Supergirl: ALL his powers, none of what makes him interesting. Not in the slightest. (original post : 2023)

 ugh, that dialogue just maps out what her problem is.

All his powers, none of his legitimacy.

Some articles want to argue that her having memory of Krypton and dealing with it being gone makes it more interesting than Superman.

Seems desperate, if one difference is what you're going with and that only works IN CONCEPT when you actually do something with that.

I repeat, the concept alone doesn't make her interesting you have to actually DO SOMETHING with it- and not retcon it in 4 years.

Kill her, have her death mean something then bring the bimbo to life anyway to just "exist", that's not doing anything, that's using her as a novelty, which is all she is.

Point being, there's another knockoff with the exact same premise as SupergirlNextDoor, but somehow ended being more interesting than Supergirl even as she's had decades of history on him:

SUPERBOY-PRIME

Dude's entire Universe, not one Planet, his UNIVERSE. was erased like a scent in the wind. Gone forever.

Did he become a by the numbers cheap knockoff sidekick? Hopping from team to team, looking for any ounce of relevance in the shadow of the original article? Writers galore wanting to carve an identity discovery narrative for this same character over & over again because they know she has no identity, so the constant theme is she has to find herself or get out of Supermans shadow because that shadow is why she's relevant in any respect. Eternal inferiority complex.

Nope, thats Kara, not SB-PRIME

 

Even though being a sidekick is exactly what he wanted, the kid was manipulated, he started trouble, he snapped, and gave the entire DC Universe a run for it's money.

Was imprisoned, beaten, humiliated, killed (a lot), came back with a vengeance again, then lost again.

Then saved everyone, and got his ending. A PERFECT finale for his arc, full circle arc of violence, hate, delusion, then redemption.

My question for years has been: Why couldn't that have been Supergirl? 

People have this idea in their head that she's interesting when at best she reads like a self-insert than an interesting person with a stake or belonging anywhere. 

kara should've been SB-PRIME in the first place. I would be simping for Kara at that point because her story would've been worth the hype, that's doing something with that pain and anger.

Then Supergirl would be something worth looking at and taken seriously. She becomes a Red Lantern, but ofc that doesn't stick. The more compelling Alt versions of her are not even canon. So what's the point?

So the one thing people attach to to say she's more interesting than Superman- What to ya know ANOTHER Superman did it better, damn near the same origin as her (so she's not unique in the respect that she wasn't a baby when the tragedy happened, so was Prime) and he's canon too. I'm genuinely surprised no one points this out more.

I'm impressed with Tom King's "Up in the Sky" for Supes, and i know he's got a Supergirl run out there "Woman of Tomorrow" (cringe, more coattail riding) Can't even get a tagline of her own.

But i'm going to try the first issue and see what's up. (years later & i'm still fighting to get through issue 1)

I WAS NOT impressed with her Rebirth #1, it was so basic, i almost fell asleep on my keyboard. And the cliffhanger made me bust out laughing like: "I'm supposed to want more of this shit?"

I'm going to "try" (W O M A N of Tomorrow), it's Tom King, so i genuinely hope he does something different for her. (he didn't, she ended up in a cape anyway)

I got spoiled a year back and saw she got a costume change and now looks like a 40 yr old cosplayer from the 30s, and somehow looks worse than before.

"Superwoman", ugh. The reason why Oracle & Red hood works because they're not riding Batman's theme.

They're doing their own shit, i've been saying this for years now. Supergirl doesn't work for me & clearly not in the grand scheme because she has no agency. She needs to break off and lead her own life.

The essence of Kara is she is unnecessary, she is the fat that needs to be cut off.

Superboy-Prime should have been Kara Zor-El-- the alternate Clark from another Earth, not a duplicate Kryptonian in the same fucking universe as Superman trivializing Kal surviving the tragedy at all. I have ZERO clue why people aren't catching that little detail more often.

Think about how contrived her origin is ad infinite:

Unlike evil Kryptonians like Zod who add depth & layers to Krypton's darker elements, like ghosts of the sins of the planet Kal idolizes and honors. 

Instead of that narrative hook, Kara's very existence reduces the impact of Kal surviving because she survived too, in most takes, the exact same way. 

