anywhere beyond her siding with Clark-Kun and beating Brainiac, saturday morning kidz cartoon shit.
Point being: People like her profile because she looks appealing, a concept of a female superman, female Kryptonian is a nice thought. Female, that’s the gimmick.
She’s always had potential, but it’s always played safe or backtracked. Now we have her being a genocide puppet, which is a nice set up but the likely outcome is they’ll sweep it or go the usual Sueprgirl route despite what she did.
I sincerely hope they do NOT do that, that is the wrong move.
A lot of people (including me sometimes) don’t truly understand the gravity of genocide when they want to use it for a character’s narrative, it makes for a good hook I get it-especially when the character regrets it or is a villain like Omni-Man. Or as a premise.
But a lot of writers don’t want to commit to how big a deal that shit is in ramifications but want to flaunt it just for the sake of tugging heart strings when the character gets in their feels over it.
My charge is specifically: What are the ramifications for the character’s humanity, their mental state, them as a person, how they view themselves, will she want to end her own life over this?
That’s the kind of shit i’m talking that would make a viewer her seriously leagues beyond the majority of her other variants (including her canon) in terms of depth, beyond the female superman gimmick, beyond the nepotism factor that Kara owes her entire career to.
But again I doubt they have the balls to go that far, even though that’s exactly what they NEED to do given this is a situation involving a one-woman genocide.
That’s why Invincible Season 1 Episode 8 is so good, EP3 was more of a spectacle we didn’t think too much of Nolan wiping out that planet but when it happened to Earth, seeing that mother & daughter die, you feel that shit. It makes you feel how serious that shit is. When you watch reactions to the episode, people physically cringe are distraught by it. GOOD, that’s the right way to present it, because it’s not a joke.
My Adventures with Kara-Chan Reads like a “look, aren’t they so tortured? Are you sympathizing with the cute girl yet?”, nah man. You need to do a lot more than just show her cringing with “shocked anime girl” face:
(thats what she looked like, like she sent her term paper to the wrong email address “Nooooo, i couldn’t, i don’t remember”, Wow i’m really choked up about this along with you sister. Such a wooden performance, Iron Giant showed more emotion when he thought Hogarth died.)
How the fuck you get out acted/Emotioned by a goddamn Robot who managed to cry without shedding a tear.
Again, WB feels the absolute need to push this underwhelming nothing character over and over again just for her to meet the same brick wall because the general demo? Contrary to popular belief, doesn’t give a shit about Supertoken.
She works in concept, but she has zero staying power.
Most people like her because she’s an aesthetic, a gimmick, a checked box, like Mid-Morales. They look nice on paper, they’re a nice thought, they look great on design sheets. What they represent vs not what they are. Most People like what they are, than who they are. Not all, most.
But this attempt at Kara? Depending on what they do as of post Season 2 EP6, even if the aftermath is mid (and it likely will be mid) at least do something dynamic or risky with that set up, just tragic backstory isn’t enough.
Fact is, to wipe out that many people?
Writers better deliver on that shit & make her 2% the interesting/ complex character Azula was in terms of issues.
Because they’re doing this cutesy anime shit, the same shit they’ve done with Lois but with Kara it’s the strict tsundere who’s not privy to norms schtick.
So basically Starfire just more “hmph” frowny faces, it’s so goddamn annoying how hard they’re trying with this anime aesthetic bullshit but not trying hard enough with literally everywhere else that matters.
It’s amazing that that’s the main thing that’s consistent since Season 1 lmfao.
Not holding my breath, but we’ll see where they go with this latest attempt with Kara Bore-El.
- Sidenote: Reiner wasn’t handled the best overall but him developing lite Schizophrenic symptoms out of guilt due to the many friends he betrayed to accomplish his mission was actually a sound decision, one of best in the story because that’s actually doing something with the guilt, now did Isayama commit to taking it to a fine conclusion, ofc not, but that was a good direction to go in that wasn’t expected. I’ll praise that much.
That wouldn’t be a bad direction for this version of Kara Bore-El, a believable ramification.
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