Karen Starr: Power Girl Appreciation 2020

[KangMiRae]

These books are out of continuity, right? She was in Doomsday Clock, but nothing else since we were told she was trapped.

[Robanker]

These books are out of continuity, right? She was in Doomsday Clock, but nothing else since we were told she was trapped.

Yeah, it's Black Label so it will not likely inform continuity. PG showed up in Harley's book under Jimmy and Amanda despite being in limbo. They kind of do what they want.

[Ascended]

Yeah, it's Black Label so it will not likely inform continuity. PG showed up in Harley's book under Jimmy and Amanda despite being in limbo. They kind of do what they want.

Yeah, Harley's book only has one foot in continuity.

[Robanker]

Yeah, Harley's book only has one foot in continuity.

Yeah. The PG in that book was pre-Flashpoint to boot. No S shield or anything. Was a reminder of what we are still missing to this day. Going to come fun reading a BoP book with PG cameo. Can't wait.

[achilles]

Power Girl needs some good rogues...she basically has no good ones, and very few bad ones. I would propose that Superman Prime would be a much better candidate for her archenemy, rather than the Shazam Family, which doesn't need a Prime type as much as PG does, and doesn't have her history with him, or her reasons for hating him. And she's much more powerful than Connor or Cassie, and thus more able to take him on, though she might need a bit of a power-up herself. The other choice for a different kind of archenemy would be Saturn Queen from that Supergirl story set in the bottle city of Kandor, where Saturn Queen herself tells PG about a time war they fought over Supergirl. An intriguing story which was never followed up on, even in her own series.

Any other ideas?

[Ascended]

They used the Ultra Humanite to great effect in her solo. I'd be fine with him being a PG villain since the Super-books ignore him.

[king81992]

They used the Ultra Humanite to great effect in her solo. I'd be fine with him being a PG villain since the Super-books ignore him.

Ultra Humanite works as a villain for PG and Cyborg(though DC doesn't realize it yet).

[Mr.B]

Cant wait to have 45 versions of pg.

[achilles]

Ultra Humanite works as a villain for PG and Cyborg(though DC doesn't realize it yet).

Not a huge fan of UH, especially the one in the PG solo; that one seemed...not menacing enough, and a bit too jokey. But...I wouldn't mind seeing a story teaming Power Girl with Cyborg, which AFAIK has never happened before, especially if they take the idea that Robinson, Johns, and a few others have that PG is in fact a genius alien with the knowledge of her home planet so that it isn't all Cyborg talking down to her about tech. In other words, very much NOT the nu52 PG who Levitz had as an idiot unable to figure out Linux. Rather the Johns one who as a throwaway fact knows something like 9,000 languages, a thing never again mention after that one note in his mini, or the Robinson version who wowed Mr. Terrific by instantly understanding a circuit diagram of some sort of super science that he had spent day designing, (as did Supergirl).

I am in fact in favor of having her team up with character she hasn't interacted much with before. Back to villains though, Ultraman? Maybe give her a go at Mongul? Don't much know after that, probably need to create some new ones just for her I should think.

[Robanker]

They used the Ultra Humanite to great effect in her solo. I'd be fine with him being a PG villain since the Super-books ignore him.

Yeah, same with Vartox (more of a nuisance, but hey). Satanna was also lifted from Hawkman, but they seemingly have no use for her in his stories so she could take her as well since that worked well in her solo. Winnick cloned her, and while I don't like clones or evil mirrors all that much, she can be built up. Over in another thread, Superboy-Prime was suggested and that works too, though as an evil doppelganger I'm not his biggest fan.

Max Lord works as a shared nemesis. That's four already, and given arcs must fit a trade, that gives nearly two years of villains to work through before absolutely needing to build more.

[TheManhunterfromMars]

Who should be Power Girl´s new boyfriend?

[Robanker]

Who should be Power Girl´s new boyfriend?

The popular choice on the last thread was Nightwing. While I could argue his points, I'll leave that to Ascended as he's as close to the captain of this ship as you'll find and I'm not looking to mutiny with this little sleep.

