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DC’s Biggest Superman Retcon Leaves One Massive Unanswered Question For Supergirl
James Gunn’s Superman was a major moment for DC. Not only was the film a box office success that breathed new life into DC’s live-action offerings, giving the DCU’s theatrical offerings a great start, but it also made some bold changes to Superman’s lore. One in particular had fans stunned and left them talking for months. The film saw Superman (David Corenswet) learn that his Kryptonian parents sent him to Earth not to be a beacon of hope, but to conquer and rule, to serve less as a benevolent figure and more of an oppressor and continue Kryptonian culture. It’s a shocking moment, but one that ultimately helps Superman carve his own path as a hero — but its impact may not be done just yet.
Superman also established that Kal-El isn’t the only Kryptonian on Earth. The last moments of the film briefly introduce Superman’s cousin, Supergirl. Played by Milly Alcock, Supergirl shows up to collect her dog, Krypto, who Superman had been watching for her. Now that we know that the Kryptonians aren’t necessarily the benevolent beings we expected them to be it leaves a huge unanswered question when it comes to Supergirl: what does this mean for her and, perhaps an even bigger question, does Superman’s parents represent all of Kryptonian culture?
Supergirl and Superman Have Very Different Upbringings
The short answer to all of the questions about Supergirl and Superman is that they just aren’t the same, but that’s also oversimplifying things. No two people, from within the same culture or even from within the same family are going to necessarily share the same ideologies. That said, the differences between Superman and Supergirl are going to be much wider simply be nature of their own personal circumstances and that’s something that’s rooted in comics. Superman — or Kal-El — came to Earth as a small child (be that an infant, baby, or very young toddler, depending on exactly where in his publication history you’re choosing from.) He has no memories of Krypton or his biological family and, as a result, he has no cultural memories, either. For him, everything he’s ever learned about Krypton and its society as well as its beliefs, practices, and overall culture is something he’s learned secondhand. For him it’s almost academic. Supergirl, on the other hand, is older. She was a young girl when Kypton was destroyed. She grew up within the overall culture and better understands it.
But while that difference should signal that Supergirl would share Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van’s supremacist views, we shouldn’t jump to that conclusion just yet. We don’t actually know specifics about how the destruction of Krypton may have impacted the views of survivors. Not everyone died when Krypton died. Supergirl’s home, Argo, actually broke away from the rest of the planet during the devastation. Because that group of Kryptonians ended up on their own, it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to consider that they may have also developed their own subculture complete with ideologies that are separate from what other Kryptonians may have believed and felt before the destruction of the planet. Supergirl’s experiences as part of a survivor culture may very well have had huge impact on how she views being Kryptonian. The death of your entire civilization would tend to be a horrifying and humbling experience.
The House of El May Not Have All Shared the Same Values, Either
It’s also very possible that Jor-El and Zor-El may have not shared the same worldview. There’s actually some suggestion of that in comics, specifically in Tom King’s Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, the comic that the upcoming Supergirl movie is based on. In that book, Ruthye tells Supergirl’s story as it was told to her, recounting how Krypton did not die all at once. The planet’s demise took place over a period of time and, eventually in its final throes, Argo split off in the destruction. Zor-El, who was a famed scientist, managed to contain enough atmosphere in a bubble to protect several thousands of the surviving citizens of Argo for a time. Unfortunately, as they floated aimless through in space, radiation from the very ground they were on began to poison them and, despite their best efforts to shield from it, there would be no saving Argo. Everyone starts dying around Kara. She watches her mother die essentially of cancer, then just about everyone she’s ever known. Eventually, her father uses the lead and materials from the shielding he’d tried to save their city with to build a ship for her using plans his “frivolous brother” Jor-El had shared with him. Zor-El sent Kara off with just one set of instructions: to be good.
There are two things that jump out here. The first is that Zor-El thought of his brother as “frivolous”. It implies that he did not necessarily share his brother’s viewpoints on at least certain things. It could suggest that not everyone saw the world and Kryptonian society the same way as Superman’s biological parents did. That could imply that their reason for sending their son to Earth was entirely selfish and not necessarily representative of wider Kryptonian culture. Perhaps the more supremacist Kryptonians were the minority. To a certain extent, that does make sense. If they thought of themselves as so superior that they’d have some sort of ship capable of sending someone to far-flung stars to conquer, you’d think they’d have a lot more and have evacuated a lot more people. The second thing that jumps out is that Zor-El’s guidance for his child is to be good. If Kryptonians were truly all oppressors, one would assume that he would probably have instructed her much more along the lines of the message Jor-El and Lara Lor-Van left. More realistically, what’s probably happening is that Jor-El and Zor-El are just two brothers who have different ideologies. It happens, even in close families.
What Will Supergirl Actually Be Like?
As for the revelation about Superman’s parents’ message and how it might impact Supergirl, that’s something that remains to be seen, though we do know that it will be somewhat addressed. It’s probably safe to assume, however, that whatever is going on with Superman’s life doesn’t have too much impact on why Kara is a mess as she is now. We’ve seen her being drunk and irresponsible in the little bit we’ve already seen of her and while one could suggest that she’s struggling to deal with the revelation that Kryptonians are awful, what’s much more likely is that she’s just a young woman who has been through far too much loss and trauma in her young life. She lost her home, her world, her entire civilization, watched her mother die, then watched her entire city die, and then was shipped off into the unknown as a sole survivor after having had to exist in a state of fight or flight for years in the aftermath of Krypton’s destruction. Kara has a lot of reasons to be a mess — Jor-El’s upsetting message probably isn’t one of them. At least she has her dad’s last words to her and a reminder to be good to get her through.
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