by: S. Scott Stanikmas

So this is what passes for a villain?

We’ve seen a myriad of pictures and some trailers from CBS’ upcoming superhero drama Supergirl and a lot of it looks very promising. Melissa Benoist as the titular Girl of Steel has a great presence and looks like she’ll make a great Supergirl.

But looking at who she’ll be going up against…well that’s another story. I’m always of the mind that any superhero movie is only as good as its villain and it would seem Supergirl is getting the short end of the stick with hers.

The Kryptonian hero will go toe-to-toe with the Red Tornado. In the printed world, Red Tornado is a synthetic lifeform (android) that is a hero. In the TV world he happens to be a weapon designed for the U.S. miltary. But he gains sentience and that spells bad news for everyone.

CBS released the following image to get the fans excited:

Wow…just, wow.

That looks horrible. It has the look of someone that wanted to cosplay as The Vision but got the color scheme way wrong. It looks like a bad Halloween costume.

I get that they can’t use the comic book version. The bright red colors would be a bit much and the yellow arrow on the top of his head would remind people too much of Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender. But when you’re creating an artificial lifeform, you need to look at how technology has advanced. Many things get sleeker and slimmer, not bulky and clunky. The actual cloth costume just looks ridiculous.

I’m hoping the character is actually better on TV than he looks in that picture. I have high hopes for Supergirl after the successes of shows like Arrow and Flash. DC Comics properties tend to do pretty well on the small screen, so I’m willing to wait and see on this one.