Huh. So Pandora DID appear in Worlds’ Finest after all. Don’t know how I missed it all the times I read the first issue, but she’s there alright. Kind of eerie, but there.
How daft of me to not have looked before making my last post. :P
Worlds’ Finest #15
Does this mean DC Comics made a final decision on Power Girl’s costume at last? I sincerely hope so.
Looks like the costume she got in Supergirl is here to stay.
Reblogging myself cause art skillz. I gots some.
Sadly I can’t draw well on tablet. :(
I feel like drawing now. >.>
For this week’s ‘Comic Week in Review’ we have:
1. Batman: L’il Gotham #10 Review
2. The Best of Huntress and Power Girl: Infinity Inc #1 Review
3. Badass Comic Woman of the Week: Catwoman and Harley Quinn
I did some changes around the site, namely in that I’ve edited some of the tags for previous ‘Best of the Huntress’ reviews to include Power Girl. I especially applied this change to the two JSA stories I reviewed since they are as much Power Girl’s story as they are the Huntress’, if not moreso. As such, they are no longer filed under ‘The Best of the Huntress’ but under ‘The Best of Huntress and Power Girl.’
More changes will are on the way, but fortunately they’ll all be positive changes to make everything easier to find. :)
Comiccombatant, I hope you enjoy the review for Infinity Inc. :)
Power Girl #6
And in that moment Power Girl said ‘no more telly for you!’
/Still want this Power Girl back.
I don’t feel Michael Allan Nelson has as good a handle on Supergirl and Power Girl like Mike Johnson does, but despite the cheesy dialogue, at least his Power Girl still feels recognisable as Power Girl. So I’ll take it considering what the alternative is.
Comic Vine’s Sarah Lima asks what Worlds’ Finest needs to make the series more of a consistent good read?
I think the best response that I saw on Sara Lima’s article was from RDClip who was very spot on about the problems this book has been suffering from (and ones I’ve been addressing all year long):
The best way to improve this series is the get Levitz off writing duty and get a writer that cares about the characters and is passionate about the series. So far, it seems that Levitz is just going through the motions with a boring meandering story with very little in the way of an overall plot. The largest complaint with the writing is that Power Girl has lost almost all the character traits that made her awsome that were developed by writers like Roy Thomas, Geoff Johns and Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray.
The sales of Worlds Finest have not been good and I am in fear that Power Girl and Huntress will be without a series again (and this time PG doesn’t have JSA to co-star in)
That pretty much sums it up.
Also, I’m pretty baffled by the number of people who think that replacing Helena Wayne with Helena Bertinelli will be the saving grace of this book.
To begin with, Levitz is already struggling to write a character who had the privilege of being raised by Batman and Catwoman because he can’t get by without reinforcing some kind of cliché or stereotype associated with the fact that Helena’s a woman. It’s lazy and nonsensical characterisation for a character of Helena’s standing.
What makes them think he will have a better handle on Helena Bertinelli who is an Italian-American and Catholic? Given how bad his use of Italian grammar was in the Huntress mini and his use of Italian stereotypes, I’m willing to put money on the fact that his characterisation of Helena Bertinelli would’ve been just as equally horrendous.
I’m not opposed to Helena Bertinelli coming back since she works perfect for the mainstream continuity, but the issue with Huntress should never be a case of ‘one or the other.’ Both women are equally loved and valued by fans, and fans of Helena Wayne deserve to keep their Huntress as much as Helena Bertinelli fans.
Lastly, the problem with the book isn’t the characters. Kara and Helena by themselves have a shit tonne of potential given their rich histories and the legacies that they both inherit. It’s also part of the reason I feel their book should be taking place on Earth-2 and not on Earth-Prime (or whatever they’re calling it these days).
If they had done that from the get-go, Earth-2’s past could’ve easily been further explored in Worlds’ Finest while Robinson focused on the present. Also, in fleshing out Kara and Helena’s past on Earth-2, we could’ve gotten better insight into the women they became as adults and further develop them from there. I would have loved to have seen that!
As a woman, I think the worst thing about PG in the New 52 is the total denigration of her character. I loved pre-N52 Power Girl; she was strong, smart, brash, determined, and unafraid of who she was. The costume embodied her self-confidence and no nonsense attitude, and that was awesome. The costume wasn’t about titillation, in truth, it became (for me) about empowerment and the re-appropriation of “sexual imagery” a la second wave feminism (albeit, written in the eyes of men). In the reboot, however, she is no longer an intelligent scientist, instead Levitz writes her as a brash, air-headed, thoughtless woman who does actions that make literally no sense (destroying Michael Holt’s lab….but then saying she needed information from the lab?). In fact, all her actions come off as without any explanation except “women are crazy.”
Even though she’s covered up, her character is denigrated so much more through the writing that it is much more insulting than any boob window ever was. What’s even worse are the hamfisted references to the boob window. When her costume ripped once in the first issue, it was funny and referential. When it was the third time in as many issues, it was no longer amusing, it was sincerely sexist. Has Superman’s costume been ripped in the New 52? Has it been ripped consistently in 11 different issues?
The window doesn’t hold her back. What truly holds her back is the horrible writing of Paul Levitz. In a year, neither Helena nor Karen have progressed in any way, they simple stagnate in the ethos of “women are irrational and crazy.”
On a totally separate note, the return to the “original” costume first debuted in Supergirl #19 (which is where that panel is from). However, a different iteration of the costume appears in Worlds’ Finest #12 (without explanation). For a company with such stringent editorial staff, they really screwed up having a consistent costume for Power Girl. In two issues, she is shown in literally four different versions of a similar costume.
