Supergirl

I wish Cir-El were found alive.

I wish she could hear the fate of Kandor (well, the Kandor left to be ruled by Ultraman)

I wish she could find a way to get there.

And I wish Supergirl would go back too and clean up the mess.

*looks at thoughts*

*looks at blank word document*

*looks at the head honchos at DC*

Yeah, this might be like flying cars. If you want one you probably have to build it yourself.

Got the name.

SuperRamble: Supergirl, Powergirl - A Story Redux.

Now that I've gotten the 'OMG the bare ass' out of the way, I want to see what I can write up about Superman/Batman:Supergirl and Supergirl Vol 1. But I highly doubt it'll make much sense. There's too much stewing.

I like outsider stories. I like stories where people try to figure out how to fit in, why to fit in and what makes them who they are. I like the base thread of Supergirl (the new Kara from Krypton)'s story so far. But I only like the base thread. It took me a while to figure this out, since I was beginning to wonder what exactly I was feeling. I had a lot of excitement and enjoyment and odd offkey disappointment and agitation. I had to sleep on it for a while. And I realized I like outsider stories, so Supergirl's current story appeals to me right off the bat.

However, Supergirl's story, excluding the bit about her being evil and sent to kill Kal-el as a baby, reads a lot like the troubles and turmoils of Powergirl. And I fell in love with Powergirl way back when, because she was an ultimate outsider. She was the Kryptonian with knowledge of Krypton, the one with answers to questions about the culture and society. She was the one who could look at humanity and just plain not understand them. Which is why I've been so disappointed at realizing the story arc where she was seeing things and losing her powers and having conflict went right back to the status quo.

Yes, I wanted some interesting history for her. But moreso I wanted an explanation. I wanted someone to skillfully weave everything that had happened in her life and give it purpose. Was Powergirl out of time? Out of phase? Why had she been so badly used and abused throughout the years?

I didn't get an answer to that. And then on top of it, I get Supergirl playing out Karen's story. Supergirl's the confused one, the alone one, the one seeking out Kon to talk to him, and dealing with all these new feelings and sensations and curiosities and powers and enemies and hormones and boys and...

Powergirl is Supergirl too. And maybe it's my fantasy alone that Powergirl is Supergirl all grown up, come back to where she was originally meant to be in the timeline from the far future, with unstable whatevers that mess with her memory. Maybe it's wrong of me to think of Powergirl and Supergirl as being the same person, from different spots in the time stream and/or one shade over in realities.

But it's a lot harder not to think that, when Kara is walking in PG's footsteps. It's a lot harder not to do it when I end up thinking they're doing PG's story, only updated for the times.

"Am I Superman's Cousin? What does that mean? What does it mean to be a Kryptonian on Earth? Why did I have to live? Do I want to die? Will I ever fit in? Will I ever be what they expect me to be? Do they have the right to expect anything at all? Will I ever measure up to Kal's legacy? Should I? Could anyone? Who am I? What am I? Should I try to have a normal life? Can I? Is it possible without all the years put in to having a normal, human, childhood? What am I missing out on in the human world? Is it anything like what I'm missing out in from Krypton? What do I want? Can I want something for myself? What does being a hero mean? Should I be a hero? Why do I have to handle this all in public? What's my purpose? Why can't I live a normal life if I can manage to blend in and lie and be a human? Why does Kal live a human life? Does he feel anything? Does it feel weird to him? Does anyone understand how weird it feels to me? Should I remember being Kryptonian and of the House of El or should I try to forget? Am I following Kal's footsteps because he's currently the head of the House of El? Does that even matter anymore?.....'

So many questions. So many interesting questions and conflicts and desires and emotions. But I associate them all with Powergirl. And I keep wanting to see them interacting, so I can maybe observe the differences. Except that there's this stupid premise that they can't be too close together physically because they cause each other's powers to act up.

So Kara's alone when she doesn't have to be. She's alone when it makes her story mimic Karen's that much more. She's alone and a teenager and angsty and trying to figure it all out. But the writers so far don't seem to be looking at it from a teenager's pov.

Kara isn't watching teens on the street, or looking at MTV, or flipping through the channels or reading books about teenagers. But she is spending time with the Outsiders and crushing on Nightwing, and wondering why everything gets tongue tied around him. But it doesn't move from there, because there's a crisis and off she runs.

Kara isn't exploring what having powers and doing heroic things means to her. She's aping Kal-El and wearing his symbol and his costume. And in that she seems somewhat less that PowerGirl. Though understandably she's much younger and as a teenager she's going to be easily swayed.

And yet...

It's like they're missing all the edges of the outsider story. They have the frame up, a rough sketch. But the things that give it dimension are missing.

There's more to trying to figure out who you are, in a world where people die, and relatives lose their powers and enemies haunt you just because you're part of the House of El; than exploring smoking, costume changes and man on the street interaction.

There was this beautiful hint at all the anger she feels in her interaction with Cassie. Kara has grief and rage. She's lost the world she knows, moreso than Kal-El can ever imagine. In fact, she has more in common with Batman, in having had her world shatter and break.

As much as I love Batman, he's not the best person to help her deal with that. But I know he'd take her to the person who is, Jonn Jonzz.

I've heard much of Kyle of Green Lantern Fame, and the trip he took where he met up with lots of Superheroes and slowly realized that what he had inside him was a hero's heart. Why can't Supergirl have something similar? Why can't Jonn teach her about celebrating old rituals and customs in private and dealing with the huge weight of loss that will never really go away? Why can't WonderWoman teach her about female empowerment and humanity's history and self-respect? What would be wrong with a series where a strong telepath like Jonn realized the pain she was in and sent her down the right path?

