I can't decide.

Is the pun on this cover really funny, really terrible or so terrible it's funny?

(Oh, and if you're not up to date with DC's various legacy characters, the dark-haired girl is named Terra.)

God bless superhero comics.

So this is apparently the second page of Magog #6, by Keith Giffen, Howard Porter and John Dell. You can see the page, along with three others, as part of a preview on Newsarama.com by clicking here.

On the first page, we see a splash of Power Girl punching Magog in his stupid Magog-y face, while he narrates, "Now I understand the cleavage cutout she sports. Distracting doesn't begin to describe it." And then there's the above page, which features a third panel in which Magog seems to be groping our heroine.

Okay, yes, I know that's not what's actually happening, and that the two-dimensional drawing of a three-dimensional world in which Magog's hand just happens to flail between the reader's eye and Power Girl's breast, but it looks like he's groping her.

So, Howard Porter penciled that image, then John Dell inked it, then someone else lettered it and someone else colored it and, presumably, an editor and/or assistant editor each looked at that page before it went to press (if not between each of those steps), and no one thought that panel might look a little weird?

Some of Celina Hernandez's Super Girls...

After reading Reignbow and Dee-Va (the subject of the previous post) but before writing about it, I spent some time looking at artist Celina Hernandez's artwork in her MySpace gallery. You can go click around there yourself if you like; there's some pretty fun art there, including these cute little versions of the title characters of her comic.

If you don't want to take the trouble of doing that whole extra click to get there though, I thought I'd highlight a few of her drawings of some super-ladies here.

Ready?


Here's that one X-lady from the Bad Days of the X-Men, the one who was a ninja who didn't wear pants, and was maybe a psychic, who also had a laser dagger sword thing because why not, and her name and costume and powers had nothing at all to do with each other and was therefore a terrible idea of a superhero.

I'm not a fan of this X-person...what's her name...Psylocke.

Anyway, I like the stripped down simplicity of her here, and I once read an awful Death's Head comic where this X-person was so anatomically improbable I couldn't believe it saw print; she was all pelvis. Usually artists explode the breasts or legs, but she was just a giant pelvis with limbs hanging from it. Gah. Here, her pelvis is clearly only part of her body.

And also, she has a pretty ribbon.



Here's Power Girl. It's kinda neat to see such a simplified, two-dimensional version of the character, but beyond that, I don't really care for this one too much. It's still better than some of the images of Power Girl that DC has paid artists a lot of money to put on terrible, terrible covers though.



Here we have a Wonder Woman, and it's a very manga kinda Wonder Woman. I like the zig-zag posture—you can practically see a lightning bolt shape from her head to neck to torso to lower body. And the hip-to-thigh ratio is...intriguing. Does Wonder Woman have some wondrous quadracep muscles or...I don't know. But I kinda like this one.



And here's her She-Hulk. I like this one quite a lot. All of the proportions are pretty much perfect, in an Amazonian kind of way (right down to having big, powerful forearms for Popeye-like punching power and a crushing grip), it's super-simplified but detailed enough that with costume and coloring you know who it is, and it's manga-influenced without being manga derivative.

I also like the sketchy coloring, and the fact that you can still see the pencil marks Hernandez used as a guide. Those things would drive me crazy in a finished, sequential art comic book, but they look pretty cool in a single, static image like this.

POWER GIRL

isn't about to eat a popsicle while Plastic Man's around.

Okay, four things

1.) In this week’s Las Vegas Weekly column, I take a look at





and




I mentioned it yesterday, but if you find the two hundred and fifty words or so about Mice Templar there insufficient, and would like to read 650 more words or so about the comic written by me, I pinch hit a “Best Shots Extra” review of it for Best Shots' fearless leader Troy Brownfield over at Newsarama.com earlier this week.

