Power Girl #1 review

Posted on by martingray1

It’s an exciting day for Power Girl. She has a brand new secret identity…

… a brand new mission…

… and a brand-new foe.

Well, brand new to Power Girl. Older readers and back issue bin bargain hunters might recognise the name and costume colours – Amalak was a Silver/Bronze Age Superman villain and here’s the 2023 version. He’s actually pretty fun, a cocky sod out to nick those alien artefacts Power Girl has up for auction at her coming out party.

With the help of Omen, Power Girl beats back Amalak and his alien army, but makes a schoolgirl error when she employs her new super power to get a bomb away from Metropolis’ swankiest.

The Alanteans attending Power Girl’s party, because Atlanteans love donating treasures to surface world Supers, aren’t pleased, and so Kinda Cousin Superman isn’t pleased.

Oh dear.

So, anyone else think the space objects and new secret ID business would prove a ruse to draw out Amalak? That would explain why our heroine publicly changes into her super outfit, burning her posh new dress with heat vision, all in public.

Apparently it’s not a feint… but writer Leah Williams isn’t fooling me, she’s playing the long game. This naive idiot – sorry, ‘thought leader’ – pretending she’s Power Girl, the wimpish soul who needs Omen to provide back-up at a cocktail party and Superman to give her a life, affirmation and orders, the woman who never mentions her long, glorious career as a JSA member…

The annoying ginger chatterbox using longtime Teen Titan Lilith’s shortlived Omen identity…

Even the psychotic super cat pretending to be Supergirl’s pal Streaky…

They’re shape-changing Durlans preparing for an invasion. Robot doubles who have escaped from a bunch of hollow trees in Midvale. Dire Wraiths on a day trip from the Marvel Universe.

Just wait and see, by issue six all will be revealed. I feel such a fool, spending months protesting at the presentation of Power Girl and Lilith in Action Comics back-ups and a special. It’s glaringly obvious Williams is teasing the reader. The real Power Girl is the one in Geoff Johns and Mikel Janín’s Justice Society of America, and she’ll swoop in to tie things up and send the insidious impersonators into comics limbo.

Yes. Indeed.

Meanwhile, recent artist Marguerite Sauvage has stepped aside as Eduardo Pansica picks up the artistic reins. He’s pencilling, Júlio Ferrara is inking and Romulo Fajardo colouring. The result is a decent looking book, with clear storytelling… well, mostly – halfway through things get pretty muddy so far as what’s a yacht and what’s a spaceship and what’s a six-story building is concerned. The sense of place is pretty murky.

Pansica is very good at dramatic compositions, and upping the intensity – at one point he even has Power Girl looking Power Girly as she rages at Amalak.

Some queries, ones Williams might be able to answer: what power is Omen using (and why does ‘Paige’ never use her actual name, Lilith?’). She’s a temples toucher, a minor psychic, and certainly not a mental sound engineer.

Why doesn’t Power Girl – or editors Brittany Holzherr, Jillian Grant and Paul Kaminski – know what an acronym is? And since when is Omen the first person to call her Peege etc?

I’ve not mentioned the new supporting character introduced this issue. That’s because he’s immediately annoying and I hope he fell into the sea.

Letterer Becca Carey does a nice job and deserves extra pay for putting up with Power Girl’s massive thought captions. And illustrator Gary Frank and colourist Brad Anderson give us a terrific cover, it’s unusual to have a hero looking sad on their first issue. Nice logo, too – it’s rare for a new masthead at DC these days to have a bit of weight to it.

I think after this issue I’ll read the series at DC Infinite – I suspect spending cash on it on the day of publication will annoy me. Well, unless it’s the issue in which Power Girl, Omen and Streaky come clean about who they really are.

19 thoughts on “Power Girl #1 review”

  1. Oh, man, so more of the same, basically?

    I’ll give this a look on DCUI. But only because I might be the world’s biggest Amalak fan. Sounds like I won’t recognize any other characters in this book.

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      1. Oh, “only” is definitely on the table. But the climax of that Marty Pasko-written story from the 70s, in which he was determined to trick Superman into violating his code against killing, is the first superhero comic I ever bought — so for years I thought Amalak was a Much Bigger Deal than he actually was. (See also: Mazdan; Professor Ojo; Captain Comet; and more!)

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  2. There seems to be some confusion on the writer’s part as to exactly how long Power Girl has been a superhero. Also, the fact that she’s using “Paige Stetler” instead of Karen Starr as her secret identity makes me think Williams really hasn’t done her homework and researched the character. It looks like she was asked by editorial to completely revamp the character. It’s a fun book but it can’t seem to decide if Power Girl is a legit tech genius or a dumb blonde fresh out of high school.

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    1. Exactly. I do wonder how much the direction comes from Leah Williams and how much comes from the mysterious ‘Editorial’. Either way this is a dizzyingly weird approach to one of DC’s best-defined characters.

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    2. I’m also surprised to see that Power Girl has abandoned her identity as typical comic book “vaguely defined science entrepreneur” Karen Starr to launch a new identity as … vaguely defined science entrepreneur Paige Stetler … complete with a faux Ph.D. in nothing-specified, apparently. Never mind a Lois Lane, how long would it take a Vicki Vale covering this glitzy event to figure out that Paige Stetler didn’t exist until a week ago? (Also, for an alien hiding her identity, is leading with “I have alien stuff for sale!” the best cover?)

      Then again, any Vickis on hand probably drowned when our heroine opened a big portal to the deep sea …

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  3. I want to like this, so I haven’t read it. I fear it will be like the backup stories and that awful Hawkgirl series. Both of these are characters I really love, but DC seems intent on turning them into sad, pathetic, damaged, whiny, gen-xers who can’t seem to do anything on their own and are constantly bitching about their trauma.

    I’ll read it eventually since I paid for it, but I am dreading it terribly. This is not what I wanted, or anyone wanted, for Power Girl. She should be strong and badass, not a broken doll who needs omen to pull the strings.

    Maybe Omen is evil and manipulating her, which would help, since I find her very annoying.

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  6. If I was coming to the book without any prior knowledge of the characters, this would probably be an enjoyable enough read. The characters have some personality and there are some interesting story beats to explore. It might have been neat to have done more with the Atlanteans given that Power Girl’s origin used to include them.
    I’ve always enjoyed Pansica’s artwork and he does a good job with this issue.
    Having said all that… this isn’t Power Girl. “Paige Stetler” isn’t the character that I’ve read and enjoyed in the past. And, I don’t know who this “Omen” is, but she isn’t acting anything at all like Lilith ever has in the past. Would have been better to have chosen a different gal pal for Karen, or come up with one instead.
    Will I be around for issue 2… maybe. But I can’t really see myself sticking around with this take on the character

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  7. As you say and as I say in my review, this is hardly Power Girl. Williams is determined to take the confident – maybe even overconfident, feisty leader PG and turn her into this damaged Paige. It seems wrong.

    I am not against rethinking characters but there was nothing wrong with PG before. Amen to the Palmiotti/Conner book. THAT was Power Girl.

    To make it worse, it is the other stuff that piles on. Lilith isn’t really acting like Lilith. The cutesy humor. Superman acting like an patriarch, scolding her.

    Anyways, I am probably in for a little more. Intrigued to see what this new Amalak will ultimately be like.

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Published by martingray1

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