Power Girl Appreciation 2022

[signalman112]

Wally Wood splash page.

WallyWoodPG.jpg

[achilles]

Looking on the bright side for PG, at least she's not in that Human Target thing. So, it could be worse...

[OBrianTallent]

Looking on the bright side for PG, at least she's not in that Human Target thing. So, it could be worse...

You have a point there. May King never turn his attention toward her.

[Agent Z]

Justice League of America by IsaiahSimmonsArtist



https://www.deviantart.com/isaiahsim...rica-911491237

[Primal Slayer]

[Thor-Ul]

Thumbs down for this version.

[Stanlos]

With the advent of the New 52 and that Earth 2's Kara Zor-L and Helena Wayne finding themselves on Earth 0, Helena hacked into the Wayne Enterprises bank accounts and took money. That's how she and Kara got started on Earth 0. They stole money.

I really have Not Fond feelings for New 52. REALLY Not Fond.

[kcekada]

Yeah, I didn't care for PG's origins as Supergirl. Of course they are both Kara, but Power Girl's more rebellious nature and attitude worked in creating a character that was completely unique to Supergirl (and when written well, I am still a fan of Supergirl).

Power Girl would be great in a solo going up against big name villains. She has great potential as an action hero. I wasn't really fond of her pre 52 series.

[achilles]

Yeah, I didn't care for PG's origins as Supergirl. Of course they are both Kara, but Power Girl's more rebellious nature and attitude worked in creating a character that was completely unique to Supergirl (and when written well, I am still a fan of Supergirl).

Power Girl would be great in a solo going up against big name villains. She has great potential as an action hero. I wasn't really fond of her pre 52 series.

You too, eh? I thought I was about the only PG fan who didn't really like it. I thought it wasted her, essentially. It was fun, a bit anyway, but ultimately like eating a sugar candy, the rush just doesn't last, and then you get sick. Nothing she did mattered, she fought no name bad guys, and just wasn't used to her potential. And it had no direction for her. IF she ever gets another series, I hope they take note of those failings and don't do them again.

[Ascended]

I'm torn on the idea of her being Supergirl.

It's not her actual history from the source material. It doesn't really fit who she is.

But it serves as a solid touchpoint for audiences and tells us a lot about her without having to tell us about her. It provides a sense of character growth without having to do anything at all.

We all know Karen is an independent woman who doesn't want to lean on anybody else's fame or success. She wants to carve out her own place in the world, her own way. But it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that she'd arrive on earth, at the tender age of....fifteen?....and become Supergirl. Really, why wouldn't she? It's her family crest, her family colors, her only remaining family at all, and the only thing she recognizes on a strange, barbaric alien world. Sure, I can believe she started out as Supergirl....until she got her feet under her.

It's not something I would want to last. I'd want her to have established the PG identity even before her universe dies in a Crisis. And this is about the only thing from the New52 that I'd even consider keeping, even in basic form. But I don't think it'd hurt her, and might even help people wrap their heads around her and how she fits into the wider DCU and Super family.

[marhawkman]

I'm torn on the idea of her being Supergirl.

It's not her actual history from the source material. It doesn't really fit who she is.

But it serves as a solid touchpoint for audiences and tells us a lot about her without having to tell us about her. It provides a sense of character growth without having to do anything at all.

We all know Karen is an independent woman who doesn't want to lean on anybody else's fame or success. She wants to carve out her own place in the world, her own way. But it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that she'd arrive on earth, at the tender age of....fifteen?....and become Supergirl. Really, why wouldn't she? It's her family crest, her family colors, her only remaining family at all, and the only thing she recognizes on a strange, barbaric alien world. Sure, I can believe she started out as Supergirl....until she got her feet under her.

It's not something I would want to last. I'd want her to have established the PG identity even before her universe dies in a Crisis. And this is about the only thing from the New52 that I'd even consider keeping, even in basic form. But I don't think it'd hurt her, and might even help people wrap their heads around her and how she fits into the wider DCU and Super family.

