Celebrating Pride Month: Should Kara Danvers/Zor-El aka Supergirl be a Lesbian?

[Winter]

Saw the clip for the upcoming My Adventures with Superman which properly introduces us to Clark's Cousin and Distaff Counterpart, Supergirl aka Kara.

Kara is a rather interesting character mainly, because unlike her Cousin, she has no defined character to speak of. She's mostly been portrayed as "Superman but a girl" and as such she's a hard character to write as most who do write her tend to change her personality to fit their stories. The Supergirl TV series leans into the idea of her just being Clark with the same girl scoot personality, same job, same arc and so forth. The DCAU version makes her more of a tomgirl and almost more of a thrill seeker before her final episode comes around and she's now acting more like Clark with the episode even drawing attention to that fact. And in MAWS that show seems to be leaning more towards her being more of a fighter and seems that she's leaning into more of the Emotionless Girl trope.

And one thing that's often changed about Kara is her love life. Her most common love interest is Jimmy Olson but the two are by no means a popular pairing with writers quickly breaking them up as soon as possible to pair her with pretty much anyone who comes along. Now to clarify I have no issue with Kara having a LOT of different love interests, I give Batman, James Bond and even Spider-Man a pass so I don't see why I can't do the same thing here.

No my issue is that Kara has no romance that I find interesting and I'm obviously not alone in this because it seems the reason for Kara's constant shift in love interests is because writers quickly grow bored with said romance and just keep switching them out in the hopes that one will stick. The reason Jimmy is her most common love interests comes more from the fact that she was her first love interest and that it seems the most logical choice. She's a Superman type character, Superman's single most iconic love interest is Lois Lane who is a reporter, Jimmy is a friend of Superman, Jimmy is a reporter so let's just do that. This has been the stated reason for these two to hook up by almost every writer who's written Kara over the decades with no one having them get together because it makes sense for the characters and again they almost immediately break the two up as soon as possible. And again, the reason for breaking these two up is because they're boring together.

Over the years Kara has been in a relationship with characters like Brainiac but good, Mon-El, random Kryptoian boys and random Earth guys. She even has had a crush on characters like Green Arrow, Kyle Rayner and I think Steel as well, not sure about that. And just like Jimmy, these don't stick.

Thus we come to the point of this topic, the most popular character to pair Kara with romantically to the point that many assume it is canon and was even believed to be made canon in a deleted scene that has proven to be fake, is Lena Luthor from the Supergirl TV series.

Buy and Large this is the most popular Supergirl pairing to date which is best shown in a number of fanfics and fan art. In the past 7 years since season 2 of Supergirl, despite the shows best efforts to sink this ship, Kara/Lena has gone on to become The OTP for Supergirl beating out literally every other canon romance Kara has ever had. Just as an example, in the recent clip for MAWS when it was shown that Jimmy fell for Kara right after seeing her the general reaction in the comments and several fan sites was "Oh, not this again!"

But one comment section was literally nothing but wondering if Lena would be in this show and if she would become Kara's real love interest.

I think the reason Kara/Lena aka SuperCorp has become so popular is because it's NOT something we've really seen in Superman. While Clark and Lex have become friends in some continuities they usually start off as enemies with Lex being outright Xenophobic and hating Clark just because he's a good person. But with Lena, most people's first introduction to the character was in Supergirl where she and Kara start off as friends and Lena is unquestionably an Allie of Supergirl. Helping matters is the fantastic chemistry between Melissa Benoist and Katie McGrath which really sells the idea of these two being friends. Further helping matters is the first real scene between Kara and Lena in season 2 where Lena talks about making a name for herself and Kara seeming to fall in love with her at that moment.

Kara's relationship with Lena is, IMO, the single most compelling relationship Kara has had with any character romantic or otherwise mainly because it's something that helps her standout from her cousin. Lena is a Luthor that starts out as and, more or less, remains an ally and friend to a Kent with only really one real speed conflict between the two which was resolved after one season.

So, given her utter lack of a stable male romantic interest, her lack of chemistry with pretty much every guy she's been in a relationship with and her single most engaging and complex relationship being with another woman with enough Homoerotic Subtext to Power both Metropolis and Gotham for the next 50 years, should DC just make Kara a lesbian and have her hookup with Lena Luthor?

[Thebestoftherest]

Wait I thought they made Lena up for the show?

[Winter]

Wait I thought they made Lena up for the show?

No she existed in the comics before the show came out, she was basically a Distaff Counterpart to Lex much like how Kara is for Clark. However, the Supergirl show re-imagined her as an ally and friend to Kara creating the dynamic we know and love today and thanks to TV being more popular then comics when people think of Lena Luthor their minds go towards the one from the show instead of the forgettable version in the comics.

[stryke]

Generally I'd put it as a maybe for the character in other appearances as she has such a history of straight pairings, but in regard to the show which I watched every ep of I'd say absolutely. The amount of queerbaiting Supercorp teasing they did was absurd if they never planned to pay it off, and given how utterly dreadful that last season was they could at least have made the shippers happy cause as it was nobody was happy.

[Nobody700]

So did ya know in an alt universe, Superman has a sister and she dates Wonder Woman... and for some reason she looks like Supergirl.

[Nealithi]

I have seen the scenes where TV Flash and Supergirl are around each other and I would ship them because they seem to have some chemistry. That I think is what would make a partner for Kara. Don't go the damsel in distress they often go with on Lois. Let Kara have a partner that can properly share in her costumed and civilian life.

Since Kara is supposed to be a teen, look to the teens for inspiration. And I wonder, Star from Star and S.T.R.I.P.E.?

[stryke]

Let Kara have a partner that can properly share in her costumed and civilian life.

In the last season they made Lena Luthor a witch who could cast spells so that'd still work for that, also once again, man that last season S U C K E D. I can forgive the first half cause of the double whammy of covid and the pregancy but they had no excuse for second.

[Thebestoftherest]

Wait I thought they made Lena up for the show?

No she existed in the comics before the show came out, she was basically a Distaff Counterpart to Lex much like how Kara is for Clark. However, the Supergirl show re-imagined her as an ally and friend to Kara creating the dynamic we know and love today and thanks to TV being more popular then comics when people think of Lena Luthor their minds go towards the one from the show instead of the forgettable version in the comics.

I learn something new today.

[McAvoy]

Umm I might be wrong with this but isn't she bi-sexual? I forgot who she hooked up with.

Also something that is often missed when it comes movies, TV series and animation is that Kara doesn't view Earth the same way Clark does. She views Earth not as her home and in a way doesn't recognize Clark as her cousin.

Yeah the CW Supergirl was just a Superman series but with a girl. Same villains. Though they did the CW route and made everyone a hero of some kind. They all practically have a team around the main hero.

[Thebestoftherest]

Umm I might be wrong with this but isn't she bi-sexual? I forgot who she hooked up with.

Also something that is often missed when it comes movies, TV series and animation is that Kara doesn't view Earth the same way Clark does. She views Earth not as her home and in a way doesn't recognize Clark as her cousin.

Yeah the CW Supergirl was just a Superman series but with a girl. Same villains. Though they did the CW route and made everyone a hero of some kind. They all practically have a team around the main hero.

Which is something I am hoping they don't bring in for the future. It works once or twice, but whenever single hero show has a team of tech support, and like four other heroes it get's real tying real fast.