Supergirl S02E03 Review: Wonder Woman

Supergirl, Season 2, Episode 3: Welcome to Earth

We're slowly trying to catch up with superhero TV shows! Bear with my slow speed here.

"I sure picked the wrong night to get rid of all my Kryptonite." No truer words have been spoken by J'onn J'onzz, because, yeah, as much as the DEO might be buddy-buddy with Superman and Supergirl... they're not the only Kryptonians out there. But the point didn't get explored any further as we go hard and fast in introducing a lot of new characters and players.

It's actually a pretty solid episode as far as these things go, even if the plotline is a bit predictable -- obviously the escaped 'Kryptonian' isn't the one that attacked the president since the fire effects are different. But the introduction of Mon-El, Maggie Sawyer and Madame President (played by Lynda Carter, a.k.a. Wonder Woman herself), plus the whole existence of the Men in Black style alien sub-culture, the Alien Amnesty Act, Supergirl's short character arc about unjustful bias, and the short cameo by M'gann at the end... oh, plus the villainous Scorcher, are all handled well.

It's such a shame that there is a huge, glaring annoyance in this episode that is the CatCo plotline which I just don't give a shit about. There's nothing remotely interesting in it other than the ham-handed talk about Kara writing the Lena Luthor article with a decidedly pro-alien bias and she should be objective as a reporter regardless of her real views... which felt like retreading ground from season one, to be honest. The backstory we get from Lena Luthor about how she's adopted, how some people like Lex Luthor are intrinsically evil, and how she's making alien-detecting machines (which Kara quickly sabotaged) because humans also have a right to know if aliens are living among them... but did it have to take up so much screentime? James and Snapper's little cock-fight is also stupidly long and predictable, and I honestly just don't care. Snapper is likable enough as the resident jerk, and I'm totally on his side moreso than James -- and I wonder why Cat didn't leave the company to Snapper. He clearly knows how to run the show better than James did. But oh well. 

Speaking of Lena, this just seems to be an excuse to sneak in a potential plot point in the future, but I still think her scenes and interview is still unnecessary. It's not outright badly-written and filled with ultra-liberal-feminist preaching like Supergirl's first season, though, and gets its point across while still sounding like dialogue that two people would have in the real world.

Kara's struggles with her pro-alien bias translates to Supergirl's own problems. See, the sleeping Kryptonian from last episode breaks free and rampages around, and apparently tries to fry the president into a crisp. Except when Winn triangulates the signal or whatever, Supergirl finds out that the mystery arrival is from Daxam instead of Krypton, and she immediately goes ballistic. Daxam and Krypton have had a history, where the Daxamites are a monarchy that Kara has been taught to hate and think as a race of thugs since she was small... but when talking to our mystery Daxamite, the Daxamite is harmless. A bit of a smartass, maybe, be the Daxamite tells a different story -- that the Kryptonians were the ones that started the war, and they are always so high-and-mighty-and-enlightened, and all the Daxamite wanted to do was to go home.

The Daxamite's defense ended up being true as the actual alien attacker, Scorcher, appears to attack the President a second time. Supergirl and friends eventually track Scorcher down and take her down. The special effects in this episode kind of is... variable in quality. Some scenes like Supergirl creating a typhoon around Scorcher look great as always, but some of the fire effects, especially when they're burning on Supergirl's costume, look rushed and unfinished. Scorcher is a pretty basic villain, with one line of dialogue to tell us her motivation: that she thinks that the Alien Amnesty Act is something that's going to be used to goad gullible aliens into the open, something similar to the Inhuman/Superhero Registration Act over in the Marvel Universe.

The President is a cool lady, and in light of the recent American elections (of which, as a non-American, I am absolutely sick of hearing about, so I'll not make the obvious comments and parallels) slightly hilarious, and she has a couple of introdump-y talks with J'onn and Supergirl. She makes a brief joke about her 'other jet', which you might be forgiven to be a reference to Lynda Carter's old acting role as Wonder Woman, but apparently the President is a shape-shifting alien herself! That's an awesome twist at the end that I didn't call out, and it's a great surprise.

Also, the B-plot running through this episode is the grand introduction of Detective Maggie Sawyer, a supporting character from the Superman lore, and a major character in Superman: The Animated Series. She's shown to quickly be genre savvy and enter into a quick friendship with Alex as action girls hunting policemen. Maggie's lesbianism is also established almost immediately, which is refreshing. In Superman: TAS they had to really be super-subtle about it. Ultimately, though, Maggie didn't really do much, falling into the same role as Patty Spivot did in Flash's second season -- hypercompetent lady cop that somehow can reach places before the DEO armed with Winn's hacking and alien tech can. Maggie does get a fair bit of backstory thanks to her race and sexuality and manages to introdump a lot about the alien culture hiding in National City, but ultimately the episode could've moved along fine without her. The alien bar's pretty cool, though.

