Review: Showcase Presents... Power Girl by Paul Levitz, Joe Staton, Dick Giordano, et al.

After her debut in All Star Comics, Power Girl got a three-month feature in Showcase, DC's title with rotating stars (for example, the Doom Patrol starred before her, and Hawkman after). I had originally skipped this in my Earth-Two reading project because the back issues are pretty expensive, and the trade they're in is half Geoff Johns shit with an awful Adam Hughes cover, but after early issues of Infinity, Inc. made a couple references to them, I looked into picking them up, and saw they were just $0.99 on Comixology. I don't normally like buying DC stuff on Comixology (unlike IDW publications, you can't download a PDF, so you have to read it in the terrible Comixology viewer), but $3 seemed hard to turn down.

It's a bit off. Since Power Girl was just one of an ensemble in All Star Comics, she didn't have much of a backstory there-- she's just like, "oh I'm Superman's cousin, hi"-- and these stories fill it in to an extent, and also give her a status quo outside of her JSA activities. But it's kind of awkward and weird. Power Girl was rocketed to Earth as an infant to escape the destruction of Krypton, of course, but unlike Kal-L, who landed on Earth still a small child, Kara Zor-L was raised to a young adult level in an artificial simulation of Kryptonian childhood before she reached Earth. I think there's real potential in such a situation, but the story doesn't make a whole lot of it: Kara's "symbioship" is trying to reabsorb her, she reveals her backstory, she defeats it with the help of Andrew Vinson (a Gotham reporter), the end, all in the space of two issues.

from Showcase #98 (art by Joe Staton & Dick Giordano)

It's over improbably quickly, and I'm not sure why the symbioshop had to attack Power Girl and try to absorb Vinson, but it is a set-up with some good dramatic potential. I like the idea that she fits so poorly into human society because she was raised in Kryptonian society... but that was an illusion, so the only thing she knows is fake. It's a much more tragic take on the Krypton backstory than Superman's. (Though All Star indicated she was raised by the Kents, who are never mentioned here.)

from Showcase #98 (art by Joe Staton & Dick Giordano)

But it's all over just like that. Between the second and third issues, she concocts a human identity as Karen Starr, Wonder Woman uses an Amazonian teaching machine to give her knowledge of human culture as well as software development, and Vinson gets her a job at a software company. Like, that's it? It seems pretty meh that she didn't even know what software was until the machine taught it to her, so her job doesn't even build on any preexisting interests or skills. I mean, she was raised in a computer world, the connection is right there, but the story never makes it! Why give her a dilemma she actually never confronts in a story? (I'll be curious to see if future Power Girl stories, in Infinity, Inc. or elsewhere, make more of this. Probably not, because the Crisis on Infinite Earths will wipe this whole backstory away.)

from Showcase #99 (art by Joe Staton & Dick Giordano)

There's a subplot in the first two issues about someone stealing technical equipment; it turns out to be the Brain Wave at the end of the second, and the third focuses on Kara's battle with him. For some reason he hates Power Girl more than the rest of the Justice Society because she's defeated him more (really?) than them. I thought his power was brain stuff, but here he's building tripod war machines and sending cities into dimensional limbo, which doesn't really flow from that as far as I can tell. I do really like how Joe Staton draws his enlarged cranium, though.

from Showcase #97 (art by Joe Staton & Joe Orlando)

As always, I like Staton's art. Lightly stylized but full of energy, too, and his Kara looks like a powerhouse. Power Girl wears a choker; so did Black Canary at this time if I recall correctly, so I guess it was a thing then.

Showcase Presents... Power Girl originally appeared in issues #97-99 of Showcase (Feb.-Apr. 1978). The story was written by Paul Levitz; illustrated by Joe Staton (#97-99), Joe Orlando (#97), and Dick Giordano (#98-99); lettered by Ben Oda (#97-98) and Shelly Leferman (#99); colored by Jerry Serpe (#97) and Adrienne Roy (#98-99); and edited by Joe Orlando.

This post is the sixth in a series about the Justice Society and Earth-Two. The next installment covers America vs. the Justice Society. Previous installments are listed below:

1. All Star Comics: Only Legends Live Forever (1976-79)
2. The Huntress: Origins (1977-82)
3. All-Star Squadron (1981-87)
4. Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume One (1983-84)
5. Infinity, Inc.: The Generations Saga, Volume Two (1984-85)