Yeah but how long before Kara gets raped for a cheap sales spike or as somekind of pretenious statement about our "post 911" world? Heck they couldn't even bring Kara back without giving her attitude and having her look up to Wonder Woman instead of Superman.
S:TAS Kara certainly has an attitude, and a whole lot of people liked it. It's a question of just what attitude. And tell me, assuming:
- Supergirl doens't check out Superman with a super-telescope
- Superman doesn't really want Supergirl living with him and Loiis
- Ma and Pa Kent aren't taking on any more Super-boarders
where would this admiration of Superman come from? Realsitically, the pre-Crisis "hmmm no, leave Kara in an orphanage as a secret" Superman wasn't especially admirable, either. Obviously, the motivation there was to not change the dynamic of Superman too much, but real family changes should lead to real interpersonal changes and sometimes, it will be messy. It's not an easy problem, and I liked the Paradise Island idea (if not the execution, necessarily).
I agree, you are totally right there. STAS Kara did have attitude and it was great, but the brand of it being served up in the comics seems much much more blatant and pandering to a Hollywood view of teenage girls. Theres a little of that going on with Kara In-Ze as well but I truly feel in the comics it's coming across much more severe.
As far as her living situation ideally I'd have her be with the Kents but yeah that spot is taken up by Superboy. I think it would have been better to just let him live with the Titans or even better zap him into the Legion or just get rid of him. Conceptually I just think he's a bad idea.
As for your statement on the Silver Age, while I can agree the orphanage thing is questionable. But to my mind the dynamics between the two always indicated a very sweet girl who had alot of admiration for her famous cousin and regradless of the orpahange thing there, I enjoy that.
Involving Batman in her origin and having her stay with the Amazons..it's just too ..outiside, in my view. I guess it's one area where it should be less focused on her and the rest of DC Universe and a bit more on her and Superman at least to start with. It almost seems like they are trying to rush this new Supergirl into the prominece that the orginal Kara had in issue 8 (was it?) of COIE.
The whole "she might be more powerful than Superman" just smacks of overcompensation to me.
Now, as for the Golden Age Supermans appearence please don't get me wrong. I had just as much of a fanboy moment as anyone else when I saw that. Totally wonderful! It cannot help but make you go "hell yeah!" inside.
But this is the same think-tank that gave us Idenitity Crisis and fed us the lie about All-Star being a general audience book only to hand it to Frank Miller allowing him to take Batman to brand new level of Bat-D**kery.
I simply do not trust this company to give us a spark of light without also stabbing us in the back and then calling it "relevence". I don't like to be cynical nor do I think it's a badge of honor. Usually I'd like to think I'm not cynical about most things.
But when it comes to DC Comics, I'm sorry but I'm very cynical at this point. The track record speaks for itself and then theres also the fact that the dark stuff is still selling. So the fans are just as much to blame for this as DC is. Even people who hated Idenity Crisis still paid their own money to buy it, and *then* complain about it. So the machine is still being fed. From where I stand, the cycle seems to be continuing.