Friday 4 June 2010

GRAPHIC NOVELS: POWER GIRL

An Amazon 4-star review

Power Girl was the character that no-one knew what to do with after DC's legendary Crisis on Infinite Earths and she's been mucked about with ever since without a stable role found for her in the DC Universe. Recently, however, it seems to have been agreed that her original origin is still the real one -that she's Superman's cousin from a now non-existent universe. Let's hope it sticks.

Let's also hope that the new and more likeable personality given to her by writers Gray and Palmiotti also sticks. No longer hypersensitive, obnoxious, serious and dull, the new Power Girl has a sense of humour, has come to terms with the fact that people (men) are going to stare and her most visible assets (see image above for a view of her Katie Price-size breasts), and is busy building up a business under her secret identity. Okay, on with the show.


Apart from the lighter touch with the writing, the main asset to this book is Amanda Conner's attractive cartoonish but substantive art style which emphasises the humour in the writing. Ironically the first story arc, at least at the beginning, is a touch grim as the Ultra-Humanite kidnaps Manhattan inorder to blackmail PG into giving him her body -not for sex but to put his brain in it. There's a team-up with the new teenage Terra whom PG appears to be mentoring and an encounter with a trio of hedonistic super-powered alien women on the run and looking for fun but which seems to result in chaos and mass property damage. Plus stuff about life in her secret identity as she attempts to rebuild her business.

(Ironically the top image is by Adam Hughes, so here's an Amanda Conner picture to make up for it.)

So, not an earth-shattering book (though Manhattan gets pretty shaken) but a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to the next collection in a few months time. 

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