Wednesday Comics Preview

DC sent out previews of Wednesday Comics, their 12-issue attempt at revitalizing the Newspaper comic format.

Power Girl #1

Power Girl #1
DC Comics
Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray (writing)
Amanda Connor (pencils & inks)
Paul Mounts (color)

So, let me get this out of the way: I am not a huge DC Comics fan. I never have been, as it seems the only IPs they ever bother to license out are Batman and Superman, despite their having so many more characters that, at least to me, seem far more interesting. The Green Lantern is one of those characters, and I’m very excited for the Blackest Night event, this summer. I’m also currently enjoying Green Arrow/Black Canary.

So today, with Power Girl #1 coming out, I thought I’d give it a shot. From what I understand (before reading Wikipedia’s entry on the character), Power Girl is the Earth-2 version of Super Girl, somehow trapped on Earth Prime. She was shuttled away off of Krypton-2 before it exploded, much like her cousin, Kal-El (Superman). Or something like that. What’s nice about this issue is that there’s a one-page recap of her origin, which essentially says, “Yo, my origin isn’t very important. It happened, but that’s not why you should care about me. You should care about me because I’m kind of a badass trying to make the world a better place.”

And, really, that makes me care about the character more than trying to explain her origin story. As X-Men Origins: Wolverine (both the movie and last week’s comic) have proven, delving too far into any one character’s back story can just leave you confused and give you a headache. In fact, one of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen creators make is try to explain the origins of characters whose origins REALLY aren’t very important; Wolverine isn’t cool because of what happened to him before, he’s cool because of how he acts NOW. Same with Gambit. Same with Cable.

And the same with Power Girl. Her origin is unimportant. She’s here, and she’s fighting monsters. As far as the issue itself goes, it’s okay. Amanda Connor’s art is gorgeous, but I feel like the story is just decent. Although that might be because I’d read half the comic in all the other DC comics that’ve come out in the last couple months… But it was interesting enough to keep me intrigued for issue two.

So, I’m not buying Power Girl #1 today, but I certainly wouldn’t fault anybody else for doing so. And there’s a pretty good chance I might go back and pick up the trade, after the first several issues have come out. It’s a strong start. We’ll see where it goes from here.