I was really pissed off with what they did to Jimmy Olsen. Look, I get that things have to change for the modern era, but there’s decades and decades of comics that give Jimmy a particular look, and this show just pisses all over that to make it seem more “hip” and “edgy.” Well, that’s bullshit. Tradition means something. History means something. And Jimmy Olson wears a fucking bowtie!
Mehcad Brooks was good casting, though.
Also (and more seriously) it bothered me that she just didn’t use her powers for ten years, and it bothered me more that she was apparently browbeat into it by her sister. I get that they wanted to have a reason for her to start her superheroing career as young woman, and not a thirteen year old, but there’s a mechanism for explaining already in the Superman mythos: Kryptonian physiology works like a solar battery, and it takes time to charge it up to superhuman levels - say, about ten years or so, and the pilot opens when she’s just starting to hit real super powers. Saving the plane isn’t the first time she’s flown in a few years, it’s the first she’s flown, ever. The first time she stops a bullet, it’s a lot scarier, because she doesn’t know for sure if she’s that strong yet. It also gives them a mechanism to gradually salt more abilities in as necessary, instead of throwing them all at the audience at once.
The fact that her first enemy was Vartox the Destroyer actually gives me a lot of hope, because that’s both a deep, and deeply ironic, continuity cut. This is Vartox in the comics. If he looks a little familiar, it’s because he’s modeled on this guy. Yes, that’s Sean Connery.* Sean Connery and misogyny already go together like vodka and vermouth, but that particular character is from the film Zardoz, which famously features a giant floating stone head that vomits guns on people while shouting “The penis is evil!”
What I’m saying is, if you want a minor character for Supergirl to fight that’s already dripping** with gender politics, Vartox is a fantastic choice.
*Or, possibly, Frank Zappa.
**Ew.