Comic book-inspired movies and TV shows are—and should be—heavily critiqued regarding how faithfully they adapt their source material. After all, the movie or show is essentially inheriting its story, characters, and possible iconography from what it is adapting, and viewers’ reception to the adaptation will be wildly different depending on whether they like the source material in the first place, much less if it strays away from what it was supposed to be drawing influence from.
For instance, it’s clear that the upcoming DCU Supergirl movie is taking little inspiration from the visuals in Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, the comic book that this movie is meant to be based on. The faithfulness of this movie to the comic book has been in question since Supergirl’s teaser trailer, and a new comment from James Gunn in an interview with Variety has greatly tempered my expectations.
Supergirl Doesn’t Adapt Woman of Tomorrow “Religiously”
Supergirl is following Superman as the second movie in James Gunn’s DCU and is releasing only a year later. Rather, while it has enormous shoes to fill, Supergirl had initially won me over as an adaptation of the Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow miniseries. That hype has been deflated after viewing the teaser trailer, as well as hearing in James Gunn’s Variety interview that Supergirl may not be the Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow adaptation I was hoping for:
“I love Milly Alcock in the movie. It’s a space fantasy, which is like Guardians in a way, but it’s based on the Tom King book. It doesn’t follow it religiously, but it has a lot of the core of that there.”
This clarification seems to speak volumes. It was obvious based on the teaser trailer itself that Supergirl wouldn’t be wholly faithful, but this admission basically conveys that not everything I love about the comic book might be present, and a lot of that boils down to Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow’s distinguishable aesthetic and art.
Woman of Tomorrow Without Bilquis Evely’s Art is Not Woman of Tomorrow
Supergirl not “religiously” adapting Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow is a shame due to how beloved and fantastic it is, arguably as one of Kara Zor-El’s defining chapters. Milly Alcock’s Supergirl has been described as a foil to David Corenswet’s Superman; neither are depicted as unflawed characters, but Supergirl has “a lot of demons, a lot of baggage coming into this, which is very different from where Superman is in his life,” according to Supergirl director Craig Gillespie at a New York event for the teaser trailer reveal.
This may be true to the comic book, though it is impossible to divorce Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow from Bilquis Evely and Matheus Lopes’ astonishing artwork and coloring. Consequently, Supergirl’s eerily familiar visuals and atmosphere alienate it from Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow and, however fairly or unfairly, lend themselves to the Guardians of the Galaxy comparison that has stirred.
James Gunn isn’t directing Supergirl, to be fair, and it’s debatable that the visuals and tone of the Supergirl teaser trailer share more in common with Star Wars, much less Craig Gillespie’s previous work. Frankly, the validity of these comparisons hardly matters at all to me because it’s deeply upsetting to see that Supergirl is being likened to anything but Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, a comic that could have imbued it with one of the greatest artistic identities in a DC movie to date.
The DCU is Having Its Cake and Eating It, Too
This is not to say that Supergirl will be disappointing if its loose adaptation of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow isn’t faithful. In fact, it’s important to acknowledge that All-Star Superman was apparently what inspired James Gunn’s Superman movie, with production designer Beth Mickle stating that “All-Star Superman is, by far and away, our guiding light.”
There are certainly perceivable All-Star Superman influences in Superman, including vivid colors, Superman’s loneliness and longing, and a Silver Age-leaning atmosphere. However, it takes little from the actual narrative of All-Star Superman, and thus anyone who hoped that inspiration was a precursor to a one-to-one adaptation of the text would be disappointed to see that not reflected in the movie.
Similarly, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow may have been its own ‘guiding light’ for Supergirl, and yet there might only be sparse influences that were cherry-picked for the movie. Perhaps the movie does actually adapt the comic’s story well, but it ultimately lacks the comic’s striking visuals and mythological, fantastical aesthetic. For now, I am somewhat pessimistic about the movie, with the artistic direction chosen being a big missed opportunity.
So many comic book-inspired movies that have claimed to adapt a comic book storyline or issue have done so with little care or plenty of liberties. Supergirl is an example of a comic book movie where faithfully adapting its aesthetic should have been as paramount as faithfully adapting its narrative, assuming it is faithfully intact in the movie, and not just the “core.”
Of course, the expectation of a faithful comic adaptation is a tall, unrealistic order. The DCU is its own original continuity/universe, and sporadic influences from specific comic books may only ever truly amount to the Frankenstein’s monster of various movie plots and iconography.
- Release Date
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June 26, 2026
- Director
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Craig Gillespie
- Writers
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Ana Nogueira, Otto Binder, Tom King, Al Plastino, Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Bilquis Evely
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Matthias Schoenaerts
Krem of the Yellow Hills
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Eve Ridley
Ruthye Mary Knolle
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