So apparently I need to read Mr Terrific because Karen Starr was a character there all along, and she is actually Power Girl. I’ll save comments about the events of that book for whenever I review that series, but let me make one comment about what I do know.
Ahem.
Stop pairing off my comic book crushes, writers! It happened with Storm, and now apparently Power Girl gets involved romantically! Stop crushing my fragile nerd heart!
That being said, I do have a point to make with this. I’ve noticed that there are certain characters that are better off not paired off romantically. And they seem to occur in serialized media more often than not. I think part of the phenomenon is that readers form connections with the characters. And when one of the characters are single and of the prefered gender, something of a crush can develop. So when the character is paired off later, it damages the reader’s enjoyment of the series. I’m not saying the writers are doing anything wrong, or even that the readers are doing anything wrong (general society may disagree with me, but screw you my pretend girlfriends can throw lightning or are bullet proof!), it’s just something I find interesting enough that more people should be aware of. If a certain character hasn’t had a romantic interest over the course of years of publication, it might be a good idea to consider the impact giving them one will have on the readers. It would be easy to say the readers should grow up, or stop being infatuated with fictional characters, but that’s not a writer’s job. A writer’s job is to consider their audience, and how what they write affects said audience.
What follows is a list of characters that I would appreciate if they remained single (or if they arent single…retcon dangit! You people love doing that, don’t you?):
- Power Girl
- Storm
- Sailor Jupiter
- Birgitte Silverbow
- Lorelei
- Nico Robin
I hope I have made myself clear?
…I can’t help but think I’m forgetting something? Oh right, the review. Apologies, let me get to that.
So the basic story is broken up between the past and the present, giving us a little bit of Huntress and Power Girl arriving in the main DC Universe, as well as focusing on current events that apparently happend in Mr Terrific. Once again, yay for reading other books to get the whole story.
A fire breaks out at a lab Power Girl recently bought, and as she and Huntress charge in, Power Girl explains that she had a device there that might be able to take them home. While in the burning building we get some required Power Girl fanservice, and we get to see her brand new outfit. Which finally covers up that giant hole.
On the one hand I’m glad she finally has a costume that doesn’t make me feel like such a perv for saying I like her. On the other hand, awwwwww…
While I’m not that invested in the “return home” goal the two heroines have, since we all know that won’t go anywhere, I am interested enough in seeing how their being displaced from home plays out. They explain the existence of a main universe Huntress in the pre-New 52 as being an alias Helena created. I’m most interested to see if she ever interacts substantially with Bruce and the rest of the Bat Family. And the shipper in me (he’s still not dead, no matter what I do) wants to find out if Helena Wayne’s mother is the same as the original Helena Wayne’s. And if she is the daughter of Selina, I expect to see some fun interaction between the two. Probably mostly along the lines of Helena comparing Catwoman to her mother, and so on.
With Karen I’m just glad she’s back. But to be honest Helena’s setup is much more interesting. The past Huntress, the non-silver age one, was not related to Batman in any way. So there is a wealth of stories and character interaction that can be found in her situation. Karen on the other hand is almost identical to the pre-New 52 Karen. So her interaction with Clark won’t be all that new.
This series is off to a good start, and I look forward to future issues. Mostly I appreciate World’s Finest as an answer to my complaint that my favorite character was missing. Whether she’s the same woman I loved reading about during Amanda Conner’s run on the series remains to be seen.
Now if only I could shake the feeling that I revealed too much about myself this review…