Settle in ... this is probably my last review of this Power Girl run. Barring some major Supergirl crossover, I think Power Girl #10 will be the last issue in my collection.
This issue was a loose tie-in to the House of Brainiac storyline. But in a very tangential way. So with that connection to the main books over, I'm done.
This issue shows much of what I have been struggling with in terms of the book. Writer Leah Williams continues to me a Power Girl I don't particularly recognize. It leans into a current trope in comics - that our heroes are just like us, traumatized and hurting. That means we are heroes. I go more for the heroes aren't like me but are people I should aspire to be like.
But, for me, this issue's fault lies with the plot. A lot of what we are told seem spurious or coincidental. Much of it doesn't make much sense within the confines of the DCU. It will be easier just to show you.
The art continues to be solid in a sort of grungy way. I like Eduardo Pansica a lot and think his stuff would be perfect for a back alley, ground level book. And I like the Nicola Scott variant cover even more than the standard Yanick Paquette one. No denying the source for Scott's vision.
When does an homage become a copy?
The art continues to be solid in a sort of grungy way. I like Eduardo Pansica a lot and think his stuff would be perfect for a back alley, ground level book. And I like the Nicola Scott variant cover even more than the standard Yanick Paquette one. No denying the source for Scott's vision.
When does an homage become a copy?
But I seriously love this Kerry Gamill cover from the 80's Power Girl mini-series. Nice updating.
On to this book.
'Paige' is a computer programmer, not a tinkerer, but using spare parts in a closet, she makes a one-time EMP device. That makes very little sense. I guess if Tony Stark could make an arc reactor out of scrap in a cave, she could do this. That said, Stark IS an engineer.
Last issue, Czarnians remaining on Earth grabbed a weapon that animates objects through nanites and kidnapped a group of Holliday girls. Rather than being the bloodthirsty Czarnians we are used to, they holed up in a bar behind an animated wall.
Realizing she needs an EMP device to depower the weapon and the animated things in the bar, Power Girl heads to Steelworks to build one.
Instead of asking for help from Steelworks ... or from any other hero, she breaks into the place. She is afraid that Crush will make these normal human workers panic. So it's better she acts like a thief in the night??
And if you are hellbent on stealth, why bring a slobbering dog??
If you ask questions like this, which I do, this book might not be the best for you.
And then this moment. Crush becomes almost tearful as she talks about the Holliday girls being her family. She thinks she is cursed because whoever she gets close to ends up leaving her.
Power Girl tells her she is traumatized and hurting. And Power Girl knows all about that.
Because all our heroes need to be traumatized and hurting. Remember the Supergirl Special?
Crush comes in. Fires the EMP. And the fight starts.
Now I have read a lot of Power Girl and Harley Quinn books in the past. I love the Palmiotti/Conner stuff and those creators had them crossover in a mini-series and other stories.
So I'm glad Williams acknowledged that 'Paige' and Harley are friends. I have said this sort of awkward stranger in a strange world isn't the Power Girl I know.
The opening arc of these books made the Symbioship AI Paige's arch-enemy.
Then it possessed a dead Kryptonian lion, assimilated some of Kelex into itself, learned to change it's appearance, but cannot possess anyone any more. That's a lot to take in. But it seems to like this new body.
Struck by the nanite gun, it uses a car battery to burn out the nanite infection.
A car battery. You'd think PG would recognize how easy it is to get rid of these things. Or if, in all honesty, possessed cash registers and pinball machines really pose a threat to a Kryptonian and a Czarnian.
Now the crazy part. While Crush kept the Czarnian's distracted, 'Paige' used her astral punches to blip in and out and get the girls free.
Why didn't she do that from the beginning? The girls are definitely tied up in some back room away from everyone.
Why didn't she do that from the beginning? The girls are definitely tied up in some back room away from everyone.
The Czarnians are trapped inside a makeshift cage of pent tables and stools. Power Girl just leaves them there. You'd think Power Girl would wait for authorities or bring them there.
I guess this sets up how evil this thing is. But it does seem overly motivated by revenge against this group. They didn't intentionally hit him with nanites. And you'd think he'd want to have a low profile while he stalks 'Paige'.
All that's left is the wrap-up.
I am waiting for the inevitable Omen/PG romance. Of course. Omen is portrayed as super-loving, jumping into the arms of 'Paige', calling her by a pet name.
