One of the big surprises of the Super Bowl was the release of the trailer for The Flash. The film directed by Andy Muschietti has been delayed several times due to various problems with the studio, but it will finally be released on June 16, 2023, and it will do so with dozens of surprises for DC Comics fans.
The first of the big surprises is the return of Michael Keaton’s Batman, who looks spectacular in the trailer, and could even be the return of another Batman for a Spider-Man: No Way Home moment. But there is another character that has caught the attention of viewers: Supergirl.
Who is Supergirl?
In the trailer we see a young girl with brunette hair, a costume virtually identical to Henry Cavill’s Superman and incredible powers that make victory against the fearsome General Zod possible. But who really is this character played by Sasha Calle? Far from having been pulled out of her sleeve, she is a classic comic book heroine.
Supergirl was created by Otto Binder and Al Plastino in the number 252 of Action Comics, published in May 1959. Other female versions of the character had been tried before, but none have had the success of Supergirl. In 1959 she was created as Kara Zor-El, Superman’s biological cousin, sent to Earth to be raised by her cousin.
Supergirl’s plan was to adopt the secret identity of an orphan, Linda Lee Danvers (later known as Kara Danvers and Kara Kent), promising Superman that she would keep her existence on Earth a secret in exchange for him using her as a “secret weapon” when needed. In the absence of Superman, the idea of being a secret weapon seems pretty much in line with what we’ll see in The Flash.
What powers does Supergirl have?
Supergirl has all of Superman‘s superpowers, among them (watch out, there’s a list coming):
- Super strength
- Invulnerability
- Great longevity
- Healing factor
- Flying ability
- Superhuman hearing and vision
- Heat vision, electromagnetic spectrum vision, microscopic vision, X-ray vision, telescopic vision, infrared vision, etc.
- Superhuman breath
- Icy and wind breath
- Superhuman speed, agility and reflexes
If she doesn’t kill you, it’s because she doesn’t want to. But not only does she have all these powers, but also many believe that she is more powerful than Superman, at least in the comics. The reason? Where Superman puts humanity and chooses not to kill his enemies and try to go other ways, Supergirl has a greater ruthlessness. She wasn’t raised on Earth during her childhood, so her empathy is less.
In DC Comics, Supergirl single-handedly destroyed the moon, endured a nuclear explosion and vaporized a tsunami with her heat vision. She’s also survived a transformation into a Red Lantern and heated her own body to the temperature of a star. And from what little we’ve seen of her in the trailer for The Flash, it looks like they’ll be adapting the character in this way.
In the Flashpoint comic book, which inspired the film, Kal-El (Superman) is held captive and experimented on by the government. This version of Kal-El lives a painful and lonely childhood before he gets the chance to break free and become Superman. The same seems to happen with Supergirl in this version.
Supergirl’s scenes as a prisoner in The Flash appear to be inspired by DC’s Flashpoint storyline , where Kal-El is held captive and the government experiments on him in what they call “Project Superman” . This version of Kal-El lives a painful and lonely childhood before he gets the chance to break free and become Superman. In The Flash, Sasha Calle’s Supergirl may suffer the same fate.
Supergirl beyond The Flash
Of course, there have also been other versions of the character. In The CW series Supergirl, the heroine is played by actress Melissa Benoist, in a more affable but equally powerful interpretation of the character.
The most curious thing is that it seems that there will be plans for Supergirl in the future. James Gunn and Peter Safran showed, in their planning of upcoming audiovisual projects for DC Studios, the idea of making the movie Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow.
This movie was quite a surprise to bring this character that had not yet been explored on the big screen. But her appearance in The Flash could be the key. Perhaps Gunn liked her so much (he said so on Twitter) that he wanted to use her for a solo movie. Of course, having introduced her I doubt they’ll do a recast this time around.
Be that as it may, the character is getting a lot of buzz, and Michael Keaton’s Batman looked like he was going to get all the attention. We’ll wait to see what happens with the film to give a verdict, but it looks like it will have a big run in Warner’s future.
