Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow

Released in 2021 is a Supergirl mini-series that I’ve come to realize is what would happen if you mashed together All Star Superman and Dark Knight Returns and then put it in a skirt. Written by Tom King, with pencils and Inks by Bilquis Evely, colors by Matheus Lopes, and lettering by Clayton Cowles. I will try to avoid any major spoilers, and this won’t be a full synopsis so if you haven’t read it yet you should be perfectly fine to read through but be aware there may be some minor spoilers while I go through the finer points of the story and characters. This story is a space epic, a tale of loss, and the story of a little girl out for revenge. While being the titular character, this story isn’t really a Supergirl story. It is instead a story about Ruthye and what happens when she encounters the Maid of Might at a crucial moment in her life.

Ruthye Marye Knoll, a character introduced for this series and one that I mentioned is the focal point of the tale. She is the youngest of 7 and the only daughter born to a rock farm on a planet with a red sun. While Ruthye was literally raised in a barn, she seems to be well educated and speaks quite eloquently. She talks in the way that a 12 year old who reads a lot of books would. By this I mean she seems to have an extensive vocabulary, but doesn’t have a full grasp of the world. Ruthye has spent the entirety of her young life before meeting Supergirl knowing just of her rock farm. She had no idea of piggyback rides, alien life, or washing her hands. Upon finding her father’s dead body, Ruthye has one goal in mind; find Krem of the Yellow Hills and end his life. Throughout the story Ruthye is called stubborn, small, and soft but most of all she is just a girl. While Krem, and the Brigands, and any other foe they come across uses these facts to belittle her, Supergirl is also shown as such and she is still Super.

Supergirl herself in this story, specifically how she is portrayed seems somewhat controversial. This story includes her drinking, swearing, and even calling Superman a “@%#@”. On a surface level, this is a very different Supergirl to the pre-crisis girl of steel and the Supergirl from the television series. This is also a significantly less wholesome characterization to what we normally think of when we think of the Super family. However, a Supergirl who swears isn’t new. I’ve read a significant amount of Supergirl stories from many different eras, and I’ve seen even as far back as the Daring New Adventures (Supergirl Vol. 2) series from the 80s Supergirl giving us at least a couple “damn”s and all the ongoing series since have at least some amount of Supergirl dropping some expletives. I will say that this specific story does have quite a lot more than any other Supergirl story I’ve read and at some points it seems a bit much. Also at one point in issue 5, Ruthye is shown having learned the proper use of “#%#@” which is a comical line but doesn’t make Supergirl the best role model.

Let’s talk about Supergirl being a role model. Kara Zor-El is a girl who witnessed the destruction of her world and everything she knew and then had to witness it once again all before she was 16 (quite expertly told in issue 6 of this miniseries). Once on earth, she became a hero to the world and would quickly become one of the most well known people on the planet. This is someone who never got a moment to be a kid, to grow up and goof off and make mistakes. So when we see our hero at the start of this story, drunk off her ass, it needs to be considered that maybe this is the first time that she’s gotten to unwind since her planet’s destruction. Even in this state though, she still sees a girl in need and helps her.

A lot of my favorite moments from this story can be described as Supergirl seeing someone in need and helping them in a personal and specific way. The story is galaxy spanning and we see numbers of different planets and locations and it’s obvious Supergirl and Ruthye travel together for quite a while, but the story really is a very small and personal journey about Ruthye tracking down Krem. There is no doubt throughout the story that Supergirl cares for Ruthye, sometimes it’s shown with a firm fist to an unwanted bus passenger, sometimes its a strict denial when telling Ruthye what to do, but my favorite way we see care shown is in the soft moments. Ruthye isn’t familiar with a piggyback ride, but Supergirl gently walks her through it it helps reassure her of the safety. Early on in the story, but still after months of traveling, Supergirl realizes that Ruthye has no idea how to wash her hands. From the first time reading this scene, this has been my favorite moment of the whole story. There is such a care shown from Supergirl in this scene, and she treats the situation so gently. Lines like “Mother used to make me count to suzhav out loud,” and “If nothing else, Kryptonians are clean. Were clean,” really say a lot in this scene. It’s this remembrance of Krypton that sets Kara apart from her cousin, and the specific dialogue here puts Kara in almost a motherly role to Ruthye here. There are a few moment in issue 4 where we see this soft compassion show but another of my favorite moments is when the pair land on Tillus, a planet that had been ravaged by the Brigands. Where they land there’s a single person shown with the duty of digging dozens, possibly hundreds, of graves for all those lost to the Brigands. Through dialogue we learn both that this task has to be done by sundown to prevent the need for a mass grave, and also that his daughter is one of those lost. Supergirl asks him if she can help, and while he initially refused he does let her help. Supergirl not only finishes the task for him, she mentions that she isn’t perfect and may have made mistakes, and above all else she found his daughter and offers to take him to her grave. Later that issue we’re also shown that strict motherly nature, that I mentioned earlier when, Supergirl and Ruthye are on Tyrrrcoomn. This is a planet that kept very specific records and videos of the sheer brutality of the Brigands attack and when Ruthye tries to view the footage Supergirl responds; “You don’t have to see this, and I do, and if you don’t have to, you won’t. That’s the end of it.”