Once again, she uses her psychic powers on someone's mind (this time Crush) without asking.
And Crush ends up reunited with her friends and decides to keep Lobo's dog as her own.
The book flies by as a sort of quick read. I glossed over much of the action. I think a lot of things happen because the plot needs them to, not because it makes internal sense. I do like the art quite a bit.
And so it ends.
Overall grade: C-
5 comments:
Nice review of what’s obviously another caka comic.
‘ It leans into a current trope in comics - that our heroes are just like us, traumatized and hurting. That means we are heroes. I go more for the heroes aren't like me but are people I should aspire to be like.’. That’s very good!
Please do stop buying this - especially as you’re passing on Absolute Power despite your constant liking for the Mark Waid/Dan Mora team… this book has done nothing but irritate you,
This arc convinced me that Leah Williams is a hack, the editors overseeing her are either stupid or checked out, and that continuing to follow this series is pointless. Above all, it feels like these three issues were a cynical rip off for readers who actually wanted some meaningful tie in to the wider House of Brainiac story. This story has very little to do with the rest of the arc, and indeed could have happened at pretty much any time in the DCU. Swap out the Czarnians for any other group of super powered beings, and you have the fodder for at best a moderately interesting one shot about Power Girl and Crush getting to know each other while facing off against some bad guys with a weird transmogrification ray.
That's another issue with this story: the plot is way too thin for a three issue arc. A summary of the arc’s core plot would be this. Power Girl patrols gets into a brief fight with Crush over a case of mistaken identities. After they realize they're not enemies they realize some bad guys are running around Metropolis with a transmogrification ray. The duo fight them, regroup to make a device to counter the ray, then fight them again and rescue some of Crush's friends who were kidnapped before finally declaring their friendship and going their separate ways. That's one issue’s worth of story, with maybe a lead in from a backup short elsewhere.
Compared to the stakes in the core House of Brainiac arc, this also felt underwhelming. It seemed like only the Holliday Girls and a handful of random bystanders were in any danger, and ultimately the ease with which the Czarnians were defeated made them feel like they were a miniscule threat that a fully powered Kryptonian and a Half-Czarnian should have been able to handle in a few minutes. Particularly when it turned out that Paige could have just astral punched her way into saving the Holliday Girls at any given moment, it's baffling why she didn't just do that from the start before beating the Czarnians to a pulp with Crush, smashing the ray gun, and letting the authorities clean up the damage from it. The only real reason for them not to do that and to have the whole weird sequence where they sneak into Star Labs like thieves is so Williams can stretch out the plot and waste time on shallow character exploration. The Symbio stuff also seems like more filler and added basically nothing to the wider story.
What should have been written was a story with much higher stakes and a far more formidable threat that actually feels like it's a major challenge for Crush and Paige. How about in the absence of the Superfamily and after the chaos of Brainiac's attack, a giant mob of crazed racists decide now is the time to burn down A-Town and kill all the aliens in Metropolis? Maybe a bunch of villains realize the Superfamily is gone and stage a mass breakout from Strykers that leads to chaos all over the city? If Czarnians need to be in the plot, maybe they're a threat that has to be dealt with in addition to these, or maybe they're way more destructive and threaten to kill thousands of people while actually seriously threatening Paige and Crush in a fight?
This has been an ongoing problem for the series on top of all its other issues. All the threats feel very small scale, particularly for a Kryptonian - e.g. only a handful of people dying from Symbio in the first arc or a small number of people being abducted to Ferimbia - and everything gets resolved way too easily. Why editors don't offer more pushback when Williams pitches these ideas is as baffling as this series' continued existence after this feeble, cynical cash in on the House of Brainiac event given its sales and critical reception by the readership. I would like to see a good Power Girl series, but that's clearly not going to happen unless Williams is replaced. Barring that, this series needs cancellation ASAP so that at a minimum there's hope for a better rebooted series down the road.
I agree that this series should have been cancelled long ago. Leah Williams must have some embarassing blackmail files on DC editorial.
(1/2) Since this is your last review for this series, I want to leave some of my general thoughts about the book.
