6 hours ago
12
If James Gunn’s aim with last year’s Superman was to give us a Man of Steel who stood out from those who came before him on the big screen, he nailed it. Even those who didn’t quite warm to this sunnier, weirder but more human incarnation could at least admire the way the film vaulted clear of almost every previous iteration. Delivering Kara Zor-El ought to be an easier job, for it is possible to argue that there has never been a definitive version of Supergirl on any screen, big or small.
Yet it is starting to look as if the newly formed DC Universe is once again ready to push outwards rather than merely backwards. This week saw the release of a new trailer, in which Milly Alcock’s Kara tears through alien bars, starships and off-world landscapes with the swagger of a cosmic gunslinger. But perhaps more intriguing were comments from director Craig Gillespie in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, which saw the film-maker open up about the story’s nine-world structure and the unusually heavy amount of planet-hopping involved.
At first glance, this looks like nothing new in the superhero milieu. Gunn made his name as the guy behind the punkish and irreverent Guardians of the Galaxy films for rival studio Marvel. And if you squint a little at the trailer, it would be easy to imagine DC’s films are operating in the same corner of the universe. The wisecracks come thick and fast, bounty hunters stare from their bar stools, and there are a lot of extras who look as if they have wandered in from Mad Max. But if DC gets this right, it has an intriguing trick up its sleeve that Marvel has rarely attempted.
Gunn teed this up during Alcock’s brief cameo in Superman, when it was revealed that Kal-El’s party-girl cousin likes to spend her time off world on red-sun planets where she can get drunk. And it may even be hinted at in the trailer during the sequence in which Matthias Schoenaerts’ nefarious Krem appears to gloat over the fact that something horrible is happening to Kara. Once she is away from Earth’s yellow sun, Supergirl (like all Kryptonians) is at risk of losing all her powers. In the comic book Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow (which the new film appears to be based on, at least in part), Kara finds herself on the world of Barenton, which exists under a green sun that drains her powers to the point that she becomes physically ill. Given that we know the movie will see our heroine racing across multiple planets to try to track down a brigand (Krem) who, for unknown reasons, has poisoned Krypto the Superdog and vanished with the only known antidote, it would be a shock if she doesn’t end up there at some point.
What we don’t know in those bar-fight scenes from the trailer is whether Kara is fully powered, depowered or physically ailing. But we do know that this makes life interesting: one of the biggest complaints about Superman stories is that the guy is invincible unless he is being attacked by another Kryptonian, a clone of himself or someone with a generous supply of Kryptonite. Gillespie’s film won’t have to worry about that dynamic.
There is an almost video-game-like quality to this setup, but one that sharpens the drama rather than cheapens it. Kryptonians can often store a little yellow-sun power in their systems to see themselves through short stints on inhospitable planets, at least in the comics. But even then there is the constant threat of that precious health bar suddenly blinking to zero.
If Gunn’s Superman proved one dusty old Kryptonian exhibit could still be jolted thrillingly back to life, Supergirl may be about to attempt something even trickier with another DC stalwart. It is an intriguing prospect full of dopamine and adrenaline. Yet there is an obvious downside too: the knowledge that the next doorway may open up to a green sky – and the awful discovery that the cheat codes have finally stopped working.
