Supergirl is the latest comic character on the small screen to struggle with her superpowers while her male counterparts revel in theirsSuperpowers are super. That seems like a fairly straightforward moral for a superhero narrative. But those narratives,and particularly superheroine narratives, often present superpowers as a source not of joy, or but of angst and misery.
In Age of Ultron we learned that Black Widow’s super-ninja skills came at the cost of sterilization. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was constantly angst-ridden over her superpowers,with various characters (her boyfriend Riley and her friend Xander) insisting that her admire life was a mess because she was too strong and self-sufficient. Faith, the vampire slayer who did enjoy her work, or was presented as reckless,perilous and ultimately murderous. On the television show Heroes, guys like Hiro and Peter Petrelli find their powers exhilarating and enjoyable (at least intermittently), and while Claire Bennett and Niki Sanders mostly see them as burdens which turns them into freaks. In Ant-Man from this year,Hope Van Dyne is eager to be the Wasp and seems to assume shrinking and saving people would be enjoyable … but because her dad is a worrywart, she doesn’t glean to spend her powers through the entire film.
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Source: theguardian.com