When Gerry Conway reintroduced the Justice Society of America in the pages of the revived All-Star Comics he made his most lasting impression by adding Power Girl to the team. Her militantly feminist attitude really challenged the older gentlemen who mostly made up the team at that time. She softened a bit as the series developed, but it took her solo trilogy in the pages of the revived Showcase to really add a back story to her existence of super-heroics. We learn her story, which is similar to that of Earth-One's Supergirl. Like her Earth-One counterpart Superman kept Power Girl a secret, but unlike Supergirl, the other survivor of Krypton did not ask permission ultimately to enter the fray. In the trilogy she is given a name, "Karen Starr", and a job as a computer tech. Nowadays a humdrum career but back in the late Bronze Age rather cutting edge.
Power Girl does survive the Crisis On Infinite Earths, but she is pretty much an anomaly at that point. The decision to kill off Supergirl famously left behind a Power Girl without a counterpart and without an origin when the revised DC universe counted only Superman as the lone survivor of Krypton.
Too good to cast away the powers that were decided that Power Girl's abilities were magical in nature, not science fictional and she was attached to the lost land of Atlantis in a story in Secret Origins, a book which took as one of its missions to clean up the messes the Crisis created. The magical stuff never made much sense to me, but most folks I bet didn't really care.
Power Girl has a way of making you forget small details like that.
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Haha :) one of your best, most well-composed & referential posts with regards to its subject, i must say :D n' pleasantly concise as well, to boot...kudos, Rip B)
ReplyDeleteThank you. Thank you very much.
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Ironic that something (Crisis) which was supposedly intended to clear up a 'mess' actually created one (at least) of its own. To me, Power Girl's appeal was purely visual - that apart, there was nothing else about the character that interested me. Another great post, Rip.
ReplyDeleteThanks. The Crisis created a mess and a bunch of opportunities,but sadly they felt they needed to sweep away much of what had come before. It was exciting though, I'll give them that. Power Girl always gets the attention for her bodacious looks, but her take-no-crap personality is what made her stand out in these early stories.
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