To me, the best way is to simply make PG a different cousin of Kal-El. Maybe one is Kara In-Ze and the other is Kara Zor-El?

[Robanker]

I'm of the mind that making her ever adopt the name Supergirl is antithetical to the character and is actively doing harm to her.

She became Power Girl specifically to avoid that. To avoid being seen by the world as derivative or reliant on someone else's legacy. It's very dehumanizing when all your thoughts and accomplishments are belittled by everyone refusing to acknowledge your person for want of just simplifying you into a relationship to another. Karen has always, always been determined to get away from the S-shield the same way some children of celebrities don't want to use their famous parent's names to establish themselves.

Speaking from personal experience, it's incredibly frustrating to still have extended family who only ever remember you as [X]'s brother/son and never anything else, even if those people have been dead for over twenty years, every time you meet they just say "oh I loved your [x]" and walk away. I also happen to have a relatively famous cousin and it's much the same. Generally, people like to simplify things and people if you give them the chance. Part of what's so appealing about characters like Lois Lane and Karen Starr is they don't give anyone that chance. The minute you let someone simplify you, they will and you'll never get out from under it. Danial Radcliffe is always going to be Harry Potter. Milly Bobby Brown can grow up and play Satan or something and everyone's just going to say "it's Eleven!" Harrison Ford hated Han Solo and were it not Indy (which is the exact same issue, but a character he actually likes) he'd basically just be Han Solo forever.

The minute she's Superman's cousin, that's all she'll ever be in the eyes of the DCU. Dick Grayson dropped being Robin 40 years ago and he's still "Batman's former partner" to most people who meet him. He will never be "Bludhaven's greatest protector" before he's "the first Robin" because that's what everyone knew him first as. The second someone can reduce your history to an elevator pitch, they'll do it. That's just how people are. Karen's entire being was about that elevator pitch being entirely about her. She's Power Girl. That's what she wanted people to remember. Not "I was saved by Superman's cousin," but "I was saved by Power Girl!"

It doesn't matter that the L crest is her own, it matters what it means to the people. Go ahead and wear a swastika claiming it's a Tibetan symbol. The S-Shield isn't her family's crest anymore. It means "Superman" to the cosmos. Karen's cousin is one of the most important people in the multiverse. Someone as headstrong as her would never hitch her wagon to him because she knows it can't come undone.

I can completely understand why Karen would never want to latch onto Clark's coattails even if that's her family crest because it's long since been just her family's symbol. Everything about her is dripping with new wave feminism and wanting to strike out on her own. There's not an ounce of spite towards Superman or Lois from E-2, but she clearly wanted to do it on her own.

How many Supergirl stories have we had where she's moping/angsting over Clark's long shadow and being unable to get out from under it, or framing him as some hurdle for her to clear? Her entire modern identity is based around surpassing him... But Kara still only exists in Superman's orbit. Power Girl doesn't have that problem because she never let herself get absorbed by it... And our suggestion is to simply cast her into that same rut? Why? So she can be second rate Supergirl but simpler to understand than Power Girl? What's our endgame here? Having her be the Wallace West to Kara's Wally West? The less-popular but sometimes around semi copy?

Making her more like Supergirl to make her easier to understand will only serve to make her less like Power Girl, but still never as popular as Supergirl. We're cutting off our nose to spite our face in hopes someone will look at us. It's an exercise in futility with no real positive outcome.


But hey, why respect character when we can boil her down to "this one guy's relative" or "the other one?" Erasure is the new hotness. Why not just make her the big breasted cousin of Superman from our universe and call it good?




Not being Supergirl was the point.

[Ascended]

I'm of the mind that making her ever adopt the name Supergirl is antithetical to the character and is actively doing harm to her.

And you know that I agree with you on that. None of us PG fans really like the idea of her living in Clark's shadow, even as a new arrival on her native universe's earth.