The best of the three is by far Varon’s Robot Dreams. How good is it you ask? So good that if I meet you and you’re like, “Yeah, I never got around to reading Varon’s Robot Dreams book,” I’ll punch you in the face.*


2.) While I’m linking to things, I wanted to point out a couple of neat pieces that Tim O’Neil posted this week. O’Neil’s one of those comics bloggers who pretty much always has something pretty smart to say on the subject of comics, and I was just thinking, “Damn, I wish he posted every single day” after reading a post he did about the difficulties in capturing martial arts in comics form, when up went a very smart piece about the seemingly doomed Spider-Man/Mary Jane marriage.

O’Neil’s comments on it were among the most cogent I’ve encountered on the subject (of course, most of the comments on the Spider-marriage I’ve encountered were on the Newsarama message boards following Joe Quesada’s last 4,057 broachings of the topic there), which Tom “Comics Reporter” Spurgeon rather elegantly framed as Marvel’s necessary process of “letting the character change and then scaling things back to the status quo in a demented cycle of innovation and aphasia.”

I appreciated O’Neil’s argument because it wasn’t really framed as that of a fan—he seemed to like the Spider-marriage and not react to it with the repulsion Quesada seemingly does—but simply as someone who could see Quesada’s argument, maybe a little more clearly than Quesada has been able to articulate. (And Quesada’s been talking about the damn thing since he was finishing up Sword of Azrael, I believe).

Quesada and Marvel are certainly going to face backlash when “One More Day” finally drops. After hinting and hyping it so long (long before the story even had a title, back when it was just a twinkle in Quesada’s eye), the story is either going to do away with the marriage in some sort of magic/cosmic continuity reset of the sort Marvel as always eschewed and DC’s always embraced** (An educated guess? A wizard will literally do it), and people will scrutinize the hell out of the execution, while coming down along the love-it or hate-it line, depending on how they feel about the Spider-marriage now, before the story’s first chapter even ships, OR the story is going to not be about the Spider-marriage at all and MJ and Peter will still be married at the end, and people will be disappointed that Marvel failed to deliver on the subject they’ve been hyping for 24 years or so now (Best guess in this case? Maybe Aunt May finally dies for real this time).

It really seems lose/lose to me at this point, no matter what happens afterwards in Spider-Man’s fictional life.

The point that Quesada either misses or simply has never addressed publicly is that even if every single point he (and O’Neil) have made about the negative aspects of the marriage are true, the many imprints and “continuitiverses” Marvel’s introduced since Quesada ascended to Editor-in-Chief have rendered the point moot.

Marvel has at least three distinct widely read Spider-Mans at the moment: The Marvel Universe one who stars in the Spider-Man books, New Avengers and guest-stars all over the place constantly; the Ultimate Universe Spidey who appears in Ultimate Spider-Man; and the Marvel Adventures Spidey who appears in the kid-friendly Marvel Adventures Spider-Man title and Marvel Adventures Avengers (There’s also the Spideys of Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane and The Amazing Spider-Girl; in both cases, their sales in the direct market are so small as to be negligible, although in the bookstore market they might have a bigger following—at least in the case of SMLMJ, but I’m really just guessing here).

Of those three Spideys, two are single and one is married (and SMLMJ Spidey is single; ASG Spidey is married, but no longer Spider-Man, just Peter Parker). If there is more story potential in the single Spider-Man, well, there are imprints to capitalize on that potential. To make the Marvel Universe one single too simply eliminates whatever potential there is in married Spider-Man stories.

If the argument isn’t simply about creative potential, but instead about a single Spider-Man being more appealing to young and new readers, being an easier archetype to plug into comics stories and their adaptations and merchandise, then I think Quesada is seriously misunderstanding what the gateway Spider-Man comic is these days, and who reads his various books.

Kids aren’t as likely to pick up Amazing Spider-Man as they are the Ultimate or Marvel Adventures version, and they’re less likely to even be able to choose the Marvel Universe Spidey, given those books relative scarcity outside of the direct market.