Moving on to the parts of the story I don’t like. As I mentioned before, the swearing and drinking doesn’t really bother me, and even the use of red kryptonite as a recreational drug doesn’t feel too far out of the realm of possibility in the DC universe so it’s use in the story also works for me. Ruthye’s dialogue, especially on rereads, has a bit of pretentiousness to it. It feels wordy for the sake of being wordy, and the fact that all the narration, framed as a book that Ruthye had written, is in this wordy style and quite dense in a lot of places doesn’t help the fact. My most recent reread of the story was done while skipping over the narration boxes and only focusing on the dialogue and artwork and it was a really interesting way to read the story that still works perfectly fine. I don’t particularly love how Comet is portrayed in the story, although that may just be because I’m not terribly fond of Comet in general. I don’t like that Comet was reintroduced in this story just to be killed a couple issues later, and I feel like a Kryptonite bullet shouldn’t have been able to kill him seeing as he isn’t a Kryptonian and if a kryptonite bullet can kill him, then any sort of bullet could kill him and that doesn’t feel particularly super to me. The line from Supergirl when she drops back down to the planet; “He was a man…He was cursed to the body of a horse…It’s complicated” is a really bare bones way to explain the Super Horse to readers that most likely have no idea who he is, but it’s doesn’t really tell you much. It did make me want to read silver age Supergirl stories so I guess it did work on some level. Both of these points are kind of easy to overlook, but my main issue with the story is that throughout the story Supergirl is only ever Supergirl. Ruthye only knows her and refers to her as Supergirl, and any new person she meets or any new planet she arrives on it’s always just “I’m Supergirl”. “Kara” as a word appears exactly once in the story. Issue 7 and 8 mostly center around 2 set pieces, the Brigand ship where Supergirl is fighting the Brigands and a beach where Ruthye and Comet are watching Krem who is tied and gagged to a tree. A narration box reads “…we came to what was then known as Florinine but has since been rechristened: Kara’s Beach”. This being the only mention of the Kryptonian’s name makes less sense seeing as how Supergirl seems to not use this name at all throughout the months long journey that is told here. Supergirl as a character hasn’t really used a secret identity successfully or for any prolonged period of time since the 90s, and a lot of the story telling since, especially when she’s not on earth have her calling herself “Kara”. There is something about her exclusive use of her heroic name that feels like she’s trying to appear better than or more important than everyone else in the story and that doesn’t track with other Supergirl stories I’ve read. If I had to find some excuse, it could be that since this is Ruthye’s retelling of the story and she was a child throughout the tale, maybe Kara did often use her name and Ruthye only saw her as this heroic icon and tells the story with her as such. That being said, nothing in the text confirms this and is only my personal explanation for why she would only go by Supergirl throughout the tale.

Referring to this story as “what would happen if you mashed together All Star Superman and Dark Knight Returns and then put it in a skirt” at the start of this post was somewhat of a joke, but there are quite a few similarities to each story that I wanted to briefly mention. Dark Knight Returns was one of my favorite comic stories when I was 16 and it’s a great story for when you’re 16 and into comics. I say this to say that I am very familiar with this story and there are more and more similarities the more I started thinking about it and looking into it. The aforementioned Supergirl only going by Supergirl and not Kara is a similar thing to how Batman is portrayed in DKR. Each story also has the titular hero picking up a young girl and becoming a mentor figure while also not presenting as the best role model. We also get swearing and bad ass brutal fights in each story, and the above pictures show the hero of each story bursting through a wall to pulverize a goon. The All Star Superman references are a bit less direct, but still present. Both that story and Woman of Tomorrow tell a single overarching story while having episodic adventure each issue. Both stories also feature a lot of silver age comic references told in a more modern interpretation, specifically stuff like the red-k, comet, and the general depiction of aliens in Woman of Tomorrow.

