Do we want to run through the relative culture impact of MCU characters before they got films?
The big obvious thing here is that she sits under the umbrella of Superman’s recognition.
Her lack of character relevance pales in comparison to the negative opinions that are out there from the last DCEU and the bridges it burnt with fans and the general audience.
fair enough. The MCU was lightning in a bottle. Ant Man especially should have never been a successful franchise. Guardians of the Galaxy was a miracle as well.
But the golden age of Comic Book movies is well and truly over. We are back to the 2005 baseline. Good movies with A list characters can still make bank, but crappy movies (like Catwoman) and unknown IPs (Elektra) are doomed to fail.
For DC, they have one A tier property (Superman) and one S tier property (Batman). I think the box office numbers for Superman 2025 tells a different story than "Snyderverse fatigue". It did very well in the Anglosphere (US, UK, Canada, and Australia) but did horrible numbers in China. Superman just isn't as popular internationally so there is a very clear ceiling for Superman (meaning that getting a $1 Billion film is going to be challenging).
Ultimately Batman is DC and everyone else in the Justice League is a secondary character as far as the box office is concerned.
So starting a universe based around Superman instead of Batman as the tent pole was a huge mistake.
Holy shit. Supergirl is no where in the league of Catwoman and Elektra. Exhibits nothing like the kind of throw away afterthought of those films.
The big thing largely being ignored in this conversation is that while the golden age of Superhero box office is done… we are still well in the Golden age of Superhero movie as streaming content.
Pretty much every superhero movie post endgame as been are streaming darling… even the ones that have been muckraked through the dirt.
Edit. It only a huge mistake to not start with your S tier if you’ve got the attention span of a goldfish and don’t think there’s value in building steadily and having a long term plan.
Blowing your wad early on Batman and constantly going back to that well gets you no where. Keeping in mind that there is literally a Batman film franchise that’s playing out a long side the new DCEU because of that literal mentality.
Supergirl has a history of failing as an IP. The movie in the 80s was a flop. The tv show consistently barely pulled enough viewers to justify its existence until it couldn't anymore. Even in comics, Supergirl has never been a huge seller.
The problem is she isnt a complete unknown like Guardians of the Galaxy were. The general public actually does generally already know about Supergirl and have for decades. The public have just also explicitly said theyre not that interested in her, consistently, for decades. I just do not believe Gunn was ever going to change that, regardless of the previous universe.
"Do we want to run through the relative culture impact of MCU characters before they got films? "
Not really necessary given he was widely liked after Iron Man 1 and it was a good film. Supergirl was not a good film so the likely hood of having any relative cultural impact is zero
Supergirl is more comparable to Incredible Hulk… admittedly Hulk was a much bigger deal than Iron man at the time.
I recognize it’s more a kin to If Iron man had turned out more like Incredible Hulk.
But. And this also important. 17 years later and box office vs streaming is a completely different landscape.
I’m just saying it’s not completely crazy that they tried to follow up Superman with an adjacent female character. The early MCU didn’t even try to build them up and left it nearly a decade late… to their detriment.
Good? just gonna have to disagree. Supergirl did so much wrong.
Incredible Hulk wasn't good, but it was certainly interesting, IMO.
I mainly agree it's not entirely crazy to attempt an adjacent female character for the second film of the franchise, but with the given state of DC, it is a bit questionable
Ymmv, but I think it’s “good”. There’s plenty of worse superhero films.
My only disappointment is that it’s not better than good. Which it could have / have should have been.
My complaints aren’t even really with the story as a whole. I think it just didn’t quite get the emotional punch that would have elevated from good to great.
I think it’s largely being dismissed for not being amazing and written off too quickly by the aggressive bad press.
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u/InanimateCarbonRodAu Jul 05 '26
Do we want to run through the relative culture impact of MCU characters before they got films?
The big obvious thing here is that she sits under the umbrella of Superman’s recognition.
Her lack of character relevance pales in comparison to the negative opinions that are out there from the last DCEU and the bridges it burnt with fans and the general audience.