This article contains full OF Supergirl spoilers.At the climax of Supergirl, Ruthye Marye Knoll (Eve Ridley) has finally found her prey. The young adolescent and Supergirl (Milly Alcock) have spent the film chasing down of the Yellow Hills (Matthias Schoenaerts), who murdered the Ruthye’s family while poisoning the hero’s dog. Throughout their journey, Ruthye insisted that she must kill Krem in revenge, a plan that Supergirl categorically rejects. Yet that’s exactly what Supergirl does at the end of the movie, administering a fatal stab to Krem, one for each of the wrongs he’s committed against Kara and her young charge.Supergirl’s decision to execute Krem doesn’t just contradict the morals she professed in the film, it contradicts the behavior of most DC Comics superheroes, especially Kryptonians who wear an “S” on their chest. More specifically still, it contradicts the comic miniseries Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, in which writer Tom King and artist Bilquis Evely imagine a different resolution to the threat of Krem. Yet Supergirl manages to justify this decision with how it makes both Supergirl and her wholesome cousin Superman far more interesting characterscnx.cmd.push(function() {cnx({playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530",}).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796");});The Woman of Tomorrow, YesterdayEven though it trades Evely’s sumptuous artwork for Guardians of the Galaxy earthtones, and King’s True Grit-inspired prose for standard blockbuster dialogue, Supergirl retains Woman of Tomorrow‘s plot. In both stories, Ruthye Marye convinces a hard-drinking Supergirl to help her find the murderer Krem of the Yellow Hills. When Krem injures Krypto, Supergirl gets all the motivation she needs, and she and Ruthye Marye chase Krem across the galaxy. Along the way, our hero muses about living in the shadow of Superman and ponders her moral code.As in the movie, Ruthye attempts to execute her enemy at the end of the Woman of Tomorrow comic. But on the page, Ruthye cannot do it, no matter how many times she tries to deliver the final blow. Supergirl arrives and confesses that she could not teach Ruthye to give up her thirst for vengeance, because she still burns with anger still about the destruction of Krypton. To spare Ruthye from the cost of vengeance, Supergirl decides to kill Krem herself, but Ruthye stops her.Instead Supergirl ultimately takes Krem to the Phantom Zone, that ethereal dimension where Kryptonians send their worst criminals. The comic then jumps ahead centuries into the future where an eternally young Supergirl visits an elderly Ruthye. She brings Krem with her, who has has spent enough lifetimes in self-reflection to sincerely repent his crimes. With tears in his eyes, the old man begs for forgiveness.Even though the older Ruthye ultimately whacks the defeated, emaciated Krem upside the head with her staff instead of offering her forgiveness, the comic’s ending is very different from the one in the movie. Clearly the film approaches the concept of goodness and revenge from another angle, complete with Kara slitting the villain’s throat with Ruthye’s sword. But it works because of the changes that director Craig Gillespie and screenwriter Ana Nogueira made to the source material.Krem of the Darkest NightmaresIt takes no more than a glance to see that Schoenaerts plays a Krem of the Yellow Hills differently from his comic book counterpart. In the King and Evely story, Krem was a closer analogue to Tom Chaney from True Grit, a sniveling coward and opportunist. The comic book Krem killed Ruthye’s father because he was sucking up to the king. He bribes his way into the Brigands, here little more than space pirates, by offering to help attack a nearby town, hoping they’ll spare him in their genocidal plans and help fend off the pursuing Supergirl.Conversely, Supergirl makes Krem into a superhuman marauder and sex trafficker. Krem of the comics shoots Krypto while hiding in the grass, a sneak attack. Krem of the movie shoots Krypto because he can, barely looking up from his cereal bowl when committing this act of cruelty. Throughout the movie, we see Krem kill others, even children, with equal disregard. He and his Brigands capture young girls and force them to appease the desires of his men, calling them “brides.” Furthermore, he possesses incredible strength, able to catch a falling tank with one arm.In other words, Supergirl makes Krem more dangerous and more evil than the character from the comics. If Supergirl were to walk away from him at the end of the movie, he would surely just get a whole new band of Brigands and continue terrorizing women. Even if we accept that the DCU has Green Lanterns, Thanagarian Hawkpeople, and other intergalactic peacekeepers from the comics, Krem represents a threat that cannot be stopped through normal means, and one delights in his immunity to morality or rehabiliation.At this point, one might point out that Supergirl and Krem are fictional