So why is Jor-El & Lara's sacrifice a big deal, if some other jackoff had the EXACT same idea, oh btw that person just happened to be Jor-El's brother, who just happened to be a Scientist too who just happened to have the exact same idea but for some reason didn't go with Kara or at least send his wife with his daughter if the pod was big enough for a damn teenager but another woman who was no taller than Kara, could not go with her, or at least put them in stasis to save oxygen. 

Plot holes, contrivance, FANFIC tier writing, garbage.)  

No idea why WB can't get Kara's stiffy out their mouths but refuse to give Starfire or Cassie Cain the light of day, leagues better characters. Make it make sense. 

Superman: The Last Family of Krypton

Supes has a little sister in this universe, "Valora-El", instead of being "female Superman" homegirl decides to go into politics, went to Harvard, she serves her years as secretary working for a Congressman; she earns her seat as Congresswoman in the later years.

That's what i mean, by "living her own life", that shit's badass. 

Valora-El is how you Supergirl without being a knockoff, and OF COURSE she isn't canon because DC hates me sometimes. 

"What are your thoughts on Kallen Kozuki?" - Painfully under-written heroine (2025)

Painfully under-written heroine.

Season 2 was not her downfall, it was the show inflating what it always was: Overrated, hack, rule of cool that thought it was clever.

• R2 only emphasized prevailing issues that already existed in S1
• S2 didn't invent the sidelining, plot armor, contrivances, plot holes & overcompensating fanservice because the show couldn't think of humanizing reasons for anyone watching to give a shit about the women beyond what makes your dicc jolt
• And so, it gave us more of what CG was to begin with, the difference is Season 1 didn't have a reputation yet and so it was more conservative with it's gimmicks, didn't mean it was good, it means R2 was worse.

TL;DR Thoughts are Kallen overall was "fine", not good, but fine for a hollow light novel archetype, which is how she's treated.

A remarkably weakly executed character given how early we saw her in Season 1 and really had very little agency despite how headstrong she is.

Yet she's an excellent set piece for action scenes because of her archetype or being a piece of meat mascot for fanservice because unfortunately she wasn't a male character & due to that fact she isn't exempt from not being treated seriously or with respect, because that's what her worth boils down to according to the writers when she isn't kicking ass or being melodramatic or more noticeable: being Zero's biggest simp, her defining trait, besides her grit.

Episode 9 of Season 1 is still one of few episodes I'll still watch these days of the show without getting a headache because of how uncharacteristically competent the writing is for the most part. The through lines relating to her mother's traumas, her resentment toward her mother and it ends with somber closure between them both, though it should've been explored more as with Kallen's entire motivation namely her brother & daily life.

Kallen's goals, her motivation, her flaws, her abilities. She can carry a show easily, an OVA, really she's just as much main character material as Suzaku & Lelouch.

In Zero's absence, I would've liked to see Kallen directly leading the knights, her way; because how Lelouch leads isn't the only method to lead effectively.

• And the respect she already has due to being one of the front line fighters and being THE most valuable fighter: Her being Chief would've given an interesting challenge for us to see her not thinking like a brute, reliant on orders to aim her talents but instead thinking like a tactician, thinking for herself in this way whilst having that combat prowess, so being a nerfed combination of Suzaku & Lelouch but not being especially exaggerated in either category, a balanced Jack of All Trades. And unlike Xingke, she's not sick or anything, she's just not overpowered in terms of being a tactical genius, she goes off instincts.
• Because her decisions in this way would dictate whether or not her comrades live to fight another day, seeing her deal with the weight of that would be an easy arc for an episode, because they're not just chess pieces to her; all of which happens without Zero there to be her emotional safety net vs him/the mask being her metaphorical emotional shackle.
• Easily could've had R2's first 2-3 episodes or less be on that focus, whilst leading up to Lelouch' emancipation from his illusion, building up to it through Kallen's eyes. Easy w.

Lelouch is the MC of base form Code Geass but he wasn't the only protagonist, same with Avatar the last Airbender, Codename Kids Next Door & The Avengers movies, hell even Lego Monkie Kid. You can't just sparingly sprinkle some scarce development in there in 1 or episodes and then piss off, you have to add more development to eventually cultivate an arc. That's how it works.

When the plot hijacks the character writing, when fanservice regresses the profile of the characters, you get stagnation, which leads to sidelining & narrative deprivation. Season 2 didn't undermine Kallen, Code Geass as it always has been: undermined Kallen.

Unfortunately CG's writers had mismanaged priorities.

