I was ecstatic when James Gunn announced that the June 2026 Supergirl movie would be based on the DC Comic: Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. Gunn could not have picked a better property to introduce Kara Zor-El (Supergirl) to his audience than this one. While I don’t normally write reviews of comic books, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow merits an exception.
First a housekeeping note: I am not naïve enough to believe that the Supergirl movie will be a faithful, word for word adaption of the book. It should be, but I know it won’t be. However, it is a great starting point of entry for introducing us to Kara Zor-El of Krypton.
A second housekeeping note is that the character Lobo, played by Jason Momoa, is in the 2026 Supergirl movie, but he is NOT in the comic: Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. Lobo and Supergirl do share an adventure together in the The Brave and the Bold (2007) comic. There is a bar scene in the comic that could be in the movie. We’ll certainly know for sure in June.
Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow isn’t your standard superhero tale. And in many ways, that’s both its greatest strength and biggest weakness. Written by Tom King with art from Bilquis Evely and Matheus Lopes, this eight-issue saga takes Kara Zor-El far beyond Earth, weaving a story that echoes True Grit and to a lesser extent Shane or Seven Samurai.
The narrator of our story is Ruthye Marye Knoll. Ruthye is a grief-stricken small alien girl seeking vengeance for her father’s murder. Her quest leads her to Supergirl. Kara is in a bar celebrating her twenty-first birthday on Ruthye’s planet because it has a red sun. Kara makes it clear that she wants nothing more out of life at that moment than to drink, get drunk and escape responsibility. Then she witnesses violence and Kara (true to her nature) is forced into action alongside Ruthye and Krypto.
This series is a superb character study of Kara Zor-El. Everyone knows the story of her cousin, Superman. He is the baby whose parents sent him to Earth from their doomed planet. Two nice Kansas farmers raised him to be the hero he is.
Kara Zor-El, on the other hand, has a different story. She grew up on Krypton. Kara and her parents, along with a small percentage of the population, actually managed to survive the initial planet explosion. However, the survivors soon realized they were all going to die from radiation poisoning from the minute chunk of planet they were living on.
Kara and the other survivors managed to live for almost two years as the ground beneath them slowly poisoned them. She was a teenager when her father sent her to Earth to save her life and (presumably) look after her baby cousin Kal-El. As she often laments: Krypton didn’t die in a day. The gods are not that kind. The Kara we see in this story is not a young teenager. She is an adult survivor with PTSD.
This is a story that takes place in outer space and the artwork reflects that. It is colorful, yet muted. And it is this backdrop of colorful fields and small communities that makes the story work. King’s storytelling is brilliant. He tells the classic tale of a child wanting vengeance and learning from a mentor that justice is what is needed.
That said, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow isn’t perfect. It’s an eight issue story that probably could be told in six. And while I like the art in general, the depiction of Supergirl can be initially off-putting. Kara is not shown as an older teenager; but rather as a worldly, serious, young woman. However, trust me, this artwork WILL grow on you.
That said, there is one tale Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow tells that I hope makes it into the movie. While searching for Krem, the man who murdered Ruthye’s father, Kara discovers a planet where Blue people have committed genocide against Purple people, completely wiping them out. She is angry and horrified by the scale of the atrocity. Sadly, Ruthye (and we) discover that despite having almost god-like powers; there is nothing in Kara’s toolkit that allows her to fix all the injustice in the universe. It’s one of the many hard lessons that Ruthye learns in this story.
The series concludes with Kara being true to who she is and Ruthye discovering that vengeance is not justice, but justice can be vengeance. In the end, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow is a superb story and in my opinion, Mr. Gunn couldn’t have picked a better story to introduce Kara Zor-El (Supergirl) to his DC Universe and to us.
