James Gunn and Peter Safran’s DCU may currently only have one live-action movie under its belt, but that’ll change in 2026. Next up is director Craig Gillespie’s Supergirl, as Milly Alcock’s Girl of Steel breaks out on her own. And breaks a lot of other stuff for good measure.
Supergirl is interesting in that, unlike Superman or the upcoming Clayface, it’s directly based on a specific DC Comics storyline. How does the new movie adapt Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, and who are all these new characters? Here’s what you need to know about the next live-action DC epic and all the characters in the new Supergirl trailer.
Look out. #Supergirl lands in theaters June 26. pic.twitter.com/79j5ci6DjD
— James Gunn (@JamesGunn) December 11, 2025
Milly Alcock’s Supergirl
Unsurprisingly, most of the spotlight in this teaser trailer is directed at Alcock’s Supergirl. There have been a lot of different versions of Supergirl in the comics, not all of which have been depicted as Superman’s cousin from Krypton.
But here, Alcock is playing a fairly traditional version of the character. This is Kara Zor-El. Like her cousin, she’s a survivor of Krypton’s destruction, though she’s clearly taking the loss of her world a lot harder than Kal-El. It doesn’t help that Kara actually has memories of life on Krypton and didn’t arrive on Earth until she was a teenager. Losing your family and your entire homeworld can weigh a person down, even when they have super-strength.
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Supergirl appear in live-action. She was played by Helen Slater in 1984’s Supergirl movie, as well as by Laura Vandervoort in Smallville and Melissa Benoist in The CW’s Supergirl series. But in terms of personality, this is a very different take on the character from any of those versions. This Supergirl is hardly the clean-cut, all-American hero and the spitting image of her cousin. She’s a hard-drinking, hard-partying 23-year-old with a lot of emotional baggage.
That’s just one way in which the Supergirl movie is drawing directly from the Woman of Tomorrow comic. Written by Tom King and illustrated by Bilquis Evely, Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow is notable for delivering a much darker and moodier take on the Girl of Steel than fans were used to. It depicts Kara as a depressed loner tired of living in her cousin’s shadow and still mourning the loss of her home.
As in the comic, it appears the film opens with Supergirl travelling to an alien world to get plastered and let off some steam. She pretty much has to head into space to get drunk, as Earth’s yellow sun causes her body to process alcohol as quickly as she can guzzle it down. But no sooner does Kara find a good watering hole than she’s drawn – very much against her will – into a larger battle. That’s where our next character comes in.
Eve Ridley’s Ruthye Marye Knoll
Like the comic, the movie pairs Supergirl with a character named Ruthye Marye Knoll (played by 3 Body Problem’s Eve Ridley), a resident of the remote alien world where Supergirl has come to drink. Despite her young age and small stature, Ruthye is on a single-minded mission of vengeance. Her father, a humble farmer, was murdered by a man named Krem of the Yellow Hills (more on him in a minute). Krem stabbed Ruthye’s father and left the blade behind, despite the fact that it’s a very fine and valuable weapon. That’s the sword Ruthye now carries, with the hope that she can return it to sender in the bloodiest way possible.
Early in the comic, Ruthye approaches Kara in the hope of hiring her as a mercenary. Despite her protestations, it’s not long before Kara finds herself drawn into Ruthye’s revenge quest. Deep down, Kara sees something of herself in young Ruthye, a girl who lost her metaphorical world as surely as Kara lost her literal one.
If all of this is starting to seem a little familiar, that’s because Woman of Tomorrow shares a lot in common with Charles Portis’ 1968 novel-turned-films True Grit. Ruthye is basically the character Mattie – a young girl whom no one takes seriously but is nonetheless determined to avenge her slain father. That, of course, makes Supergirl herself into the Rooster Cogburn character – representative of the law who reluctantly escorts her young charge on a foolhardy mission.
Basically, Woman of Tomorrow is as much a Western as it is a superhero tale, with a lot of the trappings fans of the genre have come to expect. Gunn has made a big deal out of the fact that every DCU film is stylistically unique, and this looks to be one element that will set Supergirl apart from Superman.
Matthias Schoenaerts’ Krem of the Yellow Hills
Several shots in the trailer showcase the main villain of the film, Krem of the Yellow Hills (who’s played by The Old Guard 2’s Matthias Schoenaerts). In the comic, Krem is introduced as a Kingsagent who seeks shelter with Ruthye’s family for the night, only to clash with her father and murder him. The comic then follows Kara and Ruthye as they pursue Krem across the galaxy. He’s nothing if not a wily and persistent foe.
As the trailer shows, Krem has a full band of rascals and criminals helping to back him up, giving Kara plenty of cannon fodder to fight off in the film. If a bunch of gun-toting goons doesn’t seem like much of a match for a Kryptonian, well, don’t necessarily expect Kara to be operating at full strength in the film. As mentioned, she travels to this remote world specifically to get away from Earth’s yellow sun and enable herself to get drunk. The catch is that this leaves her in a relatively weakened state. Her strength and invulnerability aren’t all there, adding an extra element of danger to this revenge quest.