[Agent Z]

Not a "boyfriend" but I have gotten used to the idea of shipping Karen with Helena Wayne.

[TheManhunterfromMars]

Problem: both women are straight, and Helena clearly likes too much men.

[achilles]

Yeah, same with Vartox (more of a nuisance, but hey). Satanna was also lifted from Hawkman, but they seemingly have no use for her in his stories so she could take her as well since that worked well in her solo. Winnick cloned her, and while I don't like clones or evil mirrors all that much, she can be built up. Over in another thread, Superboy-Prime was suggested and that works too, though as an evil doppelganger I'm not his biggest fan.

Max Lord works as a shared nemesis. That's four already, and given arcs must fit a trade, that gives nearly two years of villains to work through before absolutely needing to build more.

Eh, I kind of hated Satanna; there was never a sense that she was anything other than a nuisance to PG, never that real sense of danger. Even her one trick was something she bought from a Shazam villain, not something she came up with herself, and that realistically was never going to work. Also, wasn't she killed off by said Shazam villain? Max Lord is overdone by miles IMO, and a better version of that would be Saturn Queen....who strangely was able to control Supergirl, but not Power Girl, leaving the reader to wonder why Max Lord could manage it. I would be happy never seeing Vartox again in any story with Power Girl. That was just beating a horse that never was alive with him.

The clone thing...could work, but they really needed to scale it up IMO. They needed to make it an epic story and establish just how dangerous clone Kara was before unleashing her on PG. They had a few panels of a dream sequence that sort of revealed what a threat clone PG was, but it was after all just a dream sequence and as such lost it's impact. They actually needed to go there and have evil clone Kara kill some folks...perhaps a whole lot, and unleash on other heroes, or even alien races. Because that didn't happen, the resultant fight also lost it's power.

They handled that better in JLU, with the obvious nod to Power Girl being substantially more menacing to Supergirl than clone PG was to real PG. And Galatea did in fact kill some folks off screen to establish that. But...I don't like humanity being capable of cloning Kryptonians that easily, (and in fact Silvana actually said it wasn't that hard in the comic book), so I'd rather it was Brainiac or Darkseid who did the deed, only to have their creation turn on them and then the rest of the universe, just to establish that threat.

On the subject of Brainiac and Darkseid, while they obviously aren't going to be "her" bad guys, I would like to see her go up against them. Her fight with Darkseid was perhaps the only thing the nu52 did even semi-correctly with respect to Power Girl. The problem there was they painted her as being able to both walk through his Omega Beams to gouge his eye out, and to outfly them...and then had him promptly ignore the damage he took and lay her out. All for a story that was one of the worst and darkest DC has done. That moment could have been used to put PG over as they say in pro wrestling, which is something she badly needs, but instead the wasted in on gloom and doom, putting over a bad guy who absolutely didn't need it. Brainiac...could be interesting...if they only meet in one epic story. That all she needs from him. One big story.

PG does work as a comedic character, but since COIE she's been used that way far more often than a straight dramatic superhero, and really it's time to balance the scales a bit IMO. Use the comedy more sparingly with her. Which is not to say she should be a gloom and doom character, far from it, but that she should be a more inspiring character with some big stories, the kind of thing she'll never get if all she is viewed as by DC is a random character to use in comedic stories. And the Palimiotti/Gray run only gave us that kind of story. Winick did tell some like that, but he had to work her into his Generation Lost thing, which derailed his whole run IMO, leaving HIS best PG story told outside her own comic book, in the Generation Lost title, both with future PG's, and with her fight with the JLI. There, he approached that most mythical beast, a really good Power Girl story, but again, it wasn't really HER story, but the JLI's, with a side dash of Wonder Woman.

Which brings up a problem with using Max as a PG rogue...she just doesn't seem to be able to fight him at all. She brings literally nothing to the table to fight him, she just instantly falls under his mind control. It's like Superman vs Darkseid. Sure the villain needs to be formidable enough to challenge the hero, but the hero also needs to be able to win.