Otherwise, easily top 5 best pilots in CG, considering how many skilled pilots there actually are in the entire franchise beyond Lelouch' drama, so for her, that says a lot; beside the fact that The Black Knights' Ace pilot, "Q1" is globally infamous, which is also something I liked about what little we got from Kallen's profile in the long term.

But you need more going for you than just a part in action scenes & being boner bait, which is where most people get muddied when it comes to Kozuki or anime female leads in general. We get latched on for superficial reasons vs her actually being "well-written" due to exploration & tests, and it pains me to see (still) how many people will say that term but don't know what it means.

The "lewdness" or fanservice didn't defeat any depth for Kallen, because fanservice, especially in high frequency (in a serious setting like this) is generally what happens in a vacuum of not having depth in the first place. It clashes.

Fanservice can't undermine depth Kallen never got to have, which is why the fanservice was there to begin with; so with depth gone, you have to fill it with something, and lazy writers usually go with Mary Sue-isms (woke, condescending & politicized) or oversexualization (anti-woke, dehumanizing & disrespectful). You'll seldom see that kind of treatment with characters that are actually taken seriously by the writers.

There's a big difference between fanservice cameo, an easter egg, having fun; vs compiled humiliation rituals labeled "fanservice".

It's overcompensation so that the writers give us something to attach onto about the character the easy way, so they don't have to do any real work with their pens to layer the character. That way they can prioritize pushing the plot along while the characters get dragged in tow.

And because situations around the characters develop & escalate, we by proxy think they / the characters are developing as well, when at best they're just reacting to rising events but in reality most of them are actually still the same exact people.

Code Geass was & has always been plot driven over character driven, which is partly why it's a mess, style over substance.

So unfortunately despite her high ranking in The Black Knights, outspoken nature & prominence in fight scenes, the fanservice never undermined her depth because she had none to begin with.

Episode 9 Season 1 was the foundation for depth, & it wasn't fully realized or exploited, despite how early her debut was.

• She isn't an NPC that showed up in Episode 9 or 15, she was there since Episode 1, you'd think she'd get more respect or more to do.

Kallen wasn't useless (her preventing Lelouch from shooting up, rejecting his advance, course-correcting his vision is one of the better scenes in R2 EP7 because of how the drug relates to her personal life- is one of the better moments), she was whiney & clingy at times but not fragile. Written to be way too reliant on "Zero" overall for my taste, with no proactive attempt to use leaving him behind as a sign of growth for her, another wasted opportunity. Otherwise she had a stake & a role (as limited as it was), but not agency nor depth. At best, she was a highly prominent tool, high ranking lackey. What she needed was more independence, more proactivity vs being a reactive henchwoman.

Again, Fanservice definitely regressed her representation but it can't undermine depth Kallen never got to have in the first place, which is why the fanservice was there to begin with.

With depth nonexistent, you have to fill it with something, and lazy writers usually go with Mary Sue-isms (woke, condescending & politicization) or oversexualization (anti-woke, dehumanizing & disrespectful). You'll seldom see that kind of treatment with characters that are actually taken seriously by the writers.

Kallen really could've been the Katara of Code Geass with the theme of vengeance being the parallel, but Anime Japan yet again proved it's not capable or willing to write competent characters of high caliber in mainstream because quotas must be met at the characters expense for reasons that benefit everything & everyone except the characters.

Kallen is cool: strictly as an archetype, that's what she is & treated as, an archetype. As a character (generously): undercooked & painfully under-written because of lazy writers that felt style mattered more than substance. which is Code Geass in a nutshell.

"Rule of Cool:" The Animation, Mechs, superpowers, pretentious pseudo-intellectual political mumbo jumbo, supernatural shit pertaining to the will of man & god, cults, a ninja maid, etc.

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Asspulls was doing too much, it's why it got me into anime, it was an ambitious melting-pot experiment but it really didn't know what the hell it was doing & aged as well as a heroin addict.

Kallen is a casualty of that, one of many.

The Issue with Black Widow’s Fight style is it’s oriented for takedowns instead of knockouts. (Iron Man 2 Black Widow fight)

The Issue with Black Widow’s Fight style is it’s oriented for takedowns instead of knockouts. (Iron Man 2 Black Widow fight)

Black Widow vs Hammer Security — Fight Scene — Iron-Man 2 (2010): The fight scene most people think is legitimate in how it portrays a woman fighting men- “realistically”.

Wrong.

