The New Supergirl Movie May Try to Reinvent Big-Screen Flying in the DCU, But It's Been a Long Road to Get Here From There

You will believe a man can fly. Or in this case, a girl. But not just fly. In Supergirl (review), the latest movie from James Gunn’s DCU, the Girl of Steel has her own particular style of flying, using the ability as a sort of unique form of martial arts at times. “I kind of liked her having her own flying style, because I think she's so herself in every sense of the word,” star Milly Alcock recently told me. “She can only ever be exactly who she is, so it makes sense that she wouldn't conform.” But it’s been quite a journey to go from the early days of onscreen Kryptonian flying to today’s high-tech methods – and it’s rarely been an easy path along the way. So with the help of the Woman of Tomorrow herself, Milly Alcock, and Supergirl’s director Craig Gillespie, let’s trace the earliest attempts to depict super-flight in movies and TV, and the heights that have been achieved in the modern DC movies. Of course, there've been a ton of superhero movies over the years, and many of them have featured some form of flying or another. But Superman- and Supergirl-style flight has always been the trailblazer to which all other airbound characters have looked. In the case of Alcock’s Supergi