There seem to be a lot of people who don’t understand why Lobo was in the movie, so I’m just gonna say it: Lobo is who Kara is at risk of becoming.
Kara is at a crossroads, and one road leads towards Clark and one leads to Lobo. Or rather, one path leads to embracing the responsibility of the life and powers her parents gave her, and the other is continuing to drink her life away, not caring about anything or anyone but her and hers.
Lobo is immensely powerful, and the last of his planet. Just like Kara. And when we meet him, he’s passed out drunk in a bar, oblivious and uncaring of violence and exploitation around him. Just like Kara was trying to be when she first met Ruthye.
Lobo is Kara’s future if she gives up on trying to be good. Drunkenly stumbling through the galaxy not helping anyone or anything and only caring about herself. Maybe not mindlessly cruel, but not kind or good or caring of the pain of the people around her.
It’s why they both get Ruthye’s spiel, it’s why Lobo’s whole introduction mirrors what Kara was just doing demanding to know about the Brigands, it’s why they’re both “the ditz from the bar”, it’s why they both have the gag with the space suit collar.
It’s why Lobo crops up each time Ruthye and Kara are faced with choices, sometimes acting as a devil on their shoulders, sometimes just a big lurking ominous warning of their bleak future if they make the wrong choices. It’s why Lobo says “let Ruthye have her revenge”, uncaring of how the violence might haunt Ruthye for the rest of her life. He’s a big constant reminder why Kara cannot let this thirteen year old girl be consumed by violence, and of who her parents didn’t want her to be.
Lobo is Kara’s foil and shadow.
I don’t think the movie always executed this well, it could have been done better, but I don’t think it was subtle either. The parallels between Kara and Lobo are right there in every scene and always highlight the choices Kara makes to be kind, and I do wish people would take the time to actually think about them before writing Lobo’s presence off.
