DC Officially Takes Down Supergirl Movie Merch That Featured A Star Wars Character

A Supergirl movie merch from DC’s online store recently caused a stir on social media when it featured an unexpected Star Wars character. The item was a metal print artwork tied to the Craig Gillespie-directed film. The artwork shows Kara Zor-El surrounded by the strange aliens she meets on her trip across the galaxy. Fans soon noticed that one of those alien characters looked far more at home in a galaxy far, far away than anywhere in the DC Universe.

DC has now taken the promotional art down. The product page no longer loads on the official store, and the old link brings up a 404 error in place of the artwork. The removal followed days of online buzz, once fans recognized the odd alien as Lexo Sooger, a background figure cut from the 2017 Star Wars film The Last Jedi. Neither DC nor Lucasfilm has explained how a Star Wars creature wandered into the marketing for one of DC’s biggest releases of the year. 

Interestingly, the Supergirl film does seem to include a tall, long-necked alien of its own, and its name is Screecher. The two aliens look very similar, and there's a chance that Screecher's design was inspired by Lexo Sooger, leading to the mix-up.

While the controversy was building and before the Supergirl movie merch came down, the film's marketing team posted an Instagram video of Jason Momoa next to Screecher. Momoa, who plays the cigar-smoking bounty hunter Lobo in the film, introduced Screecher to the world, interacting with it in the clip. It is not clear whether the team shared the footage to prove the alien was different from Lexo Sooger or simply as part of the usual promotion, but the timing does seem interesting.

The two aliens are not quite the same, though. Screecher’s mouth opens into a lower jaw, while Lexo Sooger’s does not. The back of Screecher's head is also elongated, while that of Sooger is round. Although the two designs look similar, they are distinct enough to avoid a mix-up, making the ensuing drama all the more strange. It remains unclear whether DC altered the character's appearance only after the alien's artwork sparked online drama.

How Significant Is DC’s Decision To Take Down the Controversial Supergirl Merch? 

Pulling the artwork down looks like a clean-up rather than a tease, like some fans were thinking. A real crossover between DC and Star Wars is officially off the table. Removing the product is the simplest way for DC to close the book on an awkward slip during a major marketing run.

Supergirl arrives in theaters on June 26, with Milly Alcock starring as Kara Zor-El. DC has ramped up the rollout with new trailers and fresh waves of merchandise, so a viral mistake about a Star Wars alien is the last kind of attention the studio wanted this close to release. It makes perfect sense that they took the art down to quell all the drama.

There is a small irony in all of this as well. Bilquis Evely, the artist who made the promo merch, is not some outside hire who got the two franchises confused. She drew Woman of Tomorrow, the very comic that inspired the film, which means the artist closest to Supergirl’s source material is the one who slipped a Star Wars face into the lineup. 

But to be fair, someone may have accidentally sent her Lexo Sooger's image as an art reference, directly causing the mix-up. For now, the movie merch is gone, and the only place this strange DC and Star Wars overlap still lives is in fan screenshots.