I will say that I was leery coming in to this show. When the show was announced, I was no longer reading the comics, as the version of Supergirl in comics at the time was far from the version that I hold such a deep connection to. She didn’t represent the hope, optimism and compassion that Kara always had for me. She had been turned into an angry teenager, something she’d been before but never for so long, and lost the things that made her unique and, in my opinion, a better character than her cousin. I was worried that that would be the version we would get. Then, I was still leery when Melissa Benoist was cast, mostly because, not being a fan of Glee, I had no exposure to her. Even still, when the costume shots were released. The suit was what I wanted, very close to the classic look from the first movie and many years of comics, but the colors in those first photos were washed out and it looked like the show might be going in a darker direction.
Then we got the six minute trailer. I was just getting off work when it hit, and my friends started blowing up my phone wondering what I thought. I watched it on my tiny little phone, in public, at the bus stop. Not caring about the odd looks I was getting from the people around me, I was immersed in a trailer for a show I had waited nearly two decades for, since discovering the character. The trailer brought me to tears, along with eliciting inhuman squeals of happiness and literal jumping with joy. The show won me over then and there.
I am shameful to say that I watched the leaked pilot. I just didn’t have the willpower to resist it. October was so far away and I needed to see more. I watched the Pilot a dozen times before the show even aired, because I loved it so much. I did still watch on live TV (after buying a $30 antenna to make sure I could), because it is important for me to show as much support as I can. I have also bought both a subscription to CBS All Access and a season pass on iTunes. I am throwing money and ad-revenue at this show to try to do whatever part I can to keep it around. The pilot was everything I could hope for. I mean, certainly, it had its drawbacks, it was a pilot, that is the very nature of them. They have to cram so much into the pilot to make sure the studio gets to see what they want to do with the show, and that can make pilots sometimes feel clumsy or crowded. I say with a bit of bias, that this is probably the best pilot I can remember seeing.
Any worries of the show trying to be too dark, or of being afraid of being a superhero show were alleviated by this pilot. It hit the tone that reminded me of how much I love this character. Melissa Benoist has proven that, once again, David Rapaport is a casting genius. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that Melissa is just Kara in disguise. She is absolutely perfect in the role, and I can’t imagine anyone doing better than her to push this series forward. This show is giving me back my favorite character, the one that’s been missing for the last several years. This is my Kara again. This is the Kara that Marv Wolfman and George Perez introduced me to and made me fall in love with in Crisis on Infinite Earths all those many years ago. This is the Kara that Paul Kupperberg and Carmine Infantino molded into a brilliant, independent young woman. This is the Kara that Sterling Gates and Jamal Igle captured so well in their landmark run on the title. And most importantly, this Kara isn’t just for me, this Kara is for everyone.
My favorite moments in the first episode were the ones that made her seem intimately human. Watching her squee with excitement over seeing herself on the news made me feel exactly the same way, and a GIF of that moment has become my go to for showing my excitement for things. Arguing with the same TV over silly things. Fighting with her sister, especially the, “I’m kinda tired. I just carried a plane on my back, I’m gonna go to bed” line, which was so perfectly delivered. Getting so adorably nervous around the ridiculously gorgeous Jimmy (sorry, James) Olsen. Making me join her in sobs when watching the message from her mom (for the record, I’m on viewing twenty-something, and that scene still gets me choked up and teary). These are the things that make this show better than anything else on TV.
There are two other things I'd like to mention real quick. First, that the special effects, especially for a show on network TV, were incredible. I love that CBS is willing to spend the money on this show that it will take to get it to succeed. Second, the little Easter eggs thrown in just for comic fans like me were noted and enjoyed. This episode we had the Otto Binder bridge (Otto Binder created the character alongside artist Al Plastino, and wrote many of her early stories); streets named after Sterling Gates and Jamal Igle (a creative team that had an amazing two year run on Supergirl); and my favorite: the costume montage with pieces of all the iconic costumes the character has worn over the years. The first costume in the montage had the bare midriff from the 2004 reintroduction of the character, the hot pants that she wore for most of the 1970s and early 1980s, and the headband she wore at the end of her career in the 1980s. The costume she wore to the bank robbery had the boots that she wore during the Peter David run on the character in the late 1990s and in the Superman animated series.
As a last note, I’d like to thank everyone involved in making this show a reality. So thank you Ali, Greg, Andrew, Sarah, David, Melissa and everyone else; you’ve made my dreams come true, and I’m sure you have inspired the same dreams in thousands of little girls seeing someone like them in a show like this for the first time. Thank you so much.
This looks like a job for Supergirl.
Corinne McCreery has been a fan of comic books for over twenty years, and a fan of Supergirl in particular for just about that long. Other comic characters near and dear to her heart are the members of the New Teen Titans (Especially Nightwing), Kitty Pryde and Roy Harper. Other non-comic related interests include water skiing and tattoos, of which she has five, three of which are comic related. One of the best days of her life came when she met Dean Cain, and was able to recreate the famous Crisis on Infinite Earths cover with the Man of Steel that she grew up with. Currently she lives in Oakland, CA; a transplant from South Dakota. You can find her online on tumblr at effyeahsupergirl or Twitter at @corimarie21, where you will likely find her live-tweeting the west coast airing of Supergirl every week.
