'Supergirl' Season 4

NEW FRIENDS & FOES TRANSFORM NATIONAL CITY FOR SEASON FOUR OF SUPERGIRL

Three New Characters Announced at Saturday’s Comic-Con Panel — Including Nicole Maines as the First Transgender Superhero on TV

BURBANK, Calif. (July 21, 2018) — With the reign of Reign ended in last season’s finale, cast and producers of The CW/Warner Bros. Television’s hit drama Supergirl took the stage at the show’s Comic-Con 2018 panel session to reveal that the DC Super Hero series will welcome three new cast members for the upcoming 2018–19 season — including TV’s first transgender superhero. Transgender activist Nicole Maines (Royal Pains, The Trans List, Becoming Nicole book) will join the show in the series regular role of Nia Nal, aka Dreamer. In addition to Maines, Supergirl fans can look forward to the addition of the following new cast members: series regular April Parker Jones (Jericho, The Last Ship) as Colonel Haley and David Ajala (Dr. Who, Nightflyers, The Dark Knight), who will recur as Manchester Black.

Nia Nal (Nicole Maines) is the newest addition to the CatCo reporting team. A soulful young transgender woman with a fierce drive to protect others, Nia’s journey this season means fulfilling her destiny as the superhero Dreamer (much like Kara came into her own as Supergirl).

Hardline career military woman Colonel Haley (April Parker Jones) lives and dies by the orders of her commanding officers. Dedicated to her country, she always acts in its best interest — even if it’s not her own.

Based on the iconic DC character, Manchester Black (David Ajala) is the type of guy who brings a knife to a gunfight and still walks away the winner. With a dark past, he easily deflects the brutality of his mission with his charm and sense of humor.

These three cast members join the previously announced new series regulars Jesse Rath (who plays the Legion of Super Heroes’ Brainiac-5) and Sam Witwer (who will play Agent Liberty).

Supergirl returns for its fourth season on October 14 in its new Sunday 8/7c time period on The CW. Based on the DC characters created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the series is executive produced by Greg Berlanti, Sarah Schechter, Robert Rovner and Jessica Queller. Supergirl is produced by Berlanti Productions in association with Warner Bros. Television.

David Ajala

April Parker Jones

Nicole Maines

I saw the season premiere. Some thoughts:

It opens with a spirit of fun, Supergirl frying a piece of falling debris with her heat vision and returning a balloon to an appreciative little girl. For my taste, there is never enough of that kind of stuff.
CatCo is back? Okay.
But Snapper Carr still isn't? Bummer. I didn't like the guy all that much -- I don't favor curmudgeons -- but absent Cat Grant, he was the one somebody there who seemed like he knew what he was doing.
Case in point, Ron Troupe -- or, rather, James (Not Jimmy) Olsen. Bad enough he's still canoodling with Lena Luthor -- that is, the CEO of the company canoodling with the company owner, which is all kinds of wrong, even without #MeToo era -- he goes to press conferences? And still runs budget meetings? Aren't CEOs supposed to be doing other things? And wouldn't doing those other things leave him no time for going to press conferences and running budget meetings?
No sign whatsoever of Reign and her daughter? GOOD. That whole business sucked all the air out of the show last season.
Always glad to see President Wonder Woman.
How, exactly, is Alex beating up on the agents supposed to be a good thing?
Why is Brainiac 5 not wearing his natural hair color and skin tone?
Some less-than-subtle meta commentary on being not part of the dominant culture. It threw me when the young guy in the support group was grateful for getting a job because he looks "normal." Glad the older guy called him out on believing "normal" is "not looking like yourself."
I found Supergirl dismissing J'onn when he told her about the threats to aliens personally, painfully grating. Probably because it rang so true. Sometimes your worst enemy is your self-professed ally who is so certain of their fairness they are blind to the most basic unfairness of all: refusing to listen.
Lena just can't help being a Luthor, can she? Helping out her man by finagling a way to get the charges against him dropped? Not cool. But then, it backfires, in a way she learns about immediately -- if Not Jimmy Olsen suits up again as Guardian, he'll get busted. And what Lena doesn't learn immediately? Trading dirt on Mannheim to get the charges dropped is exactly what her mother wanted.
On the other hand, why is Not Jimmy Olsen so confident things will work out when he apparently doesn't even have a lawyer? As someone pointed out in a comment I saw elsewhere, why does he first find out the charges were dropped from a news report, and not from his attorney?
How, exactly, did the news station get that footage of President Wonder Woman being exposed as an alien? There are no TV cameras at Camp David.
And Commie Supergirl is in training, under the train Supergirl froze to the tracks days ago before it reached the collapsed bridge. That must be some really cold ice!