But I'm just thinking about this from a business standpoint, and how the DCU structures itself, it's hierarchy, and what gets editorial attention. I think some people don't get how Karen fits into the picture or how to use her, and perhaps if we could draw parallels to guys like Nightwing, it'd make Karen easier for these people to understand, and thus more likely that they'd green light her usage.

Yes, people will boil a character down to an elevator pitch if you let them and Karen was never the "legacy" type so this is a small betrayal of who she is. I know. Come on man, you know that I know. But elevator pitches are for execs, not consumers. As long as the creators understand her character and handle Karen the way she's supposed to be, who cares what the executives think? And you're right that Nightwing will never get past "the first Robin" but he's done just fine despite that. Treated properly, being the first Robin is his launch pad, not the ceiling, and he outsells almost every other DC comic on the stands. If telling DC execs that Karen is the Super version of Nightwing is what it takes for them to use her? There's far worse fates out there. Like the limbo she currently inhabits.

She's attached to the JSA, which means she doesn't show up when they don't. And right now that means she doesn't show up at all. All this attention and effort with the multiverse, where Karen should have been front and center....but there's no JSA, so no Karen. But if all we had to do is say "In her youth, in another universe, Karen was briefly called Supergirl before carving her own path as Power Girl" and that got DC to see how she fits into the Super-verse and actually use her? We're talking a largely inconsequential amendment in her early history, something that would rarely matter, or even be referenced in the modern day. I can't bring myself to discard the notion out of hand. Not if it meant quality appearances instead of limbo or poor treatment like One-Star Squadron.

Sometimes the creative side has to bend around the business side. Maybe this is one of those times. I don't like it, but if it got DC to use her again, and use her well?

Bottom line, Karen is gonna be attached to one franchise or another. Her choices are mostly Superman or the JSA. Better to attach her firmly to the Super-verse, given how the Society is ignored. Of course, Karen *should* be able to stand on her own as her own character, but DC doesn't work that way; everyone has to be tied to one big franchise or another.

[Robanker]

And you know that I agree with you on that. None of us PG fans really like the idea of her living in Clark's shadow, even as a new arrival on her native universe's earth.

But I'm just thinking about this from a business standpoint, and how the DCU structures itself, it's hierarchy, and what gets editorial attention. I think some people don't get how Karen fits into the picture or how to use her, and perhaps if we could draw parallels to guys like Nightwing, it'd make Karen easier for these people to understand, and thus more likely that they'd green light her usage.

Yes, people will boil a character down to an elevator pitch if you let them and Karen was never the "legacy" type so this is a small betrayal of who she is. I know. Come on man, you know that I know. But elevator pitches are for execs, not consumers. As long as the creators understand her character and handle Karen the way she's supposed to be, who cares what the executives think? And you're right that Nightwing will never get past "the first Robin" but he's done just fine despite that. Treated properly, being the first Robin is his launch pad, not the ceiling, and he outsells almost every other DC comic on the stands. If telling DC execs that Karen is the Super version of Nightwing is what it takes for them to use her? There's far worse fates out there. Like the limbo she currently inhabits.

She's attached to the JSA, which means she doesn't show up when they don't. And right now that means she doesn't show up at all. All this attention and effort with the multiverse, where Karen should have been front and center....but there's no JSA, so no Karen. But if all we had to do is say "In her youth, in another universe, Karen was briefly called Supergirl before carving her own path as Power Girl" and that got DC to see how she fits into the Super-verse and actually use her? We're talking a largely inconsequential amendment in her early history, something that would rarely matter, or even be referenced in the modern day. I can't bring myself to discard the notion out of hand. Not if it meant quality appearances instead of limbo or poor treatment like One-Star Squadron.

Sometimes the creative side has to bend around the business side. Maybe this is one of those times. I don't like it, but if it got DC to use her again, and use her well?

