With a good chunk of New York City literally hanging in the balance, Power Girl must suffer a beating as Ultra Humanite talks and talks and talks.
What They Say:
As the Ultra-Humanite holds Manhattan and Power Girl hostage, he tells the parts of his origin that have never before been revealed. And what Power Girl learns chills her to the bone…
The Review:
The return of Power Girl in her own book launched well with the previous issue as it brought her back to New York City and Starrware. Her quest for her own identity was one that was set up well in that issue but it fell prey to the predictable attack by a super villain. The use of Ultra Humanite makes a certain sense from a historical comics perspective, but the character continues to be one of many ape creatures in the DC Comics universe that irritates me. There are good stories with them over the decades, but the whole subgroup sort of just rubs me the wrong way since they tend to have similar issues.
This issue of Power Girl spends a good part of its time on two things. The first is the fighting, which feels like it’s gone down a notch compared to the first issue. Power Girl and Ultra Humanite have enough strength and endurance to go against each other pretty well for a bit, but mostly because of his ability to gain insight into her mind through touch of any kind. His intent to figure out whether he can actually use her neural pathways to host his mind makes it an obvious plot since she can take the hits without any serious damage. And since he wants to take over her body, like most any man would as he notes, making sure she doesn’t suffer long term damage is important. What’s frustrating about the fight sequence is that while it does play out predictably with her going down so he can move on to his next phase with her, it’s all bland green backgrounds. The flow of the fight is alright but it lacks the needed energy to really draw you in and the blandness of the backgrounds takes it out of the environment in a bad way.
The second thing this issue focuses on is Ultra Humanite’s origin story. While I’m sure it’s been told many times over the decades, it’s not one that I recall off the top of my head so a mild refresher isn’t a bad thing, nor is it a surprise that it’d be lightly updated for modern times. Unfortunately, it’s a double dose of two things that are problems. The first is that it’s the typical villain monologue reveal where his past is laid out plainly and clearly. The second problem is that it’s just so, so familiar. With the number of Ape-ish characters DC has employed over the years, their origin stories often have a lot of familiar ideas to them, especially since there are a couple that have the whole human mind in the ape head gig going. Ultra Humanite’s reasons for acquiring Kara certainly make sense and his plan is generally a good one, but he takes it too far with the reveals as well as snatching up all of New York City.
Digital Notes:
This Comixology edition of Power Girl leads with the Adam Hughes alternate cover and then follows up with the Amanda Conner cover. While I would prefer the main cover before the alternate cover, the practice of including both is definitely that is very fan friendly and gives the digital editions just that little bit more value for appreciating the artwork.
In Summary:
Power Girl started off fairly strong with the first issue but it excises a lot of what made it work in the second. The focus for half of it on the fight isn’t bad, but it’s not engaging through its layouts and backgrounds to give it the impact it needs. The supporting cast has a mild appearance and the JSA drop by for a double page spread just to show they’re fighting out there in New York City as well, but it’s all token appearances just to pay lip service to their presence. Kara’s personality makes a few minor moments of this fun as we see her through the dialogue in the fight or her internal monologue, but that’s lacking the kind of better than average writing we saw previously. Power Girl goes for the predictable here and while it’s not bad, the opening issue offered up a lot more.
Grade: B-
