The Origin Story Trap
Think about the greats. Peter Parker’s first real choice comes after his inaction leads to Uncle Ben’s death. Bruce Wayne’s choice is a lifelong vow made in the shadow of his parents’ murder. It’s a classic formula: powerlessness, tragedy, then a reactive
choice that creates a mission. For these characters, the choice *is* the origin. The problem for Supergirl—and her cousin, for that matter—is that they arrive with god-like power already installed. There is no inciting incident that grants them strength; the inciting incident is simply their arrival on Earth. This flips the script. Too often, adaptations fill that void with spectacle. We see Kara Zor-El learn to fly, test her heat vision, and then wait for a villain to show up. Her first big decision is simply to fight back. While entertaining, it’s not character-defining. It’s a reaction, not a choice. It tells us she’s good, but it doesn’t tell us *who* she is.
Living in Superman's Shadow
The other major hurdle is the Man of Steel himself. Nearly every Supergirl adaptation, from the 1984 film to the CW series and her recent appearance in *The Flash*, begins with her positioned relative to Superman. She is the cousin, the backup, the secret weapon, or the confused newcomer trying to understand his legacy. Her first choices are often framed by his existence: Should she be like him? Should she hide? Should she join his team? This makes her feel less like a protagonist and more like a supporting character in someone else’s story. When the first big decision you get to make is “Do you want to be like that other, more famous hero?” it robs your character of fundamental agency. The challenge for any new adaptation, like James Gunn’s upcoming *Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow*, is to give her a world and a conflict that is uniquely hers from the very beginning.
The Choice Before the Cape
So, what could a pre-fight, character-defining choice look like? It has to be something that power can’t solve. It must be a moral or philosophical dilemma that establishes her worldview. Imagine a newly arrived Kara, still reeling from the trauma of losing her entire civilization. Her first choice isn’t whether to stop a bank robbery, but something more personal. Perhaps she discovers a remnant of Kryptonian technology or a surviving political doctrine—one that preaches isolationism and superiority over “lesser” species like humans. Her choice is to either embrace the last vestiges of her cold, clinical Kryptonian past or to reject it in favor of humanity’s messy, emotional warmth. Or maybe she has to choose between saving one person she has connected with and revealing her existence to the world, creating a global panic. This kind of decision, made from a place of vulnerability and philosophical uncertainty, would define her character more profoundly than a thousand CGI-heavy battles. It’s a choice about who she wants to be, not just what she can do.
The 'Woman of Tomorrow' Blueprint
We already have a perfect example of this principle in action: the Tom King and Bilquis Evely comic miniseries *Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow*, which is the basis for the upcoming film. The story finds a disillusioned Kara celebrating her 21st birthday on a backwater planet, trying to get away from it all. There, a young alien girl named Ruthye approaches her. Ruthye’s father has been murdered, and she wants to hire Supergirl to help her hunt down the killer. Supergirl’s powers are, for the most part, useless in this quest for frontier justice. The choice she makes isn’t to be a superhero; it’s to help one grieving person. She chooses empathy over apathy, companionship over isolation. That single decision sets the tone for the entire story, defining her not as a demigod from Krypton, but as a person who has endured immense loss and decides, against her better judgment, to help someone else navigate theirs. The fight comes later, but her character is already forged.