Let’s talk collected editions! Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow was initially relased as 24 page single issue comics from June 2021 to February of 2022. The first collection was a trade paperback version in July 2022, this would collect all 8 issues, a cover gallery for the variant covers (the main covers were included throughout the story), and a 3 page sketch gallery from Bilquis Evely. This is a rather bare bones trade but the sketch gallery at the back is a nice touch and I always love Evely’s art. July 2024 would give us a really nice hardcover deluxe edition of the story. In addition to the 8 collected issues, and variant cover gallery, we get a much more robust 32 pages of Bilquis Evely sketch pages including thumbnail sketches for dozens of pages and covers, as well as sketch pages for some of the variant covers, an introduction from Tom King, and the original draft for issue 6 of the story. Honestly a really robust collection with some really great extras and brand new cover art on the slip cover makes this a great addition to the collection. If you are deciding between the 2 versions of the story I would absolutely recommend the deluxe edition, everything that’s present in the tpb version is included in it and so much more. Digitally, through the DC Universe Infinite app, the story has also been re-presented as a DCGO comic. If you are unfamiliar with DCGO, it is webcomics that have been optimized for reading on a standard smartphone. I have not gone through the entirety of the DCGO version of the story but from what I have seen I wouldn’t recommend it. The artwork has to get cropped in a lot of places to fit the format, and Evely’s art really shines as large splash pages or sweeping imagery that isn’t done justice in this format. Solicited for a January 2026 release is a DC Compact Comics version of the collection. Looking at the page count this will probably be exclusively the issues reprinted and won’t include cover or sketch galleries, but it will have a $10 price point like all of the Compact Comics line and it’s really a steal at that price.

For those unaware, it has been announced that a live action cinematic movie based on this story is in production as part of the DC Studios movie Universe that currently includes James Gunn’s Superman (2025). At this point there has not been any trailers released, but we have seen the above image as well as some behind the scenes pictures. Supergirl, as portrayed by Millie Alcock, shows up very briefly at the end of Superman and we get to see her playing with Krypto, swearing, and a line from Kal tells us that “She goes to planets with red suns to party”. I am planning to go into this movie with a fairly open mind, however I do want to bring up a couple thoughts on it while on the subject. Jason Momoa has been cast in this film as Lobo. Lobo doesn’t show up in the comic but I could see him fitting well into this story. I don’t want him in much of the movie or if he does show up I hope it’s as part of the Brigands’ crew. I am still up in the air in regards to the Super-Horse, it seems like it could be something that gets cut from the plot, but it is a rather crucial part of the story. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of Comet’s inclusion in the story revolves around the reader being familiar with the horse from the silver age, and I’m not positive that will work well in a more mainstream audience. My main concern is how Supergirl will be portrayed in the movie, the brief showing of her in Superman (2025) makes her seem really reckless. I hope more than anything, we get that really gentle compassion that I loved so much from this story, and if that gets into the movie I think I’ll enjoy it.

Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow has become one of the most popular Supergirl stories since the movie got announced. While it’s not my favorite Supergirl story, I do enjoy quite a lot of it and I think it tells a compelling story. The art is far and above some of the best Supergirl art I’ve seen and I will always hold Bilquis Evely in high regard. Ruthye’s character goes through quite a lot of changes throughout and it’s interesting to follow her and see how someone views Supergirl from the outside. Supergirl herself also seems to grow as a character throughout the story in perhaps a more subtle way. I think this is a perfectly serviceable introduction to Supergirl as well and it seems like a great way to start her reintroduction into the big screen, and hopefully serves as a good way to set her apart from her cousin and to get more people excited about other fantastic Supergirl stories. Let me know what you think of the story by leaving a comment or sending an email to daringnewblog@gmail.com.