Bottom line, Karen is gonna be attached to one franchise or another. Her choices are mostly Superman or the JSA. Better to attach her firmly to the Super-verse, given how the Society is ignored. Of course, Karen *should* be able to stand on her own as her own character, but DC doesn't work that way; everyone has to be tied to one big franchise or another.

I think she's more than attached to the Superverse as is, she just has to get used. I'm not willing to go against the very conception of the character just to make her easier for execs to wrap their head around when the question will invariably come to "why not just use Supergirl then" at worst or what happens with the Robins (where her traits will be grafted onto the iteration the media adapts, which will be Supergirl) at best (and already has begun happening anyway).

I don't think making her more like Supergirl is going to actually help her at all but I know it actively harms the character by essentially going against her reason for ever being Power Girl to begin with.

"Super--" anything is Karen's version of Bruce with a gun. It's 100% easier. It makes sense to the non-initiated. You should probably just write a Shadow story if you're going to do that, though.


The Karen I love has one foot firmly rooted in that "take-no-lip" feminist wave of the 70s. She's got some Aretha Franklin in her. She's got sass in spades. She's more than an easy sell in a world that's had Spider-Verse which propagates an inter-dimensional love story between two people with disparate issues as well as multiple versions of a character being different (Pine's Spider-Man vs Peter B. Parker) but as usual fans are using "it's hard for execs" as an excuse to make sweeping changes to established characters.

I firmly understand that execs are stupid, but now there's an easy, financially successful example to point to for them to wrap their head around. Doubly so following Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. We don't need to sand Karen down to "offbrand Supergirl with big tits" to appease them. Polish what is best about her to a mirror shine, don't sand away everything that makes her Power Girl.

[marhawkman]

And you know that I agree with you on that. None of us PG fans really like the idea of her living in Clark's shadow, even as a new arrival on her native universe's earth.

But I'm just thinking about this from a business standpoint, and how the DCU structures itself, it's hierarchy, and what gets editorial attention. I think some people don't get how Karen fits into the picture or how to use her, and perhaps if we could draw parallels to guys like Nightwing, it'd make Karen easier for these people to understand, and thus more likely that they'd green light her usage.

Yes, people will boil a character down to an elevator pitch if you let them and Karen was never the "legacy" type so this is a small betrayal of who she is. I know. Come on man, you know that I know. But elevator pitches are for execs, not consumers. As long as the creators understand her character and handle Karen the way she's supposed to be, who cares what the executives think? And you're right that Nightwing will never get past "the first Robin" but he's done just fine despite that. Treated properly, being the first Robin is his launch pad, not the ceiling, and he outsells almost every other DC comic on the stands. If telling DC execs that Karen is the Super version of Nightwing is what it takes for them to use her? There's far worse fates out there. Like the limbo she currently inhabits.

She's attached to the JSA, which means she doesn't show up when they don't. And right now that means she doesn't show up at all. All this attention and effort with the multiverse, where Karen should have been front and center....but there's no JSA, so no Karen. But if all we had to do is say "In her youth, in another universe, Karen was briefly called Supergirl before carving her own path as Power Girl" and that got DC to see how she fits into the Super-verse and actually use her? We're talking a largely inconsequential amendment in her early history, something that would rarely matter, or even be referenced in the modern day. I can't bring myself to discard the notion out of hand. Not if it meant quality appearances instead of limbo or poor treatment like One-Star Squadron.

Sometimes the creative side has to bend around the business side. Maybe this is one of those times. I don't like it, but if it got DC to use her again, and use her well?

Bottom line, Karen is gonna be attached to one franchise or another. Her choices are mostly Superman or the JSA. Better to attach her firmly to the Super-verse, given how the Society is ignored. Of course, Karen *should* be able to stand on her own as her own character, but DC doesn't work that way; everyone has to be tied to one big franchise or another.

Yeah, that's true of almost all characters. Only tiny hand full are important enough to be the main character of a franchise. Everyone else is a supporting character. The trick is using that in a productive way.