Power Girl Appreciation 2023

[marhawkman]

I want to like this run but if you change a character's personality, name, supporting cast, costume and powers, what really remains? A hair style? Why not just make a new character? :/

I'm going to check out the special before I make my final weigh in on this take but I'm really not loving it, sadly.

Yeah this. you can't just... change everything. That's not how fiction works.

[OBrianTallent]

Well, at least we still have Justice Society....maybe. Geoff is a stickler for continuity and silver age so maybe we will still see hints at least of the real Power Girl, Karen Starr aka Kara Zor-L

[superduperman]

From an early Leah Williams interview...

Leah Williams: "Okay, so what's the truth?"

DC editor: "What do you want it to be?"

After the last 40 years, they still haven't learned anything.

[Jon Clark]

Yeah this. you can't just... change everything. That's not how fiction works.

Except DC has been doing it for decades. Sometimes it is creating a new character using an old name. Sometimes it is rebooting a character like in the New 52. And sometimes it is just Jon Kent

I mean does anyone really think that the Power Girl in All-Star Comics was really the same character as the Power Girl in JLI or that either of them had more than a passing connection to the character under Palmiotti and Conner?

[Stanlos]

It makes sense that everyone was calling her Karen instead of Kara - after all, Supergirl now keeps her Kryptonian name in her human name, so we no longer have a second name to use for her to distinguish her from PG, unless you just call her Supergirl (which wouldn't necessarily mean Kara considering the 90s version). So people call Supergirl Kara and used Karen for Power Girl.

They really should've mentioned New 52 in the story, as that version of PG existing (and she does still exist, she's just back on Earth-2) would explain why the current one is changing her secret identity.

I guess in the sense that it is her secret identity and thus one of the names she went by sure. But among her friends from the League like Diana, Wally, Jonn, Nate, Kimi, et al., it was jarring for them to up and start calling her Karen when they all had been referring to her as Kara all this time. It was random and forced. At least with this whole Paige thing effort was given to explain the incoming transition.

[Stanlos]

The only problem with doing what they're doing is that other DC characters had been, and naturally would have been, using the same name (Kara) for her. Since it does have two possible pronunciations, it's likely one was just called "Care-uh", with the other "Kar-uh". The problem there is that there's really no way of showing that on the printed page while there absolutely is in other media.

Paige? Ignoring the disturbing Daredevil-Karen Page comparison, it was just out of the blue, and really doesn't fit with Kara's personality.

I agree that she should just be Karen, with Kara referenced from time to time as her real name. They should IMO then explain once or twice that they're simply pronounced differently.

You point out perhaps the most troubling part for me. I feel like I no longer know her personality or her. Every now and again a glimpse of the Kara (KAHR uh) I used to know would peak through. But these days, it's really just the name and the suit along with nostalgia keeping me on the hook. Now even those are gone in exchange for homogenized 90s X style "uniforms" and being the alternate Supergirl from a dead universe.

But thankfully there are back issues and my own imagination. Maybe I will draw my own adventures of her older self pre- Geoff Johns.

[Stanlos]

Except DC has been doing it for decades. Sometimes it is creating a new character using an old name. Sometimes it is rebooting a character like in the New 52. And sometimes it is just Jon Kent

I mean does anyone really think that the Power Girl in All-Star Comics was really the same character as the Power Girl in JLI or that either of them had more than a passing connection to the character under Palmiotti and Conner?

I wanted to be more enthused about the Conner & Palmiotti (I always misstype this name so apologies!) book but it flowed directly from the whole mopey thing and had a pre-amble with Psycho pirate. But whatevs.

[marhawkman]

Except DC has been doing it for decades. Sometimes it is creating a new character using an old name. Sometimes it is rebooting a character like in the New 52. And sometimes it is just Jon Kent

Enh... they tweak stuff, but not to the point of unrecognizability.

Stuff like having a different person as Cheetah... Barbara Minerva, great villainess, that Snapper Carr story was... more than a little..... "interesting"... but they don't try to pretend she's the same character from the older WW stories with Priscilla Rich as Cheetah. The only similarity is the "cheetah" aesthetic, but crucially the writers don't try to pretend otherwise.

It's a matter of degree, changes are inevitable.... drastic changes that make a character unrecognizable aren't.

[achilles]

I wanted to be more enthused about the Conner & Palmiotti (I always misstype this name so apologies!) book but it flowed directly from the whole mopey thing and had a pre-amble with Psycho pirate. But whatevs.

That bothered you too, eh?

[achilles]

You point out perhaps the most troubling part for me. I feel like I no longer know her personality or her. Every now and again a glimpse of the Kara (KAHR uh) I used to know would peak through. But these days, it's really just the name and the suit along with nostalgia keeping me on the hook. Now even those are gone in exchange for homogenized 90s X style "uniforms" and being the alternate Supergirl from a dead universe.

But thankfully there are back issues and my own imagination. Maybe I will draw my own adventures of her older self pre- Geoff Johns.

Or, I'm sure there's tons of fan fiction using her or about her. Some of it must be decent at the least. But where to find all of that stuff?

[Agent Z]

I guess in the sense that it is her secret identity and thus one of the names she went by sure. But among her friends from the League like Diana, Wally, Jonn, Nate, Kimi, et al., it was jarring for them to up and start calling her Karen when they all had been referring to her as Kara all this time. It was random and forced. At least with this whole Paige thing effort was given to explain the incoming transition.

Why would they have called her Kara at all given Supergirl was still around and that would only cause confusion?

[Stanlos]

That bothered you too, eh?

As usual, we are not far off from one another

[Stanlos]

Or, I'm sure there's tons of fan fiction using her or about her. Some of it must be decent at the least. But where to find all of that stuff?

Well, I can't say I have had the most positive experience. I am too scared to look

[Stanlos]

Why would they have called her Kara at all given Supergirl was still around and that would only cause confusion?

She was called that in Grandma's old books too. In the League she was called that. Babs called her that in BOP as well. As to why they called her that, I would guess there was trust among the peers and they didn't need to use their secret civilian IDs. Those are used to move among normals undetected. When hanging out at the Embassy or working out, she's among friends in the superhero endeavor

[juan678]

https://twitter.com/S_Marguerite/sta...31234830311426

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