Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Power Girl and She-Hulk



The first season of Supergirl ended with the title character looking surprised at the unseen passenger of a rocket.  Was it Krypto, Superman, her mother, or someone else?  Some have speculated that this could be the introduction of Power Girl into the series, which could be interesting as well.  For a character that has been cosplayed so much, it is surprising that we still have not seen an official live action version yet.

20 comments:

AirDave said...

Cool cover!
Didn't DC kind of muddy and complicate Power Girl's origin? She started out as the Earth-2 cousin of Superman, then she was connected to Arion, Lord of Atlantis and the whole mystic-magic thing...even Justice League Unlimited made her almost a bizarro evil clone of Kara. She wasn't really kept true to her origin...She just seems like a one-off of Supergirl...a kind of confusing alternate reality version. Cool costume, weird backstory.

Richard said...

I'm watching Agents of SHIELD with Kree running all over the place (as well as the delightful John Hannah), so that has me in the right frame of mind to see anything closely associated with the era, or my introduction to them all being around the same time; Power Girl, Kree, etc.
I always thought Power Girl was cool as the alternate Earth Supergirl in this costume and amazingly enough, I liked the yellow-and-white one she wore in JLI-JLE (didn't care for the one that came after that tho), nor did I like her becoming Atlantean, pregnant or wherever it went after that.

Never cared for She-Hulk. Anybody else would have been more interesting than her.

Richard said...

Are comic book writers just not able to comprehend a likable female character and must always essentially trash them in one way or another?

I still recall it was pointed out how effective Storm was before she went new wave, which really was unnecessary for who she was, and it ruined her appeal, all the while characters like Forge were all saying how 'beautiful' she was at that time.

But it seems this always happens with female characters; whether it is Sue Richards becoming pregnant and suddenly as weak as a kitten, decades later becoming a feminist in a laughable revealing costume or Wonder Woman's costume change in the late sixties.

And in this instance, Power Girl no longer being Kryptonian is what it comes down to.

Anonymous said...

After Crisis on Infinite Earths DC ended up with one earth so there was no Earth-2 Superman to be cousin to. I think the Arion stuff lasted awhile but went back to Superman's cousin either with the nu52 or before. Amanda Conner is the Power Girl artist for me.

Simreeve said...

Before. It was once the Multiverse was re-created & recognised again in the Infinite Crisis/52 storylines... although, to the shock of the PG whose adventures we'd been following since pre-Crisis days the "restored" Earth-2 had its own version of her and so she couldn't go back home to stay.

I agree about Amanda Conner.

Bob Greenwade said...

Power Girl is indeed a very popular cosplay subject; any cosplaying woman with that particular body type (yeah, you know what I mean) has that in her repertoire. In fact, I think at least a couple of women have gotten implants just for the purpose.

Still, even though I've read far too little of her adventures, I've come to really like Power Girl. I'd even had some desire to write her eponymous comic for a couple of years; given her shifting attitude about her cleavage, her "lost from home" backstory, and other matters, I'd had a thought to have her diagnosed with a Kryptonian counterpart to bipolar disorder. I think that kind of got screwed with the New52, though DC's in the process of rebooting yet again so she may be suitable for that story later. (Not that there's much of a chance that DC would let me write for them.)

And teaming her up with She-Hulk... well, I also see a lot of that character being cosplayed in my Pinterest feed, and she's one of the favorites among not just tall muscular women, but of women who like to (shall we say) under-dress. I'm usually uncomfortable with that, but as this image sort of demonstrates, Shulkie tends to not be.

In fact, one could almost think of these two as the Cleavage Patrol. Maybe they can team up again in the future, to face off against Black Cat and some appropriate DC villainess.

Anonymous said...

I remember a Silver Age Superboy story where he found out his Kryptonian parents, Jor-El and Lara, had survived! The result of a fellow Kryptonian scientist forcibly rendering them unconscious and then put aboard a cryo-ship. Only trouble was, the ship had drifted into belt of kryptonite asteroids! So, Superboy was never able to get them out.

For Season 2, episode 1, I'd like it to be Supergirl's parents.

Jonathan Linneman said...

Please, Rao, let it be Krypto!

Ross said...

I agree, Linneman - cape and all!

Mr. Acer said...

