Your friendly neighborhood Keeper recently visited the ever-so-awesome When Fangirls Attack and stumbled upon this DC Nation article by Supergirl editor Eddie Berganza seeking female readers for the faltering title.
(Apparently readers are abandoning Supergirl in droves … )
As part of his pitch to female readers, Berganza attempts to clear up the somewhat puzzling direction of the title - which has alternately thrown Kara into bizarre sexual situations (we’re still icked out by her make-out session with an alternate universe Superman) and portrayed her as a tortured youth with severe self-esteem issues.
To quote Berganza …
After a very serious conference call that involved (writer Joe) Kelly, our amazing penciller Ian Churchill, and my then Assistant Editor Jeanine Schaefer (she was pivotal in giving us a woman’s point of view on the character—like, can Supergirl gain some weight, please?), it was decided to have Kara just try to be a real teenager.
No standard hero on patrol bit here. We were gonna make Kara a typical teenager, which meant she wouldn’t listen to the grownups (in her case a guy named Kal) and wouldn’t appreciate being given chores (killing Kal for her dad, Zor-El). She’d just be a girl trying to find her place in the world.
Sure, some of you may not be keen that we didn’t go straight into America’s Sweetheart mode with her, but, hey, we know that’s what she will eventually become. For us, it’s the hero’s journey that’s interesting…
Sounds good enough. After all, despite all the Silver Age surrealism the original Kara’s adventures also concerned a “girl trying to find her place in the world.”
Unfortunately, Berganza’s words don’t quite match the finished product.
Sure, Kara 2.0 has been firmly established as the “lost daughter of Krypton” but it seems that DC has taken the idea to ludicrous extremes.
Do all teenage girls mutilate their wrists, wear a dead friend’s clothes and flirt with 21-year-old reformed super-villains? Do all teenage girls struggle with abusive parents who program them to murder infants? Do all teenage girls brush off responsibility and loathe themselves to the point of losing control?
Are scenes depicting giant, disemboweled sushi really supposed to attract a female (or male, for that matter) readership?
In his day job, the Keeper has written and edited countless stories of troubled teens. Putting a garish, sensationalistic spin on very real and very painful issues serves no other purpose than exploiting those readers the title purports to court.
Also, it’s questionable whether Supergirl - who is marketed as “America’s Sweetheart” outside of comics - is the correct vehicle for such issues. For every troubled teenager, there’s also a girl who does accept responsibility and works hard to build a positive future.
Wouldn’t it be more inspiring to model Supergirl after those girls, who are just as typical as any other youths growing up in the 21st century?
Is it that difficult to create a character who inspires, rather than titillates?
Perhaps Berganza and company need to address those questions if they wish to reverse Supergirl’s fortunes. It would probably be more effective than throwing out a glorified press release on a Web site that only attracts hardcore fans in the first place.
