Bustin' out - Showcase #97

Showcase #97

Cover Date: February 1978 

Release Date: 15th November 1977

I don't generally comment on art in general, having no talent for it myself but the opening splash page for this image is terrible its meant to be dynamic and action pack but Power Girls position and face do not make for the best of images. Whilst it's been going back and forwards since All-Star #69 this is where I personally began to notice her scallop top with choker version of the costume. After Wally Wood departure the boob window went straight away, but the collar would fluctuate from the top to the bottom of her neck from panel to panel, which I guess is the reason for the new design. Whilst the boob window is the most iconic version of her costume, this costume is probably the one she wears for the longest, right the way to her new golden number in Justice League Europe #15 in 1990!

The art somewhat settles down as Power Girl stops some goons who are stealing micro-transformers for their mysterious boss. She's her normal cocky self but uses some smarts to defeat the mooks using a conveyor belt. Then in a bizarre scene, mostly to remind that like supes she's faster than a speeding bullet, a stray shot bounces of her boob on a trajectory towards an innocent bystander. This head mook is smart enough to make a run for it whilst she's saving the man, however, making off in a natty saucer-shaped tracked vehicle. 

he tries to lose her by cutting through the Gotham rail yards, only for her in the second call-out show she's more powerful than a locomotive. Stopping said vehicle to catch up with the man, apologising to the driver at least, rather than you know flying in front of the vehicle at super speed! The vehicle climbs the side of the building so with the last call out, leaping tall buildings in a single bound, Power Girl can grab the guy off of the side of the building. It seems he has the equivalent of a suicide vest, but calmly Power Girl just strips it off and throws it away, chastising the man for overreacting. 

Then she gets mobbed by the press, asking questions about her origins. One persistent reporter Andrew Vinson of the Globe get lifted up by her and dumped on the roof insisting the important detail is her name and being left alone. After a few panels of our mysterious villain of the story, we find Power Girl leaving Gotham City limits, somehow still being followed by the reporter. Weirdly at this point Power Girl decides to take a nap in the countryside, bemoaning not knowing her place on this (to her) alien world.

She then helpfully dreams of her origins with her family living in Kandor, shrunk and bottled on Earth-1 but fine on Earth-2. Her father, Zor-L, is apparently a scientist of the mind so when he gets plans for a rocket from Jor-L. Not having time to build a full-sized rocket, he instead building just one for his daughter. Poor Allura, again unnamed, doesn't seem to get much say in this whole deal apart from asserting that they're doomed before Power Girl is blasted into space the same time Kal-L leave the planet for Earth. It's also here we get her first called Kara, until this point only called Power Girl. She then flies off leaving the reporter to just miss out on catching her napping.

Back in the city again she faces the same kind of goons, this time the saucers having legs instead of tracks, and we get a splash page of her facing off against a score of goons following them into the impounded storage soundly beating them. Then again she shows content for the press using a ground stomp to knock them off their feet before. At that moment she's attacked by the bad guy of the story, on the very last panel of the book! Our intrepid reporter Vinson in a suit of power armour!

I don't know if this was an attempt to spin Power Girl into her own comic, but it very much feels like it setting up her background and possible supporting cast. It's also interesting how her background differs from her Earth-1 counterpart, something explored more in Showcase #98. It'll get even crazier after the Crisis, but we'll get there in due course.