This means fans shouldn’t expect a DC film on the same scope as Gunn’s Superman. Kara probably won’t be juggling buildings and lifting giant kaiju in this film. She’ll be operating as a leaner, meaner sort of heroine. Gunn and Gillespie have made no secret of the fact that Supergirl is a smaller, more low-budget film than Superman, even though little of it seems to be taking place on Earth.
Jason Momoa’s Lobo
As much as Supergirl is a direct adaptation of the Woman of Tomorrow comic, this isn’t a 1:1 recreation of that story. Nowhere is that more apparent than with the news that Jason Momoa has been cast as Lobo. Lobo is nowhere to be found in the comic, but he’s making his DCU debut in the film.
For those not familiar with Lobo, aka the Main Man, aka Master Frag, aka the Scourge of the Cosmos, he’s pretty much the closest thing DC has to a Wolverine character. He’s got a similarly bad attitude and anti-heroic slant. He’s a bounty hunter who travels the cosmos on his hovering motorcycle. He has little patience for anyone apart from his pet dog Dawg and the space dolphins he loves so much.
With this role, Momoa becomes the first major DCEU veteran to be recast as a new character for the DCU. It’s not at all surprising that he would be tapped for Lobo, though. Apart from the skin tone, he’s basically a dead ringer for Lobo already, and many would argue this is the DC role he should have been playing from the start.
We only see Lobo in one shot in the teaser, unfortunately, so there’s little indication of how exactly he’ll be worked into the plot. We could see him being hired by Krem to stop Supergirl and Ruthye. Lobo is strong enough to take on Kryptonians at full strength, much less the weakened state Kara will find herself in here.
But by the end, we assume the two will put aside their differences. Lobo’s not such a bad guy deep down. Well, not really. Lobo and Kara even have some important qualities in common. They both love their respective dogs, for one thing. And Lobo also knows what it’s like to be the last surviving member of his species. Never mind the fact that he’s only the last Czarnian because he killed all the others.
We also suspect Lobo is being added to this story to counteract any accusations of Supergirl being a film geared toward women specifically. He’ll certainly up the testosterone factor by several degrees. And going back to the True Grit comparison, Gillespie and writer Ana Nogueira may have wanted a second character helping Ruthye on her quest, echoing the fraught dynamic between Rooster Cogburn and La Boeuf.
Supergirl’s Parents
Of the currently confirmed cast of Supergirl, the only two major characters we don’t see in the trailer are Kara’s parents, Zor-El (David Krumholtz) and Alura In-Ze (Emily Beecham). We do see a brief shot of Krypton, though, where it looks like Kara’s home city of Kandor is being bottled up by Brainiac. That probably means we’re getting a flashback to Kara’s origin story at some point in the film.
It’ll be interesting to see exactly how Zor-El and Alura are portrayed here. Superman certainly turned heads with its unconventional depiction of Kal-El’s birth parents. There, we learned they sent their baby to Earth not to be the planet’s greatest defender, but to conquer humanity and start a harem to rebuild the Kryptonian people. Are Kara’s parents cut from that same cloth? Does that influence her more cynical worldview?
Krypto Returns and Kandor Shrinks – How Supergirl Ties Back to Gunn’s Superman
Speaking of Kandor, the shot of Kara’s home raises the question of just how much this new movie will tie back to Superman and its upcoming sequel, 2027’s Man of Tomorrow. News recently broke that Brainiac is the main villain of Man of Tomorrow, a threat so overwhelming that he forces David Corenswet’s Superman and Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor to join together. Supergirl now looks as though it may lay the groundwork for Brainiac’s DCU debut, revealing how the villainous mastermind shrunk the city of Kandor and bottled it up. Heck, he may even turn out to be the one who destroyed Krypton in the first place.
At the very least, the opening scene in the trailer makes it clear that fans are in for more of Kara’s faithful pooch Krypto. Krypto has quickly become the Baby Yoda of the DCU, and we’re not at all surprised to see this spinoff milking the current Krypto craze. But will he appear as prominently as he did in Superman? That remains to be seen.
There’s also the question of whether any other familiar faces from Superman will show up. What about Supes himself? It seems only fitting to follow up Alcock’s surprise cameo in Superman with another reunion of the cousins in Supergirl. But as before, don’t expect DC to spoil that appearance ahead of time.
Ultimately, as much as Gunn has billed Supergirl as a standalone movie with its own agenda, we are expecting it to link back to the Superman movies in a fairly significant way. Supergirl could easily wind up being an important prelude to Man of Tomorrow, especially if Kara herself is meant to play a supporting role. There’s probably a good reason introducing Supergirl has been one of Gunn’s first priorities in the DCU.
What do you think of the first Supergirl teaser? Are you stoked for the next DCU adventure? Let us know in the comments below.
For more on the future of the DCU, find out why Brainiac is the perfect villain for Man of Tomorrow, and brush up on every DC movie and series in development.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.