Put simply, the Ultimate line and the Marvel Adventures line, or at least the collections, are geared for and consumed by a mass market who don’t necessarily buy them in comic shops, or even ever go to comic shops, but buy them online or in big box bookstores. The Marvel Universe Spider-Man books, those featuring “616” Spidey, are bought by people who know what “616” means; that is, direct market consumers.

I don’t see the wisdom in even potentially alienating the shrinking “616” consumers by doing away with one of the few actual changes to have occurred in the life of a character they’ve followed faithfully for years (if not, in many cases, decades) simply to make him more appealing to readers who already have a few other Spider-Men geared specifically toward them.

The people who are most likely to enjoy the adventures of a (slightly) older Spider-Man, and we’re really talking about a Spidey who’s in his late ‘20s or early ‘30s instead of early or mid ‘20s, are the ones who are already reading the married Spider-Man, and have been for years. Most of them are also married themselves, or certainly of the age where they can relate to a married Spider-Man instead of a swinging bachelor one, or a young one experiencing girl troubles. And if and when we want to read about a young, single Spidey, well, nothing’s stopping us from reading books from those other imprints either (As someone who reads Spidey stories spread across the different continuitiverses, I think the Ultimate one has long been the one starring in the highest quality stories, and those are accessible and appealing to cranky old hardcore fans and relative newcomers to Spidey and comics in general).

But enough about Quesda and the Parkers. Back to O'Neil, he follows that post with a brilliant graphic explanation of EDILW favorite Jack Cole's brilliance. Check it all out.


3.) So, hey, did you see the Darwyn Cooke cover for an upcoming issue of The Comics Journal that Dirk Deppey posted at Journalista the other day?

No? Well, here it is, followed by several other cover portraits of Power Girl. All of them were created for DC Comics publications except Cooke’s.









Discuss.


4.) Finally, something related to the EDILW. I’ve been unhappy with the layout of the Wednesday night “Weekly Haul” posts for pretty much the entire time I’ve been doing them, and I switch it up every couple of months in an attempt to improve upon it. Having recently discovered there’s a way to keep text from wrapping around images weirdly in blogger (I’m seriously like a freaking caveman on this here computer thing), for example, I went back to the smaller-images-to-the-right-of-the-text arrangement, but I don’t think I like that any better than the big-pictures-above-each-review arrangement of the last few months.

Anyway, this is just a call for opinions. Do any of you feel strongly about what looks best, or what you’d prefer to read? Should I include the cover images of the books at all? (Since you’re here, you all obviously go to comics shops and spend time online looking up info about comics, so presumably you already know what all the covers look like). Should they be big images above the reviews? Smaller ones embedded into the reviews? To the right, or to the left?

Just curious.

Now, I know most of the comics blogosphere goes into low-content mode on weekends, on account of most comics bloggers having real lives, but that’s not a concern here at EDILW. So I just wanted to give a general heads-up that not only are we going to have new content on Saturday and Sunday, but it’s going to be pretty exciting content. Or, at least, it’s content that I’m really excited about, because it’s two posts I’ve been working on forever and am ecstatic to finally be done working on.



*No, I won’t hit you. Not really. I’ll probably just say, “Oh, you should really check it out; it’s very good.” While I imagine punching you in the face.


**Is it just me, or, over the last few years, does it seem that DC is learning all the wrong lessons from Marvel, embracing negative aspects of the Marvel Universe and its management, while Marvel has been learning all the wrong lessons from DC, and embracing the negative aspects of the DCU and its management?

Actually Essential Storylines: Power Girl

This week’s 52 origin story is that of Power Girl, a hero who ranks right up there with Donna Troy, Hawkman and the poor Legionnaires when it comes to getting screwed over by cosmic crossovers. Pre-Crisis, she was Earth-2 Superman’s cousin from Krypton. Post-Crisis, she was originally of Atlantean descent and related to Arion the Immortal. And then her origin became ambiguous. Post-Infinite Crisis, her original origin was reasserted.

To that end, this origin story is particularly useful, since it’s one of the few—or, wait a minute, is it the only?—origin that clears up what exactly Infnite Crisis changed in terms of DC continuity.

