Not All Heroes Need to Fall in Love

By: Kathryn Trammell

Dear TV writers, not every superhero needs to achieve romantic love in order to be relevant to the genre. Sure, keeping their true identities a secret might demand they find ways to shape a civilian life and workload around their super ones and maybe love interests occasionally becomes a part of that. But even The Flash wouldn’t have enough speed and spare time to multi-task the responsibilities of both his civilian life and super life with the revolving door of romantic love interests that have weighed down Supergirl’s story this season.

This isn’t to say that love interests and romantic relationships don’t serve important purposes within the zeitgeist of the genre. They do. Superman wouldn’t do half the heroic things he does without his love for Lois Lane and his desire to keep her safe. And when certain heroes run the risk of straying too close to the dark side, love can certainly pull them back and humanize them in the eyes of a conflicted audience. But heroes and heroines don’t always need romantic love in order to be great or to find their greatness. Sometimes, all they need in order to be “super” – all we need from a character in order to connect with them – is the desire to fight for the love of their family, their friends, or even themselves.

No other show on TV portrayed this better than Supergirl did in its first season. From the very first episode, Kara Danvers (Melissa Benoist) had the kind of heroism that was defined by an identity she built around her family, friends and career. This identity was largely independent of romantic love, which is realistic. For many of us, especially those of us who are either busy being students or busy trying to make professional name for ourselves, romance oftentimes takes a backseat to our family, friend and careers. Seeing this very real slice of our life being portrayed on Supergirl helped many fans connect with Kara as a “young professional” and sister just as much as it did with the “badass superheroine” that Kara became once the glasses came off. Of course, Kara did find romance in season one, but her professional and personal world didn’t pause for James Olsen (Mehcad Brooks). He fulfilled a special part of it, but his role in her story didn’t once overshadow Kara’s development as a heroine and main character.

Then, season two happened and Mon-El (Chris Wood) happened. After only the first episode, Kara broke off her relationship with Jimmy, which opened the door for Mon-El to enter while Jimmy and Winn (Jeremy Jordan) watched from a distance. Thankfully, they didn’t watch for long. Instead, they were allowed to redirect that piney energy into more productive means giving both the opportunity to further their civilian careers while also managing to become a secret crime-fighting duo.

Kara wasn’t as lucky. While it was fun at times to see her interact with such an endearing foil as Mon-El, Kara wasn’t given much independence to develop as the character we saw her becoming in season one beyond Mon-El’s own development. Her story became so saturated in his story that parts of her – her job at Cat Co., her relationship with her sister, the continuance of her navigating the grey areas that appear once we realize our parents/guardians aren’t infallible – seemed to disappear. Even the conversations she had with her sister barely passed the Bechdel test at times because she could talk of nothing, but Mon-El. And Bechdel test aside, seeing the development of a character with as much potential as Kara being stifled in an attempt to give her love interest room to grow is frankly hackneyed and frustrating.

In stark contrast to this was Alex’s (Chyler Leigh) story arch. Like Kara, Alex was given a potential love interest, but the treatment of that love interest was, if anything, the antithesis to Mon-El’s. At no point in the first eight episodes of season two did Maggie’s (Florianna Lima) story overshadow Alex’s. She may have been a catalyst of sorts for Alex’s coming out, but Alex still would’ve reached the end of this “awakening” arch with just as much meaning and significance had Maggie not been present at the end of the winter finale.

This is perfectly demonstrated in episode eight when Alex says to Maggie, “I thought that [my being gay] was just about you . . . but deep down I think I wasn’t comfortable that that was my new normal, but it is my new normal. And I’m happy that it is, because I finally get ‘me’. And now I realize that it wasn’t about you . . . it’s about me living my life.” While this scene established how important Maggie was in initializing Alex’s discovery of herself, it also established that Maggie’s presence in Alex’s storyline wasn’t necessary for her to continue on the path of self-discovery, growth and resolution. Maggie helped introduce Alex to a part of herself that she’d ignored and suppressed for years, but she did it without smothering Alex’s storyline with her own.

It’s no wonder that the greatest fandom complaint about Alex and Maggie’s relationship is how little they know about Maggie Sawyer. Little is known about Maggie because Alex’s story wasn’t about her – it was about Alex and her attempt at finding herself. And as I’ve said before, when you’re busy managing work, family, friends and occasionally saving lives, you can’t waste too much time worrying if the girl you love will ever love you back. It isn’t realistic. Life goes on.

Except for Kara, life just kind of stopped the moment she found Mon-El and his storyline. Kara and Mon-El shippers could never complain the way Alex and Maggie (“Sanvers”) fans do that they don’t know Mon-El because they do. In many ways, his character was given more attention and written with better detail in the first eight episodes of season two than even Supergirl herself, which is perhaps why fans of the “KaraMel” ship are so passionate about Mon-El. He is a well-written, well-developed character (even if a little formulaic) and fans are certain to connect with him because of this.

I am hoping that when the show returns in January that the writers will find a way to separate Kara’s identity from Mon-El’s. Although their relationship is cute and endearing, a heroine like Kara deserves to continue finding herself the way she did in season one and the way her sister has been doing in season two without having a steady stream of love interests flung her way or a solitary love interest stifle her journey. “I really just want to keep seeing [Kara] grow as a woman,” Benoist said in an interview with The Mary Sue back in April before season two began filming. “Not necessarily in relationships or romance, but really just her independence and . . . obviously I want to see her kick some butt.” We couldn’t agree with her more.