I've often pictured an Amanda Conner-drawn team-up crossover between these two. The setup is that in their respective alter-egos, Karen Starr's meeting with Jen Walters over a legal matter for Starrware, interrupted by a crime spree caused by an unexpected team-up of Jen's rival (and Mrs. Absorbing Man) Titania and PG's not-so-nice clone Divine (from Judd Winick's run on her title). Soon, all combatants learn their fight was 'manufactured' by Mr. Mxyzptlk and X-Men foe Mojo, who's filming it all as part of a new Mojoverse program akin to 'Girls Gone Wild'. The quartet, understandably pissed off, then give the two M's their comeuppance--not only kicking their respective butts, but forcing them to take on entertainment duties for Mojoverse--the end of the story sees Mxy and Mojo attempting the old "Who's on first?" routine.

Sonofjack said...

I'd like to see these two team-up so badly that I'd volunteer to be villain whose butt they kick! Seriously, it would be my pleasure....

Anonymous said...

Are those Batman's hands?

Paul said...

It had dawned on me that it may be Krypto but, that's Superman's pet. Streaky the Super-Cat, no because Streaky's an earth feline. What about Kara's renegade look alike from Kandor... Lesla Lar.

Bob Buethe said...

"Anonymous said... I remember a Silver Age Superboy story where he found out his Kryptonian parents, Jor-El and Lara, had survived! The result of a fellow Kryptonian scientist forcibly rendering them unconscious and then put aboard a cryo-ship. Only trouble was, the ship had drifted into belt of kryptonite asteroids! So, Superboy was never able to get them out."

That was half the story. Superboy did retrieve their ship with the aid of Jonathan Kent in a spacesuit, only to discover that their bodies were poisoned by kryptonite, and if he revived them, they would only have a few painful days to live. Superboy #158 -- a story by Frank Robbins which has been totally ignored by fans and writers alike since it was published.

Richard said...

That Superboy story finding his parents in suspended animation in the rocket ship and being rescued by Jonathan Kent was reprinted in b&w in little digest form, as that was where I saw it.
It was a totally drawn out story with an evil Kryptonian scientist who turned good and sacrificed himself? Just stuff all over the board.

And I'm sorry, Power Girl, she-Hulk, Judy Jetson or Betty Rubble, they are all illustrations, so I never got into ogling an illustration of a woman's T and A. It's not like the Wasp or Medusa or Phantom Girl are drawn with incredibly small breasts.

Simreeve said...

Blogger Bob Buethe said...
"Superboy #158 -- a story by Frank Robbins which has been totally ignored by fans and writers alike since it was published."

Unless it influenced the writers of the 21st century (pre-Flashpoint) version of Supergirl? The 'ship trapped in a mass of Kryptonite en route' concept was used to explain some problems that she had... as well to justify a major increase in the amount of Kryptonite available on Earth.

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You know who else Shulkie should team up qwith? Harley Quinn...
After all, the latter has already worked quite happily [canonically] alongside both one version of Power Girl [meeting in HQ's own title, followed by a 6-issue limited series] and Wonder Woman [HQ's Little Black Book, #1] -- who was revealed to be one of her idols -- so teaming her up with another strong woman like this seems definitely workable... and their mutual disdain for the 'fourth wall' would make for fun. Maybeso Harley needs a lawyer, and PG [after this episode] recommends Jen to her?

Anonymous said...

Ross, was I right? Whose hands are they?

Anonymous said...

@Paul Schilling: Why not go totally retro and introduce Power Girl as the daughter and only child of Nim-El (identical twin brother of Silver Age Jor-El)?

@Bob Buethe: if Marvel's Ed Brubaker can ignore Bucky Barnes permanently staying dead, DC's writers can use their own skill at ret-conning to bring Jor-El and Lara permanently back to life.

Richard said...

There was discussion that Krypton would be found intact on the Smallville show. Had that happened, I think it's a safe bet Jor and Lar would have turned up.

Carycomic said...

In that case, Zor-El and Alura can can come back to life on SUPERGIRL THE SERIES. As I recall, their Silver Age counterparts took shelter in a remote corner of the Phantom Zone they dubbed "the Survival Zone," before being re-released into Kandor circa twenty years later. So, why not use the same script-reason for the Season 2 opener come this fall?

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