Waid tries to clear everything up in just five panels, and it’s a mess. Rather than starting with her place on the shared, composite Earth that emerged from Crisis on Infinite Earth, Waid starts on Pre-Crisis Earth-2 Krypton (Krypton-2?), so when we get to “In time, however Kara learned…that she had been born and raised in a parallel universe later eradicated in a multiversal crisis,” it’s backwards. The first three panels are the “truth,” which she came to realize after living a lifetime on post-Crisis, shared Earth.

Gah! Could this shit be any more complicated?!

DC’s resident cheesecake cover artist Adam Hughes handles the art chores, and it’s all nicely rendered and laid out, though I don’t think we needed an upskirt shot of Supergirl’s bare ass, or P.G.’s cleavage in the headshot at the bottom, but let’s turn our attention to the “Essential Storylines” recommendations. DC does a pretty good job this week, naming the two absolutely essential Power Girl stories.

Here’s what DC suggests…

INFINITE CRISIS: Power Girl was definitely a major player in DC’s latest universe defining event. In fact, outside the various Supermen and ‘boys, Batman, Alex Luthor and Wonder Woman, Power Girl had a bigger role than just about anyone in the series, even if she did spend a significant amount of it chained to a tower while various villains argued over who got to keep her to play with after they’d reshaped the universe the way they saw fit. I’m assuming that with this suggestion DC means the Infinite Crisis trade, and not the seven-part miniseries, since the trade changes a lot of little details in the dialogue that could significantly effect Power Girl (all having to do with the existence of Earth-2). For the moment, though, P.G. would seem to be the last survivor of Earth-2, although all signs point to Earth-2 returning soon.

POWER GIRL TRADE PAPERBACK: This trade collects Geoff Johns and Amanda Conner’s four-part story arc from JSA: Classified that finally told the true origin of Power Girl, although in a rather teasing way. Possible origins, some of them much more clever than the real one, actually, are repeatedly suggested before the true one is revealed. It’s by far Johns’ most light-hearted and easygoing read since Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E. was cancelled, and Conner’s art is by far the best to ever grace a Power Girl story. The trade also includes Showcase #97-99 and Secret Origins #11 from way back in the day.




And here’s what they missed…

JUSTICE LEAGUER: When Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire and company’s reimagined Justice League appearing in Justice League Internationa proved a hit, DC did the obvious, and created a spin-off. Unlike most spin-off series, however, Justice League Europe proved just as good as the original, since the same writers were involved. Along with penicller Bart Sears, Giffen and DeMatteis created a second League to have stationed in the Old World, one including Power Girl.


Along with Metamorpho, the Flash, the Elongated Man, Sue Dibny, Captain Atom, Rocket Red, Animal Man and others, she protected Europe from the likes of Starro, the Global Guardians and the Injustice Gang for years, often proving to be just as big a menace themselves. None of these issues have been collected into trade, but all are worth tracking down. Power Girl started out rocking a variation of her original costume, minus the peekabook cut-out, and with an Atlantean medallion for a belt buckle. She' eventually switch to a generic-looking white and yellow full body suit. Giffen and DeMatteis had a few running gags involving P.G., including her adoption of a repulsive cat, the fact that diet soda seemed to affect her moods and/or sanity, and her hatred of the Flash who, at this early point in his career, still had a lot of growing up to do.

Following the 1992 relaunch of the Justice League franchise, Power Girl joined the JLE alongside Aquaman, Flash, Elongated Man, Dr. Light and Crimson Fox (plus the ever-present Sue Dibny; Batman was the team’s leader for the first arc (in which they battled art-themed villain Deconstructo). Gerard Jones had the unenviable task of following Giffen and DeMatteis, but Ron Randall’s smooth, clean pencil art certainly made the transition easy on the eyes.

Kara sported a news costume, including a headband, a diamond-shaped cut out to show off her cleavage, and blue, knee high boots. The costume didn’t age well—I blame the headband—but it was a great improvement over the white and yellow costume.