The most legit ko's was 0:25 , 0:48 (generously) 1:45 (And that’s if she choked him out squeezing his neck in-between her thigh & calf. If she just forced his head to the ground, he’d have a broken face but he wouldn’t be knocked out from that- so headcanon essentially) the rest of that should’ve been edited better. If that’s realistic to some folk, then Hollywood isn’t doing women in action movies any justice these days.

As opposed to better examples that aren’t bound by realism:

As entertainment the Widow hallway scene works, it’s fun but when ppl say shit like this:

“I loved this scene so much, I always keep rewinding it 🤣 I love the realistic portrayal of a woman fighting men. She uses gadgets to her advantage and her/their weight against them.”

“I love the realistic portrayal of a woman fighting men. “

“realistic-“

Nah, a realistic fight is Desh vs Bourne, that’s realistic, why? Exchange, resistance, Bourne was so desperate he resorted to throwing shit at the dude just to buy 2 seconds of breathing room or an opening; but only if you want to argue realism. 

• Because most of what what happens in Widow’s fight happens in most action fights (telegraphing, waiting, playing up damage so they get in cue), the point is to maintain the illusion so viewers immerse so deep you don’t notice that the whole thing’s a practiced dance.
• With women participants or most of the time when they lead the dance, the illusion is harder to maintain. Especially if she isn’t a fighter in her personal life.

Steve vs Winter Soldier Round 1 was stylistic but even that was more grounded because the EDITING/ The cuts were on point.

Otherwise, the rest of this Widow fight is not believable, (mind you- i stand by what I said in the Ruth post where Scarlet sells it better, YES! But is it realistic? Hell no) it just got even worse with Ruth & some of Yelena, so in comparison Scarlet’s Widow is obviously better in execution.

I repeat:

They (MCU) shoulda made her (Widows as a whole) super soldiers like in ultimate avengers, a lot of her impacts wouldn’t down a grown man. That knee strike is a big maybe, the nut shot would buy her maybe 60 seconds, the widow bites are her only guarantee —legit enough to KO in ideal conditions, the other 90%? Whack.

“You’ll note that we have 12 super soldier candidates, for whom we are developing 12 different serums, it’s unique for every person.”(Bruce Banner 2006, Ultimate Avengers)

• Natasha is one of those candidates, thus a super soldier, tho a lesser potent serum. Which is how she was able to force a needle into Hulk’s hide with her bare hands, which is a minor detail that only now have I noticed. A normal man wouldn’t have been able to do that even with standard steroids.
• That’s what the MCU should’ve done, & if not immediately, by CA:WS or AOU she should’ve gotten something after Steve’s thawing.
• Or the Red Room should’ve been a Super Soldier program, didn’t they do some shit with red fart dust or something? Instead of mind control via some funky hormones, just make them bootleg super soldiers.

These small af women kind of needed to be enhanced in some way, if the fight process going to be like what we’ve been getting, otherwise step up the women’s choreography game. 

Or enhance them so their punches have more weight, and them throwing grown men makes more sense. That actually makes things more fun to watch tbh, like with Trinity’s fights.

The only reason why Silk Spectre in Snyder’s film gets a pass is because the way that action is shot & the nature of the setting: it’s not realistic. And the actress sells the fuck out of those fights. She’s not enhanced but her status as a vigilante in that movie puts her on a level above the average man and by design it’s not — “Realistic”

No quips, no jokes. 100% deconstruction of the opponent

In Marvel movies it’s more “realistic”, and the  price of realism is believability. The more you make it realistic, the more you limit your ability to sell it.

I look back on this Ironman 2 Widow fight with positive outlook but only when compared to what we got now, but that Ironman 2 Widow fight wasn’t the perfect gem we think it was in terms of “woman wins against a man (realistically)”.

Fuck nah, ya’ll need to watch more shit. 

minimum effort, no flips

Laurie wasn’t doing no fancy shit, her movements were minimum but her dodging, her weaving was so precise, it looks amazing, still to this day. 

The moves were sharper and meaner than any Widow, less energy spent on takedowns & more focused on knockouts. Better choreographed & edited. And looks better because it was NOT REALISTIC — her stylistic strength fit the setting. We gotta stop worshipping ”realism”.

 The Dark Knight started the trend and it’s been downhill ever since because even those movies’ choreography was lacking in many areas (especially after Batman Begins) and the main issue was realism.

