Power Girl Special #1 review

Posted on by martingray1

After three short stories in the back of Action Comics, Power Girl punches her way into a one-off special… and gets a back-up of her own.

The storyline continues from Peege’s recent run, with JSA villain Johnny Sorrow revealed as the reason Super folk – Beast Boy, Supergirl and Jon Kent – have been having psychic problems. Peege, under the tutelage of mentalist Omen, aka classic Teen Titan Lilith, has been helping using the psychic powers she developed after the Lazarus rain. But with Johnny Sorrow revealed, and Metropolis in thrall to him, what now?

Lots of psychic punching. Confusingly conceived sub-villains.

And angst. So much angst.

I’ve been following this story since it started in Action Comics #1051 and the problems I’ve had, I still have. Superhero battles on a psychic plane are terribly nebulous and despite what we’re told, they don’t feel like they have real stakes. The overwrought internal dialogue is a slog to read. And Power Girl as a sad, lonely, rejected woman is ridiculous. Writer Leah Williams tries to justify this portrayal of comics’ first modern feminist heroine…

… but it’s not convincing. The reason so many of us love Power Girl is that she knows who she is. She’s worked through her issues a long time ago. And she’s certainly not afraid of her sexuality, worried about how men look at her. By the end of this issue, Power Girl – I refuse to use the stupid, unnecessary new forename Williams, via Jon Kent, has given our heroine – is more at peace in the world. Sadly, she’s at the start of a better road rather than back to being the kickass superhero she’s always been. She does have a new power – an America Chavez-like mental punch that can punch realities – but she’s diminished.

Williams seems to have had an idea for a storyline but didn’t know which character to plug into it. For some reason, Power Girl got the short straw. She’s the one ruminating on what it means to feel so very alone, the relationship between love and grief, and so on. The writing isn’t bad, but it’s wrong for Power Girl – she’s not a newly minted space orphan, she’s a veteran hero, at the forefront of the second generation of the modern DC canon – she’s been around since 1976!

The mis-fit is shown by scenes such as this, as she thinks about her relationship with the Super Family.

For one thing, this group has only been together for a few weeks or something, they’re not that bonded. Also, not a single one of them – Kenan, Kon-El, Jon, Otho, Osul – is as Kryptonian as she is. It’s forced angst.

On the one hand, perhaps I should simply accept that I’m not the intended audience for Williams’ story. On the other, I’m a longtime Power Girl fan, dating to her second appearance, and I’m pretty attached. I’ve seen her go through a lot of awful stories – losing her origin, having a magic baby – but her basic character has remained the same: feisty, confident, smart. Does this sound like Power Girl?

A woman in so much pain it causes psychic reverberations across dimensions. This is Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow level nonsense. It harms a classic character.

The battle against Johnny Sorrow concludes because Power Girl’s astral punch ‘breaks illusions’. Random. Again, why is this supposedly a Power Girl story? She already has immense power while Lilith has marvellously undefined psychic ability – I’m sure she could work up an astral punch or two.

After the brawl is over, the Super Family reassure Power Girl that they all love her loads and loads and Superman shows up in a full page ‘here comes God’ splash to bestow his approval on her. It’s cringey.

At the end of the book Kara gets a cat. Mind, it’s Supergirl’s cat, Streaky, who Williams seems to be morphing into Peege’s longtime companion, Stinky. So that’s weird. Doesn’t Kara want to keep her cat? This is the interaction that convinces the kitty Power Girl’s lap is where he wants to be.

That’s just bizarre, and disturbing. I’ve had cats all my life, punching a pussy isn’t endearing to them.

Let’s accentuate the positives. By the end of the book Peege does seem to be over her out-of-nowhere resentment of the Super Family. Psychic bond disconnected, Lilith says she wants to stay Power Girl’s pal. Our heroine’s classic costume shows up for a couple of panels and looks amazing… hey, I’ll take what I can get.

