James Gunn Gives Hope For ‘Supergirl’, Says DCU Film Is “Based On The Tom King Book” But “Doesn’t Follow It Religiously”
In kicking off 2026 with such objectively good news that it gives hope for both the DCU and the year ahead, James Gunn has revealed that rather than Supergirl being a one-to-one adaptation of Tom King’s Woman of Tomorrow, the Girl of Steel’s upcoming solo film will instead use the egregiously self-aggrandizing story as more of a thematic ‘core’.
After spending the entirety of its eight issue run waxing poetic against the idea of dedicating oneself to revenge, Woman of Tomorrow concludes with Kara cosigning the unprovoked striking of a now-repentant assassin (possibly to death, though it’s left intentionally ambiguous) who had grown mad with repentance after the heroine subjected him to 300-years of forced Phantom Zone imprisonment, all in all proving that the CIA-agent-who-helped-plan-the-invasion-of-Iraq-turned-comic-book-writer only cares about the characters he’s assigned to insofar as they can be used for his tired ‘The people who willingly committed war crimes have feelings too, you know!’ apologia.
(And when I mean tired, I mean tired; from Heroes in Crisis Vol. 1, to The Omega Men Vol. 3, to Jenny Sparks Vol. 1, one would be hard-pressed to find one of his works that doesn’t play said victim card in some way, shape, or form.)
With the widely panned series being cited as one of the main inspirations for the Milly Alcock-led movie, most fans were understandably concerned that Gunn, just simply by attempting to adhere to the source material, could and would end up doing Supergirl just as dirty as King had.
However, it seems the director will do at least a little less damage to Earth’s second Kryptonian refugee, as he apparently treated King’s miniseries as more of a ‘guide’ than a set-in-stone ‘bible’.
Pressed for a tease as to what fans could expect from Supergirl during a pre-debut trailer premiere appearance on Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast, the DC Studios co-CEO began, “I love Milly Alcock in the movie, and I think it’s a space fantasy, which is like Guardians in a way” before noting, “It’s based on the Tom King book, but it doesn’t follow it religiously, but it has a lot of the core of that there, and I’m really excited for people to see it and to see Milly.”
“It’s going to be awesome,” he further beamed.
And in the interest of intellectual honesty, the contents of Supergirl‘s aforementioned first trailer do support Gunn’s claim of ‘source material distancing’, as though it confirms the film’s heavy taking from Woman of Tomorrow, including the appearance of characters Ruthye Marye Knoll and Krem of the Yellow Hills, as well as Kara’s decision to spend her 21st birthday drinking alone being the catalyst to its overall event, it also suggests they’ll be tackled in a much different, less fart-huffy tone.
Just look at Kara’s ‘party’; In the comic, she celebrates by doing her best Aragorn impression and sullenly drinking alone in a dingy space tavern, whereas in the film, while still alone, she instead acts more like a typical young person and attempts to interact with the tavern’s other patrons as she gets progressively more and more drunk.
Or better yet, the fact that Lobo will make an appearance at some point in the film, whereas the comic was noticeably devoid of any genuine levity.
Ultimately, just how much of Woman of Tomorrow‘s DNA is in Supergirl will ultimately come to yellow sunlight when the DCU semi-sequel lands in theaters on June 26th.