Which is why nobody praises TDK trilogy for the fight scenes but EVERYONE still simps for that warehouse fight in BvS

The editing game has to level up for the women, especially if the movie staff insists on pitting them against more than one MAN and not a woman; because notice how these widows are rarely ever pit against other women on average but mainly men as if to say fighting skills can legit close the gap to best 200+ lbs, denser bones+++ PER Multiple men resisting 115 lbs of counterweight, that’s believable as long as she’s flipping.

Laurie didn’t flip once, she flipped HIS ASS:

But then again, the men fighting these Widows are not really resisting are they? They get hit, they’re stun locked so she can basically do whatever and control the fight because if they resist, then the actress is going to struggle more. Which is the point.

Laurie’s Silk Spectre in the movie fights like Washington’s “Equalizer”, brutal & minimum energy wasted.

The flaw of a Widow’s fight style is they’re sacrificing so much of their stance, footing and energy for theatricality; all just to get their enemies to the floor.

And apparently them hitting the floor means they’re out the fight. 

• The Widow style is designed for women to master it, that’s fine but it’s takedown techniques are not ideal when you need to KNOCK+OUT grown men beyond just taking them down.
•  I don’t doubt a woman could grapple a man to the ground with some well placed  counterbalance, & submission a victory but how the movies translate their takedowns, is not believable as a knockout. 
• Hollywood thinks knockouts and takedowns are the same thing. 

So Nat performs a takedown, I’m expecting bro to get up but he’s still on the floor and I’m like “Whoah what happened?! He fell asleep?”

And it looks like the women “should” win because of how extra they’re making it look but they’re really not doing much of anything beyond bruising & breaking noses, let alone knocking anyone out, most of the time anyway.

 Which is why they need to use the widow bite more to sell the fight. That’s how a WIDOW knocks out a 250 Ib security guard with a killcount, that Widow bite. And that’s something I can praise Yelena for in Thunderbolts she used that Widow Bite effectively.

(Granted the energy feedback of the bite wouldn’t have stopped the downward momentum of a SUPER SOLDIERS stab attempt, so that makes no sense but it draining his stamina slowly, that’s a cool way to use it defensively. At least she’s using the damn Widow bite for something other than decoration)

Scarlet’s Widow overall performs it better than the other 2 but even her fights fall short still, her takedowns are good but all their knockouts are silly. Because that’s the nature of their fight style, it seems more engineered to be a distraction to create an opening for a killshot- Like the widow bite? Or a gun? Or a knife stab? They need to spam that Widow bite or put guns in it.

 It’s basically an assassins dream fight style for misdirection, imagine if a Widow did that spinny shit, and after the guy gets up (because he’s not hurt lol), he suddenly realizes his neck is split wide open because she used that maneuver for something more than just throwing him down & while he’s bleeding out she’s on top of the other four guys just tearing them apart in similar fashion.

 That’s how a Widow should be shown to fight, takedowns mixed with knockouts, or in this case, blatant executions. 

“The Black Widow“ should have the same level of weight as “The Winter Soldier“, that’s the ONLY reason why Winter Soldier would entertain Natasha as a partner during his prime years. Because she’s the same level of beast as him, just not in the same way.  The MCU dropped the ball on that.

• Happy’s fight, while less cool, is actually more realistic because his opponent actually resisted in a realistic fight, but only if “realism” is the hill we want to die on.

Looking back on this, It amazes me how many people didn’t even notice or point out that she didn’t use her most valuable weapon in that hall way fight— The Wrist stingers/Widows Bite, she didn’t use them once. 

(If you want to say she’s that good, that’s not gonna work because most of what she did wasn’t enough to KO a  WOMAN, in fact most of those guys should’ve gotten right back up, which is the point of the widow bite or widow biting them mid spinny move. Since Disney doesn’t have the balls to make a Widow into the threat they should be.)

She used them in 2012 a few times which was good and in 2014, 2015, 2016, don’t recall her using them in IW against Promixa of all people but overall she didn’t use them enough, all things considered.

Instead of slowing down a fight to show her using it, just subtly put sparks in between her punches to visualize the bite being used mid-momentum and weakening her opponents to the point of eventual atrophy and collapse. 

Like Yelena did in Thunderbolts, easy fix. Just keep doing that, so while  Scarlet’s combat portrayal was better in hand to hand delivery-- Pugh is not far behind if she keeps this up. 