characters, and aren’t bound by rules other than those made up by the storytellers. So if Gillespie and Nogueira wanted to spare Supergirl from executing Krem, they could have made up a different way to stop him, as strong and evil as he was. Which means that Supergirl’s decision to kill Krem is part of the movie’s worldview, a worldview that the movie works to build before the climax.Did Supergirl Lose?Supergirl has two thematic arcs in this film. The more obvious involves her feeling homeless since the destruction of Argo City and the death of her parents. She begins the movie wandering across the cosmos, and flashbacks to her youth and arrival on Earth emphasize that sense of dislocation. The film’s actual ending, with her telling Clark that she and Krypto plan to stay on Earth, completes that arc.The second relates to the first, but it may feel less coherent because of the contradiction between Kara’s words and actions. As in the comics, Supergirl constantly warns Ruthye against taking vengeance, which makes her decision to kill Krem on its face seem disingenuous. But the movie also shows us how Kara wrestles with the idea of goodness throughout the story. Unlike Bradley Cooper’s Jor-El, Kara parents tell her that she must be good when she arrives on Earth, especially since she’ll possess greater powers than humans. David Corenswet’s Clark repeats that charge when she lands on Earth, giving her a costume like his because it represents goodness.Yet Kara realizes that she can’t share Clark’s morality. Superman “sees the good in everyone,” she explains, while she “sees the truth.” Supergirl explicitly ties that more complicated viewpoint to Kara’s upbringing. She feels the loss of her parents more keenly than Clark, not just because she actually knew life among her parents and the Kryptonians, but because she arrived on a hostile, aggressive planet, seemingly absent the loving guidance of Ma and Pa Kent.The first two acts of Supergirl treat that inability to see goodness as a shortcoming on Kara’s part. But by the time we hit the climax, she’s come to realize that her morality isn’t flawed—it’s just different. She can look at the complexities of the world, see hurting that’s sharper and more subtle than Clark would notice, simply because she understands hurting on a deeper level. Kara agrees that execution, even a just execution, rots the soul, which is why she prevents Ruthye from doing the deed. But she believes that her suffering has already robbed her of that innocence, of that unvarnished soul, so she does the most heroic thing she can do. She protects Ruthye’s innonce by stopping Krem herself and taking on that rot.It’s not the goodness of Superman. It’s a messy, complicated, imperfect goodness. But it’s a goodness nonetheless.Maid of Might and Man of SteelNo one watching Supergirl can avoid thinking about the ending of Zack Snyder‘s Man of Steel. That movie put Superman against a similarly unstoppable threat, the Kryptonian conqueror Zod, who promised that he would never end his attacks on Earth. With no other choice was available, Superman chooses to execute Zod by snapping his neck.For many longtime Superman fans, even those who know that Superman also executes Zod in 1988’s Superman #22, the moment felt like a betrayal. It not only demonstrated a lack of imagination on the part of Snyder and his writers, who had a powerful fantasy character in Superman but couldn’t imagine what saving the day looked like, but also a misunderstanding of Superman’s fundamental morality. Superman helps and inspires people; he doesn’t destroy.Those who defend Man of Steel point to the scream of anguish that Superman unleashes after killing Zod. While that moment does indicate that Superman feels bad about his decision, it’s too brief, too easily ignored, and too immediately glossed over to be taken seriously. Contrast it to the many ruminations on goodness and vengeance in Supergirl. By the time Kara decides to kill Krem, we know that she’s already considered the cost. She accepts the weight of her actions intentionally, fully cognizant of what she’s doing, because she wants to save Ruthye.In contrast to Man of Steel, Supergirl’s decision also saves Superman. The DCU Superman is special not just because of David Corenswet’s charming and guileless performance, but also because he insists that his power be used purely for good. He will avoid at all costs anything that makes people feel afraid, and he believes that even Lex Luthor can be redeemed because he thinks the good that Lex could bring to the world outweighs the harm he intends.It’s a beautiful fantasy, and it’s a fantasy that the world needs. And it’s a fantasy that Superman can continue to have because his cousin is willing to do what he cannot. Supergirl helps Superman be the wholesome paragon that the DCU needs, by embracing her own complicated and messy goodness.Supergirl is now playing in theaters.The post Supergirl’s Shocking Ending Changes the Book, the Character, and Works appeared first on Den of Geek.