I like Wonder Womans golden battle armor, but it seems overkill unless she’s going into major battle. Since she’s invulnerable, she doesn’t really need it. It’s like putting Superman in armor and that seems far more silly to me than the swimsuit. I grew up watching Linda Carter and reading WW so I always thought her outfit was appropriate because it was given to her by the Amazons. It’s “her” costume. It wasn’t given to her by a guy. So the armor doesn’t seem any more or less appropriate to me than the swimsuit unless she “needs” it for battle or for some Amazon ceremony.

As far as the balance thing with Power Girl it goes back to fashion and what Kara perceives as looking good on her. It’s like me wearing a black mini with sleeves. It’s not balanced, but I like wearing it because I like how it looks. Sometimes we have to look at these things with the left side of the brain and just go with the flow. Personally, I know I’d rather see Robin with bare legs than those yellow tights he use to wear!

But I appreciate your response to my comment and I do agree with a lot of what you said in your review. Thanks!

I’m very serious about the costume. I’m not a fan of Wonder Woman’s costume either. I would perfer Wonder Woman be in full Athenean battle dress. I can stomach her costume better because it looks like a bathing suit and doesn’t have sleeves or a cape. Power Girl’s sleeves and cape without pants makes the top half of her body look well covered while the bottom half looks nude. It looks off balance to me.

Just so you know, I have the same complaint about female costumes in manga. A lot of female fighters wear very short skits and we get lots of panty shots in manga. My favorite manga for female costumes is St. Dragon Girl because the girls all were pants. It’s nice to see women fighting without knowing their preference in underwear.

I appreciate your perspective. It’s a very thoughtful reminder of how complex the discussion of sexism and fashion is in our culture. There isn’t one nice pat answer. It would be nice if the writers for Power Girl stole your words and put them in Power Girl’s mouth. That would explain the costume choice much better.

I’m sure the reviewer is sincere, but to be honest, in parts, this reads like something a guy thinks a woman wants to hear. Especially the “no pants” thing.

As a woman, I wear clothes for the sake of what’s fashionable, what’s comfortable, what’s practical and what’s sexy. I try to combine all of those in whatever outfit I wear but any woman will tell you that THAT is RARE! But women will also tell you that they’ll sacrifice comfort for what “looks good” on them. I love Wonder Woman’s swimsuit costume. I love Kara’s costume. Since both are basically invulnerable, why do they NEED pants? Superman doesn’t NEED pants, he just chooses to wear what he wears. Why would a superhero that’s invulnerable need clothes? So then it becomes about fashion, no? Kara’s costume is wonderfully colorful (love the red, white and blue and I REALLY love those boots!) sexy, fun and in your face.
It’s a great update of the old one and I like that (that’s right, female comic book reader likes continuity, likes paying tribute to the old while keeping it fresh, alert the media!) I guess I’ll get branded as a self hating feminist for this, but I like the boob window! SUE ME!

When my husband and I go bike riding, he wears jeans and a t-shirt, and I wear cut off jean shorts, a tank top and kneepads and elbow pads. I could wear jeans like he does and cover my legs, but I like how I look in cut off jean shorts because I have great legs! I want to show them off! So I wear the elbow and knee pads for protection. It’s silly to say Kara should have her legs covered. I hate that.

Now, for the superheroes that AREN’T invulnerable, that’s a different story. But considering that when women DO wear costumes that cover their legs and arms, it’s often not “protective” covering. I prefer the female superheroes that aren’t invulnerable to wear a costume that makes sense but is still sexy and still fun. But this can be taken just too far.

The Wasp isn’t invulnerable, but I dig her many costumes (except that hideous orange/brown outfit she had years ago,ugh!)But I always liked that white and blue one bare arm and one bare leg thing she use to wear. Is that practical? No, but who gives a shit? When I was a teenager I was NOT fashionable. I was tomboy city. One of the reasons I liked comics, and maybe this will seem shallow, was for the costumes, male and female (mostly female and mostly Janets because she changed them so often). Wanda isn’t invulnerable and her legs are covered but to be honest, I prefer the 90s Perez “Gypsy” outfit she wore the best. THAT wasn’t practical, but I still liked it.

It annoys the hell out of me when a guy says that a woman should be covered up “Just like the Men”. At the same time, I hate to be hard on guys too much about this because so many women say different things about this stuff. What’s sexist, what isn’t sexist, etc.

I’m sure there are women that hate Kara’s outfit and that’s their opinion and that’s that. I just wish guys (and girls) would drop this silly “his legs are covered and hers aren’t!!) conversation and focus instead on all of the female crotch shots, boobsocks and pert nipples. There’s bigger fish to fry when it comes to how women are portrayed in comics and guys should focus on that instead of a woman showing off her legs for christs sake.

Argo, Definitely recommend 4-6 of the series. You left when it was just getting good. I might pick up volume 2 if I see it in the $5 bins at Baltimore Comic Con.

Certainly, in this Power Girl series they have room for all the discussion we’ve been having here about the role and purpose of superheroes. A more experienced supperhero mentoring a younger superhero is a great oppurtunity for that kind of dialogue. Also, with Terra being unfamiliar with American society, it’s a good way to poke fun at gender roles and just the silly things we as Americans do that we never question.

I just reread that annual with Superman as president. It was in my must read and decide pile as I am purging my collection of all things mediocre and below.

