By Corinne McCreery
The
Supergirl pilot has finally aired, and I’m still not over it. I’ll give full disclosure on the subject right now: I’m probably the biggest fan of Kara Zor-El you will ever meet. I own her first and second appearances, every issue of every solo series she’s ever had, and a good chunk of her key appearances in
Action Comics and
Adventure Comics from the 1960s and 1970s. I have a tattoo of George Perez’s Supergirl from
Crisis on Infinite Earths
tattooed on my leg, and plans for at least three more Supergirl centric
tattoos. She’s my favorite character in all of comics, and one that I
have looked to over and over again for guidance in tough times of my
life.
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.
By Corinne McCreery