I found something very wrong with Superman calling an assembly of heroes to welcome Kara when she hadn't proven herself yet. I know she didn't join a particular group. But she hasn't had any training. Is it my Batman love showing that I think like this? That I want to point out that when WonderWoman lost her sight, Batman went for her tooth and nail to ensure she could still take care of herself. But he and Superman leave an untrained girl to discover for herself how to do things? Since when do they do that?

The book kept mentioning Clark wanting Lois to meet Kara. Has that happened yet and I missed it? Cause if not, why can't it happen? What's wrong with Lois and or Martha helping Kara see the point of view of human females? Why isn't there a chance for her to see there are things she might want to experience as just a girl without costumes and responsibilities being right there front and center.

I guess I want to see something more. So far I haven't even figured out why Kara wears the S, other than mimicking Kal-El and so once again I find myself thinking of Powergirl's independence in not wearing a symbol. Though I personally wouldn't fret if I saw her belt-buckle had the S. Or that she suddenly sported a ring that held the emblem. Because it means 'House of El' to me as much as it means 'SUPERsomeone' and Karen's worthy of her house.

Is it possible the writers of Supergirl don't understand the 'Outsider' story? That they don't remember being awkward teenagers and don't have the imaginations to pretend to be an alien girl who doesn't even understand why what she wears and how she looks should be more important than what she does? Or perhaps hasn't even had that thought or philosophy enter her head yet?

They've showed that she wants someone her own age to talk to but they haven't given her that someone. Why?

Why does the whole run that I've managed to read, leave me with more questions than satisfaction?

SUPERGIRL

My new rule is if I find myself stating having more than three things to say about a comics character in IM, and it's in a ranty manner, I should rant on here. So now I will.

SUPERGIRL. Just saying the name makes me feel eleven years old and oh so excited. She was a girl! She was just like Superman! A girl could be just as strong as Superman and just as smart and just as able. My introduction to Supergirl via comics was rather brief and I admit, I fixated on the movie version for many, many years. But given that I was Batman's girl since the age of five or six, the fact that Supergirl made any impression on me whatsoever is a big thing, a very big thing. She was Wonder Woman, only young enough and confused enough about Earth, that a little kid like I was then could relate to her. I can remember thinking I'd never understand the grown up world, and bucking myself up with thoughts that Supergirl managed to figure out Earth, so I could too.

I wasn't fully satisfied with Supergirl again until The Adventures of Batman and Superman on the WB, where Kal-el found Kara and brought her back to Earth where she could live with the Kents as his cousin. I didn't like her superhero uniform, but I loved her. I loved her family issues, I loved her looking up to, feeling jealous of, feeling overshadowed by Superman. Even though Justice League lost me when it became the JLU, I did actually tune in when there was anything going on with Kara. Because it was going to be about Supergirl!

The Supergirl in the comics now has so much potential. She thinks of Batman and Superman both as her fathers. Supergirl has two dads! How's that for a new way of looking at the world, and Earth and human politics and prejudices etc. She's spent time with the Amazons, surrounded by indepenent strong women who make no appologies for being that way. She has three role models who keep telling her she can tell them anything, talk to them about anything. For me at least, that's total wish fulfillment. As a teenager I'd have given darn near anything to have even one person who wanted to be there for me like that.

Instead everything I read, and see discussed is about this girl who wears a Supergirl outfit, but who's someone totally different. She's trapped in her head with her issues. She's morose. She's potentially masochistic. She's emotional. She feels misunderstood. She's lost. She has no goals. She feels she has no purpose. She has no actual direction and no clue where to go for direction. She has impulses she doesn't understand. And she just happens to have Kryptonian physiology.

Who is this girl? Why does she seem so listless in all her poses? Why does she seem without focus on the covers? How could she have been among Amazons and not learned the basic body language of two feet solidly planted on the ground, spine straight, shoulders back? Why is her skirt so teeny? What true reason does she have to be so lost? How and why did she become a character that I want to avoid? A character who seems spoilt to me and unable to see her blessings? Where's her gratitude gone?

The Supergirl I remember was grateful to be alive. She was grateful for the chance to be a hero and do something with her life. She was grateful for family to feel jealous of in the first place. Where did the gratitude go? The more I write, the more I realize what bothers me is the utter lack of graciousness. There seem to be no wonders of the world, to this new Supergirl. I don't look at her and imagine seeing the world through new eyes. She's world weary and cynical when she should be young enough to bounce back. All my memories of her are about bouncing back. She felt and she felt deeply and she made it ok for girls to cry. If Superheros like her could cry, then I could cry and it didn't take away from my tomboyishness or my strengths or any of my accomplishments. Because crying wasn't weak, it was simply emotion. After Supergirl cried, she did something.

For all the story of Powergirl has become so convoluted and I feel a keen sense of disappointment in the prelude to crisis arc where nothing new came out of having her confront all the varied aspects of her past; Powergirl is more like the Kara I remember as a girl. She's determined, she's sassy, she's powerful, she's a role model.

The new Supergirl seems like an appendage. Since when was it ok for SUPERGIRL to be an appendage?! I don't know about her earliest incarnations, was she Superman's appendage then? Because I remember her as her own damn entity. Even when she was doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, or doing the right thing the wrong way, she was her own person.

Superman was an adult but Supergirl was somewhere in between. She could see adulthood but she was somehow innocent enough that I could put myself in her place far easier than I could with Superman. (And we can get into why I so strongly identify with Batman later). When playing with my cousins and they chose to be Superman and Spiderman and any number of male characters and then told me I couldn't play - I loved saying 'Sure I can. I'm Supergirl!' and whipping out my comic books. Boom. In your face. A real girl superhero!

Can little girls do that with the new Kara? Or do little girls not exist like that anymore? Is that what the new Supergirl comics are trying to say?