Leah Williams seems uninterested in writing Power Girl. She gives the title character such little importance and presence in her own book. She'd rather bring in characters she finds more interesting to write and consequently gives them more shine. Omen mentored, validated and even rescued "Paige" in both the Action Comics backups, Special and first arc of the series. Streaky got a whole issue dedicated to him. PG teamed up with Supergirl and overthrew an evil insect queen in a medieval alternate reality, then teamed up with Crush to take down rogue Czarians. What has "Paige" done on her own?
In what could've been an interesting scenario for the first arc, the roles could have been reversed, with the older Power Girl having to swallow her pride and let someone younger than her guide her in the psychic arena she has relatively little experience in. Instead, Power Girl was reduced to a mopey, immature, insecure and foul-mouthed girl while Omen was level-headed, mature and experienced (in the Ferimbia arc, Supergirl took Omen's place). After the Special, Power Girl should have moved past this-instead, Williams repeats herself twice with Knight Terrors and the symbioship arc. "Paige" did nothing but mope and cry about being lonely before possessed by the main villain. Omen got to be the real hero as she saved the day and the title character of the comic while said character was reduced to a helpless damsel-in-distress, something Power Girl should NEVER be. Williams has given us no reason to care for"Paige", showing us how inept, incompetent and incapable she is at every turn. She's constantly belittled by other characters (and offers no resistance) and can't solve her own problems.
Leah Williams has gone on record that she didn't know anything about Power Girl before writing her. That would explain why she isn't completely comfortable writing Power Girl yet; she has to resort to team-ups and burning through any generic, tropey scenarios she can find/come up with. But she went on to completely discard everything about Power Girl and created what is essentially a new character. She made her own blank slate-why would she be uncomfortable writing an established character when she removed everything about her anyway?
(2/2) Onto the issue itself.
Crush says the Holliday Girls are her family, and "Paige" responds that "family is what you make it". It's a decent character moment for Crush, but is nonsensical for "Paige", who's been ignoring her actual found family, the JSA, in order to desperately ingratiate herself to her (technically) blood-family. The only person she "found" is Omen, who's simply a (bad) friend and roommate. Her supporting cast consists of Omen, Clark, Lois, and Streaky. "Paige" has no identity of her own. This is indicative of a larger issue with Williams' writing; namely, that she comes up with moments and plops them into the story regardless if it's consistent with what's been established. Every issue reads like it exists in a vacuum. Nothing matters. Things happen because they have to, not because they follow a logical chain of cause and effect.
Leah Williams tries to establish some kind of continuity within this series, constantly referring to events from previous issues-but they're just that, references. So what's the point? Symbio returns, but for no real reason. He doesn't contribute to this arc in any way. Did Williams just really want the readers know that she totally didn't forget about Symbio until now?
I'm glad you noticed "Paige" rescuing the girls with her astral-punch (haven't seen that in a while) too-why didn't she just do that in the beginning and launch a sneak attack on the Czarian gang? It's not like they're much of a threat. Their ray gun is more threatening that they are; once it's broken, they follow suit rather quickly and easily. I don't know whether the Holliday Girls are super-powered, so either they're strong or the Czarians are weak. Either way, the Holliday Girls are plenty capable of handling themselves (aside from needing to be saved once)-so is "Paige" really necessary here? What did she actually contribute besides building the EMP weapon and throwing a few punches? Steel and Natasha Irons are still in Metropolis, they could've done the same thing. And there really is no reason for "Paige" to just leave the defeated and still-possibly-dangerous Czarians aside from Williams really wanting to show us the 'twist' with Symbio and just how much of a bad guy he is.
What I thought would've been a city-spanning brawl with an outnumbered Power Girl using her wits and powers to stop similarly powerful foes amounts to nothing more than a bar fight. What should be scenarios with high-stakes end up being rather anticlimactic affairs. Remember how the "Kryptonian virus" in the first arc was stated to be a humanity and world-ending threat only for it to be revealed as Power Girl's symbioship that killed maybe a handful of people?
And I'm really tired of Omen's casual invasion of peoples' minds being played off as a quirky habit instead of the gross violation of privacy that it is.
And so this arc, like every one before it, slogs to its conclusion. Now that we got that pesky action out of the way, we could focus on what's important-mundane slice-of-life (who wants action in a superhero comic anyway?).
I understand and support your decision to drop this book. I think I speak for everyone here when I say I looked forward to your reviews of these issues more than the issues themselves (which I dreaded more than anticipated). It was cathartic to see someone share the same thoughts I (and no doubt, others) had while reading them.
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