Marguerite Sauvage’s art, coloured by herself and Marissa Louise, is a treat, ice cream for the eyes (eyes cream?). There are occasional oddly rendered facial lines…

… is Peege pressing her brow, then nose, against a window? For the most part, though, this is exemplary work. Power Girl’s body language is cracking, and the strange new worlds look suitably eerie. I especially enjoy Sauvage’s depiction of Johnny Sorrow as the suavest of menaces, and those nutty Horsemen are lovely, like sinister Lalique sculptures. And Sauvage gives good cat.

The letters from Becca Carey are an asset to the pages, clear and colourful.

There’s a second story, setting up an upcoming Fire and Ice mini-series. Bea and Tora are fighting a natural disaster in Baltimore, having been sent there by the Titans, presumably in their new role as Justice League Fill-In. They’re doing well until local boy Guy Gardner shows up and throws a spanner in the works.

Fire and Guy get into an argument over Bea – he’s his usual pushy self, she’s typically overprotective – but the ginger GL flies off when Superman drops by. He mildly chastises the ladies for endangering local people by engaging in a metahuman battle of the egos, which is fair enough. But then.

Could he be more condescending? Fire and Ice are international players on the superhero scene, they’ve proved themselves in battle again and again. Also, the residents of Smallville will be moiderised by Despero within the week. Surely some other set-up could have got them to a small town?

That apart, I rather enjoyed this; Bea and Tora are in character, ditto Guy, and I love that writer Joanna Starer references his coming from Baltimore, it feels like decades since someone remembered. The banter speaks to character and I like that this short is tied to current DCU doings – of course JLI stalwarts Fire and Ice would feel slighted that the Titans are getting to order them about.

I like Natasha Bustos’ linework, it’s full of life in a charming Archie style, with colour artist Tamra Bonvillain more than pulling her weight in terms of adding detail and depth. I especially like that when fully on fire Bea looks like Bea, rather than a green Human Torch, and how the stray headband helps convey motion. And Ariana Maher does a great job with the letters.

I’ll certainly be buying the upcoming Fire and Ice: Welcome to Smallville book – sneakily nodded to in that final story panel – on the basis of this strip, it looks like it’ll be uncomplicated fun featuring two beloved characters.

Oh, and Power Girl is also getting a series to follow this special.

18 thoughts on “Power Girl Special #1 review”

  1. “Oh, and Power Girl is also getting a series to follow this special.”

    Burn!

    I was planning to get the PG series, but have changed my mind. This has been a bizarre story!

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  2. That’s put a dampener on my day. I, too, have long been a PG fan and have been happy she’s been getting more attention lately. Not being a Superman reader, I guessed the Action Comics back-ups would be collected and have pre-ordered it, and will be picking up the special this weekend, and am planning to get the ongoing.

    What little I’ve read by Leah Williams I’ve enjoyed, and that gave me hope that PG would be in good hands. Was my faith misplaced? I guess time will tell.

    “having a magic baby” – come on, now, Martin – you know we don’t talk about that! 😀

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  3. I haven’t read the special yet, but from the Action Comics chapters I’ve read so far, I agree: this isn’t the Power Girl we know, and the Power Girl that I’m a fan of. They’ve changed her secret ID, changed her costume, changed her powerset, changed her outlook on life. What’s the point?

    I’ve been listening for a while now to the Wait What podcast’s Baxter Building, and I’m one episode away from the Tom Defalco/Paul Ryan re-imagining/redesign of Sue Storm to her gun-toting 90s persona, in the revealing cutout costume with the thigh-high boots that she sported for a while. This reinvention of PG feels on par with that train wreck.

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    1. I’ll disagree on the Sue comparison. Wrongheaded as the ho’ costume era was it did evolve out of previous actions. The creative team should have gone in any other way but there was a progression. This ridiculous person who we’ve been reading about is something that came out of nowhere and ignored every other Power Girl story ever.