The quality of Jones’ run would dip as the cast changed (Tasmanian Devil, Metamorpho, Maya and Lionheart would join up, replacing Aquaman), co-writer Will Jacobs would come on, and the title would change to Justice League International, making League history even more confusing than it already was.

There was some weird storyline about Power Girl giving birth to a magic baby that grew up instantly to destroy the world or save it or something…It obviously wasn’t very memorable, and if anything about her history was rebooted during the “New Earth” rejiggeration. JLE/I ended after “Judgment Day” and Zero Hour. None of the above have been collected into trade, save Zero Hour, in which Power Girl barely cameos.

Power Girl would be MIA for the JLA pretty much from then on, as Grant Morrison’s late-‘90s relaunch wasn’t far at that point. P.G. would be relegated to crowd shots and cameos in JLA stories that required the reserves be sent in (Mark Millar’s fill-in issue, JLA/Titans, etc). In fifth-week event Justice Leagues, she appeared in the second and third parts, as a member of first Wonder Woman’s Justice League of Amazons and Aquaman’s Justice League of Atlantis.

Power Girl would rejoin some of her fellow former Leaguers in the second JLA: Classified arc, in which Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire sent The Supperbuddies to JSA headquarters and they all end up in hell and an alternate dimension. Hilarity ensues. For the last time, for many of the characters involved. It’s since been collected as I Can’t Believe it’s Not the Justice League!.


JSA: On Earth-2, the parallel dimension on which the Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman and the other Golden Age heroes existed pre-Crisis, Power Girl was one of the young heroes (including a grown-up Robin and the Star Spangled Kid) who applied for member ship in the JSA in All-Star Comics. Crisis on Infinite Earths wiped Earth-2 and all memory of it out of existence, collapsing the entire multivers into one, single Earth (Post-Crisis DCU continuity), but Infinite Crisis proved that Power Girl actually escaped whole from Earth-2 and, during her adventures, her memories of Earth-2 were restored.

Which puts Power Girl’s E-2 adventures back into continuity, for Power Girl at least (a flashback in JSoA #1, in which Wildcat seemingly remembers an E-2 story, muddies things; DC hasn’t yet revealed the nature of it’s post-Infinite Crisis universe). At any rate, Power Girls time in the Earth-2 JSA are collected in two trades so far, Justice Society Vol. 1 and Vol. 2.

In JSA #31, drawn, like all the best issues of JSA, by Peter Snejbjerg, Black Canary resigns from the team, but she names her own replacement. As Wildcat spit-took upon seeing her, “Not this broad—Not Power Girl!” P.G.’s been on the team since.
Among the most Power Girl-centric stories were #39, which is essentially a solo story featureing Power Girl, and #52-#53, in which she and Wildcat face the new Crimson Avenger. The entire series has been collected in trades; P.G.’s first appearance is near the end of JSA: Fair Play, and she continues to appear through JSA: Ghost Stories (this final volume is the only one I wouldn’t heartily recommend).




ELSEWHERE IN THE DCU: Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. When not on a team with the word “Justice” in its name, Power Girl could be seen in the pages of the Chris Claremont’s Soverign Seven, Peter David’s run on Supergirl (which DC is currently pretending never happened), David’s superlative Aquaman run (the single best Aquaman run of all time), Birds of Prey (where it’s since been revealed that she was one of Oracle’s first choices for a field agent, but things went disastrously), Resurrection Man spin-off Body Doubles (in which most of the DCU's female heroes appear at one point or another), and Brian K. Vaughan masterminded series Green Lantern: Circle of Fire (The trad eof which is currently out of print because, you know, who’d be interested in a BKV book?). None of these appearances are available in trade. I won’t discuss her appearances in the current volume of Supergirl because, honestly, the less one knows about the current volume of Supergirl, the better.


For more on Power Girl, check out Ragnell's appreciation, which is followed by a visual debunking of the popular Internet rumor of the secret origin of Power Girl's breast size.