Welcome to the Legion!

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(Disclaimer: I am crazy excited for the premiere of this show.)

Supergirl premieres tonight on CBS at 8:30 PM Eastern time. The series follows the life of Kara Zor-El (played by the charismatic Melissa Benoist), a refugee from the planet Krypton and cousin of Superman (Kal-El).

Kara comes to Earth as an older child who remembers life on Krypton, and who was originally sent to keep an eye on her then-younger cousin, Kal-El. She’s sent away from Krypton at the same time as Kal-El, but her ship is knocked off course and she winds up in suspended animation. She eventually reaches Earth years later, but is still about the same age she was when she left Krypton…and in the meantime, Kal-El has grown to adulthood.

No longer needing to worry about Kal-El, Kara becomes part of the Danvers family. She knows she’s not like the people on this planet, and she does her best to hide her powers and fit in with human kids. The pilot episode shows her experimenting with her abilities and seeing just what she can do after spending years trying to act like a regular human being.

Kara’s newfound career as a hero starts when she spots a breaking news update about a plane with a failed engine that can’t land. The trailer shows her riveted by the news, then she takes off down an alley where she attempts to take off…and when she finally succeeds, she manages to save the doomed aircraft and its passengers.

In the premiere, we see Kara Danvers start trying to juggle her new heroic career with her old one, where she works as a personal assistant to Cat Grant (played by Calista Flockhart) at CatCo WorldWide Media. The dynamic between these two women is amazing and makes the show worth watching even if you’re not into superheroes. Cat is smart, self-confident, and strong, and she teaches Kara a thing or eleven about how to live life on one’s own terms.

The series features other significant women and shows some amazing interrelationships between them. I’m excited not only to see a female-led superhero series, but to see a range of interesting and complex female characters interact with each other onscreen. Why is this still hours away?!

If you haven’t seen the trailer, check it out!

Some controversy has erupted in various parts of the World Wide Web about the name “Supergirl” being sexist because SuperMAN. For those unfamiliar with the comic books, Kara Zor-El is “Supergirl” because she’s a teenaged girl. The TV series made her a bit older, but kept her name and her story intact.

The show’s writers did a decent job of handling the question of ‘girl’ in the name without referencing the comics. Watch the premiere and let us know if you agree!

 

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Christine Clukey Reece

Christine is an editor and fledgling writer who will never forgive the Prequels for deliberately stomping on the fact that Leia remembered her mother. And yes, parsecs are a measure of distance...and Han Solo was bragging about making an incredibly short Kessel Run, most likely by cutting far too close to planetary bodies/stars when he plotted the course for the jump. No, she's not obsessed, why would you think that? She's on Twitter as @Kuiperama.