      That said, I’m a ho’ too and PG (NEVER PAIGE!) is one of those characters I must follow. I won’t enjoy it but I’ll be getting every issue.

      Damn it…

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      1. Steve, you’re no worse than the rest of us, we all have characters we can’t stop following. I hope I’m strong with Peege, but I’m as weak as ever with Supergirl.

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    2. Thinking on, I came to the podcast pretty late in the day so much good listening awaits. As for Sue’s cut-out ‘4’ costume, well, she was starting to feel like an old frump in that tedious, outdated jumpsuit. And the mullet was worse!

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  4. The internet doesn’t surprise me a lot these days, but if anything, I thought with my Sue comparison, I’d be accused of being to hard on PG. I never thought anyone would defend Sue’s 90s “4” cut-out!

    But I haven’t actually read those issues — just recoiled in 90s-infused terror — so maybe you know something I don’t!

    I’m also…ick… softening my stance on the name change. It’s still totally out of left field, character-wise, but I can see a positive reason for DC to make the change to Paige (rather than negative reasons for avoiding Karen). When I write about Power Girl, I’m likely either going to say PG or Peej — never Karen. That name is a detail of her life, and should have a lot more relevance to her than to me, but if DC is relaunching her, I can see wanting to her to have a name that sounds like what her fans actually call her. (Which was Jon’s logic, aside from acknowledging the readers.) It makes sense from a character design perspective. I just can’t see PG changing her name unless the Karen Starr ID was somehow made harmful for her to maintain.

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  5. Go away, Leah Williams, go away; what has Power Girl ever done to you that you would write her so badly? Hah. Williams’s writing here really is dunderheaded, and DC are dimwitted in letting her write a Power Girl who is Power Girl in-name-only. Quite why Kara – that’s her NAME! She’s as much Kara as Supergirl – would decide to call herself Paige (is she a fan of Nicolette Sheridan in Knots Landing?) is puzzling. The apparent out-of-universe reason that cretins think “Karen” connotes a certain kind of personality is too idiotic for words. It’s like when Dick Grayson briefly became “Ric” (not even RicK!) as goofballs might have thought his first name could only be used as slang for a penis. (I don’t know that was *definitely* the case but I think it highly likely.) Great googly moogly. Are people *that* thick?
    If Leah Williams wanted to write this boring over-angsty character why didn’t she just do the decent thing and have her be a new character entirely… Ah, because it’s easier to sucker people by pretending a new character is a familiar decades-old character. *Now* it makes sense!
    Williams’s decision to replace Stinky the cat with Streaky is another stupid idea. Why in the name of GOB Bluth would she think that was a good idea. From her Power Girl work it seems Leah Williams is a terrible and egotistical writer, one who might imagine herself Alan Moore but is more Rogrer Moore as Sherlock Holmes (I like Roger as Bond but his Holmes was Godawful casting), perhaps she’s good elsewhere but from this example it appears she’s one of those dreadful writers who write a character OUT of character and change them illogically to no good end. Boo!
    Even the art gets Power Girl wrong, she’s supposed to be built like a brick you-know-what-house. Well, that’s all I have to say about this garbage!
    P.S. Bea and Tora in Small ville? Bea and Tora being ordered around by the Titans? As if. In the late Eighties/ early Nineties writers (and Greg Rucka in Checkmate) would remember Fire and Ice *aren’t* American and that there’s a big wide world out there for them to adventure in. DC Editorial need a smack. Thus ends rant #2! See you!

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  6. I’ve read the Power Girl part of the special now; it’s just more of the same: Sauvage’s lovely, stylized art, over Williams’s (and DC’s — Williams shouldn’t take all the blame here) fundamental misunderstanding of the character. No more for me.

    Haven’t read the Fire & Ice backup yet — I want to be in a better state of mind when I approach it.

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Published by martingray1

Journalist, comic reviewer, theatre critic, film lover, biscuit fan, cat indulger