Supergirl: Nicole Maines Reveals How Green Lantern and Avatar: The Last Airbender Inspired Dreamer

Fans are preparing to bid farewell to Supergirl, as the long-running The CW series is currently airing its sixth and final season. Along the course of its run, the series has introduced now-beloved takes on an array of characters from DC Comics canon, including Nia Nal/Dreamer (Nicole Maines). As the first transgender superhero in mainstream superhero television, Maines’ interpretation of Dreamer has already paved new ground — and it sounds like her power set has evolved along with it. In a recent interview with Buzzfeed, Maines spoke about how Dreamer’s powers have made their way onto the small screen, and compared them to fellow DC hero Green Lantern, Marvel hero Psylocke, and even characters from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

“I don’t usually know about her powers in advance, but it has been really cool,” Maines explained. “Dreamer has gone from being Nura Nal’s ancestor, kind of based off Dream Girl, and I think Dreamer has moved into her own space. She’s kind of like if Dream Girl had Psylocke’s powers, or she’s like if Green Lantern could see the future. I remember reading about the energy blasts for the first time in Season 4, and I was texting everybody. I was like, ‘I get to shoot things out of my hands!’ They don’t really tell me what it’s going to look like [with the special effects]. Also, they don’t really tell me what to do with my hands, how to hold myself, and what the blasts look like, so it’s really a lot of me in my apartment trying to come up with it. I loosely based it off of the waterbenders in Avatar: The Last Airbender and that ethereal one move into the other, but she also has this aggression to her. I’ve likened it to Uncle Iroh’s way of firebending too.”

Maines’ take on Dreamer is soon set to span even more than television, with the actress set to pen a story about the character in the upcoming DC Pride anthology.

“I’ve kind of become drunk on my own power, I’m not gonna lie,” Maines said of the comic story in the same interview. “I’m kind of like, “I AM DREAMER.” I keep having to remind myself I am not actually a superhero in real life. I said I love Dreamer’s superpowers, and with the comic, I’ve maybe sprinkled in a few new things in there for fun. I’m having such a blast. Although I’m worried I may have made her a “Mary Sue,” but you know what? Superman has super strength, super speed, heat vision, X-ray vision, frost breath, super hearing, invulnerability, he can survive in space, he can fly, and he’s bulletproof, so I don’t care. Trans folks have one person, so Dreamer can do whatever she wants.”