Karen Starr Power Girl Appreciation 2021

[Robanker]

Does PG even have a rogues gallery?

Not especially. They started to build her up one by admittedly repurposing forgotten rogues from other heroes, such as Vartox which is pretty much a PG rogue now. Satana, Vartox and her clone from the Winick run were retooled into PG foes in her second series.

She fought others like some one-offs and Ultra-Humanite as well, but arguably the former disappeared and one UH is too big to poach for her rogues gallery in one arc.

Psycho Pirate was vexing her a bit around Infinite Crisis and his remembering Pre-Crisis Earth 2 gave him a solid link to being her rogue, but after IC he basically disappeared. Getting killed by Black Adam probably had something to do with it.

[Prime]

I'm surprised they havent given her Silver Banshee or some kryptonian

[Robanker]

I'm surprised they havent given her Silver Banshee or some kryptonian

Funny story, Silver Banshee was getting turned into a Supergirl rogue over in Sterling Gates's run around the same time.

[Prime]

Funny story, Silver Banshee was getting turned into a Supergirl rogue over in Sterling Gates's run around the same time.

....We really need tos too sharing Superman villains. GL literally stole Mongol and Hank. And alsmot stole Zod.

[Robanker]

....We really need tos too sharing Superman villains. GL literally stole Mongol and Hank. And alsmot stole Zod.

Give it time.

[Agent Z]

Superman's rogues gallery is large enough to survive a few being farmed out.

[Prime]

Superman's rogues gallery is large enough to survive a few being farmed out.

I rather not. I would like them to be used in the Superman books. Mongol was literally created so that Supermna didn't fight Darkseid.

[Ascended]

I rather not. I would like them to be used in the Superman books. Mongol was literally created so that Supermna didn't fight Darkseid.

While I definitely think a hero's rogues gallery should be made up mostly of their own original foes who're created specifically to reinforce the hero's themes, personality, etc., I do think there's room to borrow a little bit from Clark.

Especially at first, when you're trying to build up that rogues gallery, it helps to have a few familiar faces. A cover with Karen fighting Brainiac will get more attention than a cover of Karen fighting some random villain nobody's heard of before. Not that I'm inclined to let Karen steal Brainiac, but you get my point.

This is mostly a "early stages" kind of windbreak. The idea is that you build up Karen's original foes, sprinkling a few known bad guys in there for extra spice until Karen's own gallery has grown enough to stand on its own.

We're already talking about letting her have Superboy Prime as a main antagonist right? And Vartox has basically become part of Karen's world, I don't think he's shown up in a Superman book in....decades, maybe? Is it really gonna hurt Clark to let Karen have the Banshee, Volcana, Blaze, or a few of the other D-list villains he's not using? No. I dont want to dilute Clark's world and rogues gallery to the point where all the good stuff has been taken out of it, but there *is* enough there that Karen could take one or two, at least for now, without doing any real damage to Superman.

This villain sharing only becomes a problem when you start taking the big name bad guys or taking too many bad guys.

[Agent Z]

Karen had a few elementals from her first solo in the 80s. Granted, this was when they were going with the Atlantean origin but I think they could be reworked in a way.

[Stanlos]

Does PG even have a rogues gallery?

I think she does not. At least, not the redux one. The Atlantean one had Scarabis but to acknowledge him would mean acknowledging that horrible baby storyline. The only other one would be a stretch of a JLQ story: the guy was Chimaera

[Agent Z]

Karen has a rogues gallery. They just haven't been used much since she doesn't always have a solo.

[Stanlos]

Karen has a rogues gallery. They just haven't been used much since she doesn't always have a solo.

That's good news, Z! Who are the most promising ones?

[Agent Z]

That's good news, Z! Who are the most promising ones?

Ultra-Humanite, Satanna and Divine seemed to have the most promise to me.

[achilles]

That's good news, Z! Who are the most promising ones?

Sadly, the way they were presented, none of them. The closest she comes to having good bad guys are those times she steals someone from Superman or the League; her own "rogues" are weak and uninteresting at best. The only one with any promise IMO was...er...Divine, but she should have been called Galatea in honor of the PG look-alike in JLU, and have a rather grander origin than Max Lord wanting a clone Kryptonian and going to Silvana or someone who can suddenly and easily clone Kryptonians. They have an inconclusive and rather boring fight for a bit, then it's broken up by Max with red sun radiation or some such. That's sort of PG's problem; even when they try, they aim so low that success is underwhelming. With her they go safe and boring, rather than take a chance or two and stretch out the character a bit.

The sad fact is that all of her current rogues are...lightweights, in no way characters who should be fighting someone like PG. They are all played at least semi-comedically, as is PG herself in her own series. That makes it a bit hard to take PG seriously.

[Robanker]

Ultra-Humanite, Satanna and Divine seemed to have the most promise to me.

UH is a Superman foe who mostly is a general villain in DC. Satana was a Hawkman foe. She just fought them a couple times. I think it's fair to give her Satana given that DC didn't use her much outside of the golden age but I think it's premature to call UH a PG villain.

Divine absolutely is though since she's a clone.