By mixing Widow-Fu with the Widow Bite to K.O, that’s a more balanced, more legitimate/ “REALISTIC”  Black Widow. 

All in all, the 2011 fight sold better on the first watch when i saw it in theaters, cause it was a new gimmick then.

And the number 1 issue isn’t Scarlet or any of the actresses, it’s how it’s shot & organized.

The only reason why Jason Bourne’s scenes sell so well for the most part (beside the shaky cam being annoying) is ironically —  the shaky editing, the snap cuts, by the time we know what even happened, the fight’s over or it transitioned. The momentum and speed or at least the illusion of it.

That’s how Bourne is depicted to be more than what a man should even be capable of, kinda like the Watchmen 2009 vigilante’s. That’s how a Widow should’ve been shown to be fighting, and if they wanted an explanation for her strength in realism? Bootleg Super Serum. Because Ultimate Avengers 06′ did it.

Sometimes to pull off a good fight doesn’t mean showing everything, because the more audiences see, that’s more that can work against the choreography if what the fighter is actually doing isn’t effective in the slightest to actually K.O someone, “realistically”. Leave some mystique, keep the illusion maintained..

Realism is not our friend in action genre, you’ll just bottleneck your options that way.

ESPECIALLY IF SHE IS NOT ENHANCED vs in a stylistic setting where her strength as a female is irrelevant- aka Kung Fu movies, anime, parody, etc.

-the MCU doesn’t want everyone to be super soldiers, got it but they & other movie studios need to exploit better techniques if they want base form women to be out here mopping up dudes. It can be done, but you just have to give a damn.

That widow bite needs to be spammed waaaaaay way way more, because that’s their biggest advantage. Anything less just looks too silly and telegraphed. Because that’s the price of wanting a woman to basically be Jason Statham, and not all his fights impress me either.

Spoiler alert: Being a Widow is not a insta-win formula

A 120 Ib woman slamming a 250 Ib man on the ground from a flip or kicking him in the chest (Yelena’s first fight scene in Thunderbolts*) isn’t going to down him for the fight-

at best that’s a set up for the ACTUAL finisher, snap his neck, dislocate his shoulder, widow bite his lower back, poison tipped knife, widow bite his temple & make his brain fry, idgaf, DO SOMETHING legit. 

Make a Black Widow scary, not predictable. That was one of the MCU’s greatest failures: not making the Widow’s & Red Room  more of a “Babayaga”.

A takedown is not a finisher, (again) Hollywood seems to think “takedowns” are “knockouts”. If that were the case, Khabib would’ve been winning fights in seconds during his UFC career.

• A takedown is taking someone down to the ground, grounding them which the Widow style does effortlessly,.
• A legit knockout is legitimately taking them out the fight, period.  (via broken bone, killing them, submission hold, nerve strike, elbow to temple etc). 

A Widow’s fight style is takedown focused to favor a woman’s lighter build; not knockout focused. The takedown is merely you buying a window to do something else to actually end the fight.

Realism, editing, mistaking takedowns for knockouts.
Top 3 reasons why a Widow’s fight style is lackluster,

The Iron Man 2 Widow fight is iconic, a good attempt at selling the concept, but overall not a realistic representation of women fighting legitimately against men because no woman is winning a fight against multiple men flipping around, let alone one (who can fight too) when all she can do is do stylistic takedowns which is only ideal against 1 person and her ground game better be on point to get that submission hold quick before he gets on top on her. It’s whole different ball game when he knows what he’s doing too.

Which is why her fight against Clint is one of her most underrated highlights of all time (tho she didn’t Widow Bite then either *smh), that was still a solid fight, dodged one of his arrows damn near point blank and she won legitimately- with an injury, against brainwashed Hawkeye of all people.

But other than that, Widow-Fu looks nice tho, but it’s not realistic- especially when they refuse to use the Widow bite.

If Hollywood wants women to be on that level, the ladies need to be smarter or enhanced; they’re not men and not every male character’s fight works either. 

These women need to be directed to throw their punches sharper, faster, going for throat, finger striking eyeballs, grappling & dislodging bones and joints — WHILE STANDING UP. 

Elite tier shit, Equalizer level combat. You don’t need super strength  to do that, but it does look more convincing when a Man does it, but it can be done. A woman’s punch is not akin to a child’s punch, they’re still grown adults, the actresses just need better direction.

 (and at minimum, the editors need to make up the differences in post.)