The Daxamite and Kara have a talk, and apparently Daxam's as fucked up as Krypton is. The Daxamite reveals himself to be Mon-El, who is a character that I'm only vaguely aware of, so it's going to be an interesting experience for me since I know almost nothing about Mon-El other than the fact that he's a Legion-of-Superheroes character and that's one corner of the DC universe I don't really know much about.

(I do know that 'Mon-El' is a Kryptonian name, and it's a bit strange. I'll talk more about this in the Easter Eggs Corner, though)

But more exciting than Daxam is J'onn walking around the alien bar, relishing the chance to move around in his natural form (he notably spends the time around the President in his human form, despite the president's requests) and a barlady seems surprised by him and dashes out. J'onn confronts her... and she reveals herself to be a Martian. Specifically, one M'Gann M'orzz. I DID NOT KNOW THIS WAS HAPPENING OKAY. I mean, it was obvious since Supergirl loves using female characters, but with the announcement that Young Justice's third season is in production, the inclusion of M'gann in Supergirl is a huge, huge treat for me.

Overall, it's a pretty introdump-heavy episode. It dropped the ball on the CatCo scenes and arguably Maggie Sawyer, but I think it did a decent job for Madame President and Mon-El. Interested to see where the Alien Amnesty Act and the alien bar subculture thing will lead, but most of all the J'onn/M'gann subplot. 

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Mon-El: Mon-El is... a complex character. But then all the Legion of Super-Heroes characters are, considering the sheer amount of retcons they're subject to. Basically, Mon-El was born Lar Gand of Daxam, but fell to Earth and had amnesia. He was found by Superman (when he's young and called himself Superboy), who immediately assumed he was another Kryptonian survivor. Superboy dubbed the mysterious arrival 'Mon-El', with 'Mon' from Monday, and 'El' from his own family name. But he proved to be immune to Kryptonite, and they later discovered his true heritage. Mon-El nearly died of poisoning and was shunted away to the Phantom Zone until a cure could be found, and the cure would come when Mon-El is freed by the Legion of Super-Heroes of the 30th Century, and Mon-El joined said team as Valor. The various retcons have really blurred Mon-El's role, though, as he has been portrayed as the inspiration of the Legion in place of Superboy, as a half-Daxamite that adopts a secret identity as Clark Kent's cousin, and all that. The show seems to be adapting the first origin story, though, so we'll stick with that. 
• Daxam in the comics isn't a sister planet of Krypton, but an offshoot colony that was home to a group of very, very xenophobic Kryptonian descendants. The backstory given here for Daxam (sister planet that was turned into a wasteland after Krypton's destruction) matches the fate of Argo from Superman: the Animated Series.
• Maggie Sawyer: Captain Maggie Sawyer was the head of police in Metropolis ever since the 80's, and was a major supporting Superman character in both comics and cartoon. She's one of the few characters that came out as gay in that period, and Luthor actually tried to blackmail her by threatening to reveal information about her sexuality to the public.
• M'gann M'orzz: We'll talk about her more when she becomes more relevant, but in the comics M'gann M'orzz is better known as Miss Martian, one of the few survivors of Mars and (sometimes adopted) niece to J'onn J'onzz. She was one of the main characters of the cartoon series Young Justice and is hands-down the breakout character in that show.
• Scorcher: There have been... a lot of villains named Scorcher, none of them major villains, and some are just random arsonists. None of them are Inferniums either, or any kind of alien. Hell, I don't think she's even named in the show itself. There have been five villains named Scorcher, the first two being male arsonists, while the third through fifth are all women with fire-controlling powers and minor villains of the Teen Titans, and this Scorcher seems to be based on those Scorchers. Again, none of them are aliens like the Scorcher here. 
• The unnamed female President is played by Lynda Carter, known best as the actress that played Wonder Woman in the old TV series. Several allusion are made to her old role, among them:
• Supergirl spinning around while extinguishing her burnt suit, like how Wonder Woman would transform in that TV show.
• Supergirl talking about Air Force One has the president reply "you ought to see my other jet", a reference to Wonder Woman's invisible jet, but also to the fact that she's an alien, probably.
• Maggie briefly notes how a species of alien learns languages through physical contact, which is most likely a reference to the Tamaranean race from the DC comics, better known to more casual fans as the race that Teen Titan Starfire hails from.