I believe it was Action Comics Annual # 3 and it was an interesting concept with mediocre follow through so I chose to let it go, but it was still interesting. Almost a keeper, but not quite.

I actuall have the Dini/Ross Superman but have never sat down to read it–I will be doing so soon in light of this current discussion–just as soon as I slog through a big pile of Spider-Man issues that have to be decided upon.

Oh yeah, as for Power Girl–love the character, didn’t read past # 3 of the series, but as I have heard it only improves as the Palmiotti / Gray / Connor issues go on, it is always on my radar to pick up at a decent price.

The crossover itself was a mess, with DC having to change the reveal of the big bad before the end because people had guessed it. Yet some of the individual parts were intriguing.

Did you happen to get to read a Superman annual from years back where it showed a possible future where he became president? It was during the Armageddon 2001 crossover, and had some interesting political elements to it.

Superman respects the authority of governments. He could go in there and round up all corrupt officials, but that destroys the social and polticial structure. Also, Superman has learned that people need to solve their own problems. He can’t have the world depend on him to make it right. I think that’s a great tension to explore with the character. When does a government become so corrupt or abusive that it is no longer a legitimate government. Who gets to say? Is Superman a free agent in this or does he have to wait for the approval of the UN?

I read the first issue of this some time ago ad really enjoyed it, so will have to try and pick up these collections at a later date.

Interesting take on what you like about superheroes as well. I’ve been more drawn to the saving people’s live over the beating the bad guy type stories as well.

Oddly that Superman story didn’t work for me though. When it got to the end, it seemed to me more like Superman let the bad guys win. Its sort of like that though when you try to put real world issues confront a person with his power level.

He could solve so many problems if he was real, it’d honestly be a different world.

I think this may be why ‘young’ superhero stories are appealing to me. If you look at a book like the current Batgirl (or the Terra character in PG), you’ve got somebody who is growing and learning because they’re new. It’s primarily their experience and confidence, rather than their moral standing, that is challenged. Still, once the character has done the growing-up thing for a few decades and still needs to have new stories, you’ve got a new bind.

This is what I was thinking about the other day when I said ‘superhero stories are hard.’ I end up being impressed that I can find so many good ones, considering!

Plus, to complicate the question of how one writes superheroes, there is nothing else comparable to them in terms of continuing fiction. Nothing else has had thousands of stories told about what are supposedly the same characters. That’s a big struggle for any writer, since so much has been done before.

I think you can someone who is the exemplar of morality still be learning. Superman is committed to ideas of justice and equality. That doesn’t mean he understands how those concepts are worked out in the real world.

Caroline, there are three ways to handle the problem you mention that I can see:
1. Tell superhero stories featuring Potato Man but they’re really about other people who don’t have the pressure to be perfect. This is the tack the Superman writers have taken most often over the years, writing stories about Jimmy or Lois or Perry where Superman is more of a plot device than main character.
2. Have the superhero learn something that doesn’t affect their morality. A creative way to outwit a villain with science facts, for example. Kind of old school.
3. Why should we expect Potato Man to learn and grow? Maybe the story just reinforces the idea that superheroes shouldn’t kill, for example, instead of teaching him the lesson for the first time.

I miss heroes that are heroic, instead of super-powered weapons. But don’t mind me, I’ll be fogeying over here in the corner.

Oh, I enjoyed this Power Girl series a lot! Wait until Volume 2, when you see Vartox (the one based on Sean Connery in Zardoz) actually become a viable character.

Moral exemplar doesn’t mean omniscience. A great example is the Paul Dini/Alex Ross Superman book where he distributes enough food to feed everyone for a day. Then Superman learns that the problems of hunger are more than people not having access to food. It’s also corrupt officials hoarding food, it’s not have roads and equiment to deliver food, it’s governments refusing foreign aid, etc. That was a brilliant story. It was Superman will all his powers and moral integrity wanting to do a noble act and finding out how little he really understood the problem. I love how his feeling of powerless in the face of that reality motivates him. Those are the kind of stories I long for in the superhero genre.

Also, assuming that people want their protagonists to learn and grow, is it possible to tell stories about people whose baseline is “exemplar of human morality”? (This is another thing that comes up, in a roundabout way in our discussion; let’s just say there were differing opinions).

I did enjoy the fact the Power Girl and Terra aren’t all agnsty about having superpowers and having to save the world.

I should say I enjoy the concept of superheroes, but rarely the execution. Just a couple days ago I was discussing on Twitter what my verison of Superman would look like. I’m very old fashioned. I want superheroes to embody the best of human nature and be exemplars of human morality.

I do commend Gray and Palmiotti for crafting a Power Girl that’s someone I could look up to.

I thought it was interesting that you said you’d mostly read Silver Age reprints, because these plots felt Silver-Age-y to me. . .particularly the Ultra-Humanite stuff (though it got more graphic than an SA book would have, probably), with the way they are straight-up wacky and also over and done pretty shortly. I think that may actually have made me appreciate them more, because they’re different than the typical decompressed arc in a modern book (where half a fight can take an entire issue). But if you’re used to reading REAL Silver Age stories — or the mostly one-and-done format of the all ages books — I can see this feeling like a not-so-great fit with the more down-to-earth story that was going on in Karen’s life. If the story actually has the effect of making us feel like Karen (annoyed when her everyday life is interrupted by bad guys) then it’s not quite working.