Supergirl's Target Audience?

Last Friday I posted my review of Supergirl #38 and once again lamented how the character seems to be stuck in a  creative vicious cycle.

We get a dark turn for the character.
It isn't well received.
A new creative team comes in and redeems the character.
We get a couple of years of solid stories and solid sales.
The creative team just seems to be hitting their stride.
DC decides to do a dark turn for the character.

I have been running this site for 11 years now ... almost 12 ... and I have had to review that cycle at least 4 times. It is insane. In fact, an impetus for this blog at the time was to try and redeem the character myself, showcasing how great she is.

Anyways, the comments on that review were pretty lively and it took an interesting turn where commenters asked 'who is the target audience for Supergirl?'

I also think you can look at that question differently and ask '?'

And so I thought that I would open this site up for a discussion trying to answer those questions. Of course, I'll start.


I find the target audience question a little bit tricky to be honest which is why I turned it a little.

I mean, is the target audience male? Female? Young? Old?

I suppose you could say this is a book that should be written for a younger audience. And it should be geared towards a female audience as well.

But I am such a firm believer that comics should be considered universal, all-ages, all-outlooks and gender that I don't think I can answer that one completely.

So instead I'll say the things that I think are crucial in a Supergirl book or in her character.

1) She has to be young and relatively inexperienced. She is at the beginning stages of her heroic journey. She is learning how to be a hero. As such she can fail and need to rethink things. She can struggle. But she is always striving to do better.

2) She loves her cousin and admires him. She is inspired by him. She knows he casts a big shadow. But she is her own person. She isn't Superman. But she can want to be like him, trying to be as good a person but in her own way. 

3) She has to be bright and optimistic. Yes, she has a tragic backstory, even more tragic than Superman's. But it doesn't make her angry. And it doesn't make her overly sad. She wants to see the best in people and is unfaltering in that. (The darkness thrust on her is often from a feeling of anger or guilt over her survival. This simply needs to go away.)

4) She wants to help people any way she can. She knows tragedy and she doesn't want to see anyone else suffer. She wants justice. And she can be fierce in her response to injustice. But always in the cause of helping.

5) She has to have a secret identity and struggle with the usual issues of a teenager there as well. Supergirl doesn't work if she is 100% in costume. Like early Spider-Man and Firestorm, she has to have a lot on her plate in all aspects of her life.

6) And she needs a supporting cast to bolster all aspects of her story.

Shockingly, a lot of these are neatly summarized in 'help, hope, and compassion for all'.

Anyways, these are the crucial elements that I think is needed in Supergirl.

If she is a young hero, striving to do good but still learning, inspired by Superman but finding her own way, and still struggling with being a young woman on Earth, the audience will be there.

I freely admit I am an older white guy. So maybe I am looking at things from an antiquated viewpoint. I would love to hear from anyone and everyone what they think.

How would you answer those questions?
What is Supergirl's target audience?
What aspects of the character do you think are crucial in a Supergirl book?

Posted in: Reviews