Replies

Richard Willis October 12, 2018 at 2:48pm

Supergirl returns on Sunday October 14 (now on Sundays instead of Mondays).
ClarkKent_DC October 16, 2018 at 12:39pm
I saw the season premiere. Some thoughts:
- It opens with a spirit of fun, Supergirl frying a piece of falling debris with her heat vision and returning a balloon to an appreciative little girl. For my taste, there is never enough of that kind of stuff.
- CatCo is back? Okay.
- But Snapper Carr still isn't? Bummer. I didn't like the guy all that much -- I don't favor curmudgeons -- but absent Cat Grant, he was the one somebody there who seemed like he knew what he was doing.
- Case in point, Ron Troupe -- or, rather, James (Not Jimmy) Olsen. Bad enough he's still canoodling with Lena Luthor -- that is, the CEO of the company canoodling with the company owner, which is all kinds of wrong, even without #MeToo era -- he goes to press conferences? And still runs budget meetings? Aren't CEOs supposed to be doing other things? And wouldn't doing those other things leave him no time for going to press conferences and running budget meetings?
- No sign whatsoever of Reign and her daughter? GOOD. That whole business sucked all the air out of the show last season.
- Always glad to see President Wonder Woman.
- How, exactly, is Alex beating up on the agents supposed to be a good thing?
- Why is Brainiac 5 not wearing his natural hair color and skin tone?
- Some less-than-subtle meta commentary on being not part of the dominant culture. It threw me when the young guy in the support group was grateful for getting a job because he looks "normal." Glad the older guy called him out on believing "normal" is "not looking like yourself."
- I found Supergirl dismissing J'onn when he told her about the threats to aliens personally, painfully grating. Probably because it rang so true. Sometimes your worst enemy is your self-professed ally who is so certain of their fairness they are blind to the most basic unfairness of all: refusing to listen.
- Lena just can't help being a Luthor, can she? Helping out her man by finagling a way to get the charges against him dropped? Not cool. But then, it backfires, in a way she learns about immediately -- if Not Jimmy Olsen suits up again as Guardian, he'll get busted. And what Lena doesn't learn immediately? Trading dirt on Mannheim to get the charges dropped is exactly what her mother wanted.
- On the other hand, why is Not Jimmy Olsen so confident things will work out when he apparently doesn't even have a lawyer? As someone pointed out in a comment I saw elsewhere, why does he first find out the charges were dropped from a news report, and not from his attorney?
- How, exactly, did the news station get that footage of President Wonder Woman being exposed as an alien? There are no TV cameras at Camp David.
- And Commie Supergirl is in training, under the train Supergirl froze to the tracks days ago before it reached the collapsed bridge. That must be some really cold ice!
Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod) October 16, 2018 at 12:46pm

I was wondering if the final Commie Supergirl scene wasn't a flashback: Her underground punching was what shook the tracks apart, which is what Supergirl responded to with the ice, but when she left, Commie Supergirl just kept punching.

As for the footage, I figure Mercy and Otis (have they ever been related before?) had a drone record the attack, and then sent the footage themselves.
Richard Willis October 16, 2018 at 1:12pm

I don't think a drone or anything else could fly over Camp David and survive.
ClarkKent_DC October 16, 2018 at 1:15pm

Yeah, but if Mercy and Otis infiltrated Camp David, it's not too much of a stretch to think they brought the drone with them.
Captain Comics October 16, 2018 at 1:32pm

I don't recall Otis and Mercy being related before, although it does make their mutual introduction much smoother.

Another thing they have in common: Both were introduced somewhere other than comics. Correct me if I'm wrong (please!) but Mercy was introduced in Superman: The Animated Series and Otis in Superman: The Movie. And while Mercy became a comics character eventually, I don't think Otis ever has.
ClarkKent_DC October 16, 2018 at 1:41pm

Captain Comics said:

I don't recall Otis and Mercy being related before, although it does make their mutual introduction much smoother.

Another thing they have in common: Both were introduced somewhere other than comics. Correct me if I'm wrong (please!) but Mercy was introduced in Superman: The Animated Series and Otis in Superman: The Movie. And while Mercy became a comics character eventually, I don't think Otis ever has.

Correct you are! (See here, entry No. 8).
Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod) October 16, 2018 at 3:26pm

Yeah, that was my thinking too.

ClarkKent_DC said:

Yeah, but if Mercy and Otis infiltrated Camp David, it's not too much of a stretch to think they brought the drone with them.
ClarkKent_DC October 19, 2018 at 9:20am

Supergirl is looking for its Lex Luthor, says The Hollywood Reporter: "'Supergirl' to Introduce Lex Luthor in Season 4"
Luke Blanchard October 19, 2018 at 9:52am

Captain Comics said:

Correct me if I'm wrong (please!) but Mercy was introduced in Superman: The Animated Series

I think she was modelled after a female driver businessman Luthor had in the John Byrne era. She was called Cynthia in "Metropolis 900 Mi" from Superman #9 (1987) and also appeared in Adventures of Superman #437.

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