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I mentioned that I’ve been vacillating about getting the new Power Girl, because I have zero interest in the character and the writing team of Gray/Palmiotti isn’t bad, but they’re not good enough to make me care about the character. On the other hand, Amanda Conner is frickin’ awesome, and she’s always drawing things I have no interest in. But because I don’t hate Gray/Palmiotti (some of their stuff has been rather good), I decided to check this out.
Well, it’s gorgeous. Sure, PG has that ridiculous rack, but unlike, say, Michael Turner’s version, Conner’s PG is built like the proverbial brick shithouse, so the boobs don’t look idiotic. And Conner does a wonderful job with the rest of the book, too. PG’s facial expressions (she bites her lip with effort at one point, and looks genuinely annoyed – not even a little worried – when confronted by the Ultra-Humanite). Her conversation with crazy scientist guy (who has to return at some point wearing a gaudy costume ranting about cleansing the world, doesn’t he?) is a masterpiece of body language, so even if we didn’t know what they were talking about, we could get the emotions of both of them perfectly. And the action scenes, despite featuring some images that don’t really fit (I’ll get to that, as it’s tied to the writing), are stunning. If you’re going to buy one book this week just for the art, buy this one (of course, you could buy Cameron Stewart’s effort, but you’d buy that for the writing, too).
The writing itself is less successful. For one thing, there’s too much of it. There’s a TON of internal narration, and while the narration and dialogue (which is a bit more restrained, but still a bit excessive) aren’t bad, it gets a bit tedious. When she catches Dexter (one of the scientists she’s hiring as she re-starts her company) looking at her chest, we get this:
Dexter Nichols is a good kid, shy, awkward and tall as a beanstalk but brilliant. I can overlook his staring at my chest. It’s something I had to get used to a long time ago. … Originally from the Mid-West, Dexter has those down-home values which grate against the hustle and bustle of big city life. But I like having that kind of person around. He’s honest, grounded, and … very human.
Sheesh. We get it. City folk suck. Country folk honestly stare at your chest, while surreptitious city folk pretend not to! There’s a lot of this in the book, and it tends to drag. I get that many people don’t know much about Power Girl, so Gray and Palmiotti feel they need to give us a lot of information, but they really get the essential information out of the way quickly, and the rest of the issue is PG setting up her company, where they do a lot of telling and not showing. It drags what should have been a relatively zippy issue down a bit. Then, there’s the Ultra-Humanite, who makes people in Manhattan start killing each other. This is another problem with the issue. PG fights weird robots and an albino gorilla (that would be the Ultra-Humanite), and it ought to be more fun and less people “in elevators strangling each other, nurses in hospitals killing patients.” As you know, I’m certainly not adverse to reading comics in which people do horrible things to each other, but Conner’s art, combined with the presence of clockwork robots and gorillas, combined with the fact that PG is a “bright” character herself, highlights the unpleasant aspects of the book. Conner has to draw a woman digging the eyes out of a man, and it seems out of place.
Boy, I’m writing a lot about this, aren’t I? Well, it’s a first issue. I found the idea of PG moving to New York for a “fresh start” (there’s no better place for it, according to her) laughable. Of all the cities in the United States where a person can get a fresh start, New York is way down on the list. Gray and Palmiotti moved her there because of the storytelling possibilities, but don’t say it’s for a “fresh start.” You know where people move to get a fresh start? West. Denver, Phoenix, L. A., San Francisco, Portland, Seattle – those cities are where people move to get a fresh start.
Anyway, this is a perfectly decent superhero comic. It’s certainly elevated by the art, but I’m not sure if that’s enough to stick with it. I’ll probably get the next issue to see if Gray and Palmiotti do anything interesting with the story, but I’m not sure how long I’ll hang around. I hope it’s a huge success, though, if only so Conner gets a higher profile. Yes, I’m gushing. I don’t care. She’s that good.
IF YOU DON’T LIKE POWER GIRL … You just made a little girl desperate for a positive female role model cry. Good job!
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