A reflection about Supergirl and Supercorp
I take advantage of the second anniversary of the 100th episode of Supergirl to reflect about Supercorp and the show in general.
⚠️It will be a long and boring thing that surely many will not share⚠️
Premise: I love the world of Superman, but I started seeing Supergirl when she was at her third season.
I didn't have a lot of expectations about this series and I started seeing it precisely because I was intrigued by Supercorp (yes, I had heard more about supercorp than Supergirl and this should give you an idea of extent of the phenomenon behind it).
The idea of a Super and a Luthor together was absolutely intriguing, but I thought it was one of the many ships with a lot of chemistry, but no really romantic interactions (I'm also a fan of Swan Queen and Sterek, but I admit that there isn't so much material to work on to say "Yes, they are a couple").
So I came to the Season 2 premiere quite skeptical.
At the end of that episode I was like "What did I just watch?! It's true! They're actually flirting!".
Well... Why did the writers chose nothing rather than making history?
The idea that, personally, I have made is that all the problems of this ship were born already in the second season. In that season, we have three events that affect the continuity of the show: the arrival of Mon-El as the protagonist's first true love interest, the coming out of Alex as lesbian and the entry of Lena on the scene. Here, I believe that the latter was intended by the writers in a completely different sense from how it was then received by the fans and, perhaps, if the interest of the fandom in the character had not emerged, she would have come out in that same season, becoming the Maxwell Lord of the second season or, at least, not becoming a regular. Things turned out differently and not only did the fans literally fall in love with Katie McGrath and her character, but they saw more chemistry between her and the protagonist than there was between the latter and the character of Mon-El.
Nonetheless, the starting of Karamel in Season 2 and its fixing in Season 3 erased any chance of making Lena a possible love interest for Kara.
Similarly, I believe that Alex's coming out (which was widely applauded, but which personally always left me quite indifferent) was another nail on the coffin of a possible supercorp ... Because, even if in theory there is no limit to the number of queer characters that you can have in a series, making each pair of a single show an lgbt pair (and it would have been so considering that the other pairs, at the end of the series, are Alex/Kelly and Brainy/Nia) would have it could have meant, for the cw, taking the longest step ... A step that, apparently, he decided not to take.
As for the rest of the show and the characters, I think we can all agree that the writers proved to be totally unable to handle the characters they had in their hands. This is especially true of romantic relationships within the series and in the case of Kara and Lena it was only more evident.
MY OPINION ON THE MAIN SHIPS ON SUPERGIRL :
BRAINIA
To be honest, Nia/Brainy (together with J'onn and M'gann who are secondary) are the only couple that I have appreciated appreciated because they are the only ones who do not seem coupled at random and whose relationship has actually been the object of construction from the beginning.
SANVERS
Alex/Maggie was not bad, but I really didn't like how they handled it in a hasty and superficial way (you ask someone to marry you and then you leave her because you didn't ask her first if she wanted children?!).
DANSEN
As for Alex/Kelly, I like them as individual characters, but their relationship doesn't have, at least initially, a solid foundation and seems to be the classic "Oh, we have a lesbian, let's put her with the first lesbian who passes!".
KARAMEL
Kara/Mon-El could also have some potential, but if the idea was to take a negative character and make him a good guy who finds redemption through love for the protagonist, this was not really successful because they didn't introduce Mon-El as "bad", but rather like the goofy country cousin that Kara has to nurse. I certainly do not support those who see, in their story, the representation of a toxic relationship (and even if it were I would not be the most suitable person to support this position, since my canon OTP is the Spuffy which is the most unhealthy relationship ever shown in a TV show ...), but surely what they wanted to do with Mon-El they managed to do with Lena Luthor.
And then...
LENA FUCKING LUTHOR
(No, I will NOT talk about Lames. She's never stood behind a man, do you remember?)
Her character distances herself from all the others because she proves, from the beginning, to be capable of killing in cold blood (Corben) and truly faces a path towards darkness and then a path of redemption that has always, as its central point, her relationship with the protagonist.
What I'm saying is that I didn't want they make the Kara/Lena pair canonical because I wanted another lgbt couple on Supergirl, but because this is, objectively, the best constructed and dissected relationship on the show and the fact (or whatever the strong feeling) that it has not been made canonical ONLY because it's a lesbian couple leaves me particularly disappointed.
P.S.: GIVE US THE SUPERCORP SEQUEL!!!
