Review: Power Girl #1 (2009)

I almost can’t believe it’s here: the first ongoing Power Girl series! And one which doesn’t require her to leave her integral place in JSA. As someone who doesn’t read JSA I was confused and concerned by the suggestions in this issue that DC had pulled PG off JSA in order to star in this book. A quick download of the latest JSA reassured me this was not the case. The talk of a fresh start at the beginning combined with PG reviving her company and cover identity had me thinking she’d given up on team heroics for some inexplicable reason. Not to fear! Starting up a new business and doing all the hiring yourself is no problem for Power Girl :) Juggling both an intensive day job and a superhero leadership position is fine with me: Green Lantern, Superman, and Batman can be in twenty books at once and still fool their employers into believing they’re putting a full day’s work – so why not Power Girl?

This issue was fun. I liked watching PG/Karen (I’ll never get used to “Karen Starr: as a real persona) setting up her company the way she liked it, with a focus on geeky stuff that she probably enjoys even if most of it’s “over her head” (as she kept saying). The story moved along well and I loved PG’s personality, so no faults there. The revival of StarrWare is nice to see, and I like the new direction she’s taking it in. Positioning StarrWare as a “progressive technology company” is a no-brainer in the current American political climate. I approve. I could have done without the rah-rah Americanism in the bit about the Pontiac GTO though.

While the conversation between PG and the young male interviewee is intended to show that StarrWare is to be a corporation for good, none of that nasty defense contract stuff and greedy commercialism, I was squicked by some mad science overtones. Things like “bio-ware solutions, semi-organic, artificial intelligence, and nano-tech” sound ethically dubious to me. In that context, calling Starrware “strictly human-oriented R&D” sounds suspiciously Frankensteinian. I think that starry eyed young man should have been a little more discerning! I’d really like to see more techie women interacting with Karen at StarrWare. The only woman I saw was a chatterbox, whose words we don’t actually get to hear. Very gendered. It’s more likely PG would surround herself with a bunch of bright young women who game and moonlight for OTW :)

Elsewhere on the representation front: active characters of colour = none.

I don’t have an opinion either way on Ultra-Humanite as the series’ first supervillain: I know practically nothing about him. He’s never caught my interest in other books – I think he’s a Superman villain generally? – but if he’s fighting PG, I’m interested :) Am waiting to see when the evo psych asshole in PG’s office turns into a mad tech-powered supervillain. I found his characterization a bit muddled: he starts off monologuing about how human psychology, social views and morality are cultural derived, which is accurate enough, then he does an about face and says that human behavior must be changed on a mass scale through biological re-engineering. He finishes off with a classic evo psych bit about women’s “nature” being to raise children. I would love to see an evo psych type taken down, but I want him to be consistent in his delusion! Evo psych types don’t allow for *any* consideration of culture’s shaping of human behavior. Do the writers not understand evo psych, or are they just making him a run of the mill misogynist? Because that would be disappointing.

I had a problem with some glossing over of certain issues relating to immigration – something that jumped out at me as sounding incredibly ignorant. On the second page PG recounts how American immigrants “flocked by the millions for the chance of a better life. They changed their names. They changed their identities. They wanted a clean slate to remake themselves.“. What’s completely glossed over here is the xenophobia of Anglo-American immigrants that forced that change upon others. It wasn’t a choice, it was a requirement by the dominant culture. Either acknowledge that or don’t mine that aspect of immigration to promote New York as a great place to start a new life.

The issue opens with a very nice, evocative portrayal of Krypton exploding and Kara’s last minute escape. I always get a bit of a thrill out of these scenes for Power Girl or Supergirl, when they’re done right, because for a moment I can feel like Power/Supergirl is the messianic survivor of Krypton. But as the final panel points out, this isn’t that story, not exactly. PG’s story is always tinged with tragedy rather than triumph. I get that depicting Kara as a naked grown woman, clinging to a blanket in the crash-landed ship is supposed to evoke feelings of fear and vulnerability to signal that this is not the triumphant tale of PG’s more famous male cousin, but…there’s enough imagery of naked, scared, vulnerable women available that it just seems unnecessarily cruel to have her naked.

Thankfully that’s the only hint of self-doubt for this Power Girl story. No confusion about her identity or place in the world anymore. This Power Girl is super secure and dives confidently into action when a bunch of killer robots from spaaaace drops in. I love how she’s instantly hailed as a beloved hero by the New York citizenry. She’s equally confident and assured in the Karen Starr scenes at StarrWare.

The writing team is crazy lucky to have Amanda Connor’s charming art pulling up their writing, because in the hands of another artist some of their “jokes” would not be so endearing. I’m thinking of the “stop messing with my globes” gag. I found this pretty funny, but I hope they drop the breast jokes after this issue.

As always, Connor makes Power Girl look awesome like no one else can. Her costume freakin’ FITS. It looks sturdy and tailored, its visible seams suggesting structure and support. And while the boob window never stops being stupid, the rest of the costume rocks. Connor introduces a clever tweak to the costume that I love like a big ol’ geek. Gone is the useless, dangling-off-her-waist band that shows how starved skinny she is. Her belt is now become a ribbon that rests lightly on her waist and the buckle is – get this – a gold power symbol. That’s right: Power Girl is wearing the universal power symbol! Adorable! The power symbol is repeated on the sturdy-looking boots. The gloves have the trademark Connor zips and, like the boots, look very structured and sturdy. The golden aged rolled-down cuffs are gone, but the overall effect is so awesome I don’t mind a bit.

I’m looking forward to picking up the next issue of this serie