With the release of the DCU’s next movie, Supergirl, a mere three weeks away, excitement is reaching its crescendo. Not only will the film show more of Milly Alcock’s wildchild cousin of Superman, but we’ll get the next appearance of David Corenswet’s Clark Kent himself, and the hotly anticipated debut of Jason Momoa’s Lobo. The True Grit-inspired movie adapts Tom King and Bilquis Evely’s legendary Woman of Tomorrow comic, and is already tracking for a solid opening weekend. To celebrate the release, we’ve teamed up with Warner Bros to reveal an exclusive clip. And it’s a good one!
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Our exclusive Supergirl clip shows the earliest appearance of David Corenswet’s Man of Steel on the DCU timeline, as it reveals Kara’s first day on Earth (other than the home videos of him as an infant). He greets his Kryptonian cousin in her spherical ship, after she lands just outside the Fortress of Solitude, along with Krypto. As Kara only speaks Kryptonian, and Clark can’t, they have instant communication issues, and Krypto – inevitably – doesn’t take to Superman. And touchingly, Clark reassures his cousin that “there’s a lot more to Earth than just this place: big city, lots of stuff to do, and you’ll also learn to love this place, just like I have. I promise.” Here’s the clip:
What Our Exclusive Supergirl Clip Actually Means
The meeting of Kara and Clark adds some context to their fractured relationship in Superman: they had very different upbringings, as the language barrier confirms, and Kara was forced to watch their home planet die, while Superman only ever knew Earth. You don’t much of a sense of it in the clip, but the marketing so far has established that Kara has grown up surrounded by trauma and death on the fragment of Krypton she called home. Her having to learn to love Earth is clearly going to be a major part of her story going forward, but it’s also important to understand who she already is as a character. And the fact that she’s even so different from her own cousin helps set the scene of her isolation.
There’s also a nice insight into Krypto’s wild behavior here, too: he’s instantly protective of Kara, even when presented with someone as obviously benevolent as Clark. That dynamic was a huge success in Superman, and it’s good to know we’ll see at least some more of it in Supergirl too. The scene also underlines the difference between Kara and Kal-El through the meta-joke of her mocking his costume. We know that he chose his “uniform” as a symbol of hope and benevolence, but even to Kara, his trunks are an immediate point of confusion. The “why is he in his underwear?” line feels like a very conscious wink to the audience, who have debated the same question for decades.
Finally, the scene also shows Kara beginning to gain her powers thanks to Earth’s yellow sun. Given what she’s already been through, and the trauma of having to be sent to Earth (and she must have been sent, because she immediately asks if Superman is Kal-El) for her own safety, she’s now faced with the ultimate coming-of-age test: sudden on-set God-like powers. It’s no wonder she’s so messed up by the time we meet her properly. Quite when this scene is set is unclear, but it has to be far enough in the past that Kara learned to speak English pretty flawlessly (presumably with the help of the Fortress of Solitude’s databases and Superman’s robot assistants?) But we also know Superman has only been active for 3 years, so she obviously became fluent impressively quickly.
What do you think of this new scene from Supergirl? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
