Two stories and a plot! - Worlds' Finest #5

 Three Midnights, Far From Home

Worlds' Finest #5

Cover Date: December 2012

Released: 3rd October 2012

⋅ Writers: Paul Levitz

⋅ Pencilers: George Pérez / Jerry Ordway / Wes Craig

⋅ Inker: Scott Koblish / José Luis García-López / 

             Serge LaPointe

⋅ Colourists: Hi-Fi Design

⋅ Letterer:  Carlos M. Mangual

⋅ Editors: Wil Moss

Continued from Worlds' Finest #0.

We're back to Worlds' Finest in time for what amounts to a filler episode, not that it's not a problem; it's actually a nice change of pace from the continuity-heavy comics I've been neck-deep in recently.

The story is told in two parts, one for Pee Gee, and the other for Huntress. First, we get a setup story with Pee Gee testing the limits of her powers on this Earth, implying the previous encounter with the radioactive villain might have had some effect on her.  We also get gratuitous costume destruction, one of two in this issue! Along with this though we get some lovely interactions between Kara and Helena, they really do feel like friends here (and alas only friends). After this we get them telling each other what they've been doing recently. Helpfully the stories are told one after the other, which makes my job so much easier!

Pee Gee went to CERN to look at the latest super-collider, where apparently they're researching parallel universes. It's great here how they play up how competent a businesswoman and scientist Kara is something we don't often get in other versions of the character. She seduces one of the young male scientists, whether it's just to get down to the collider or she's really interested isn't quite clear, and we get a creative use of her powers as she uses her microscopic vision to look at the nuclear decay patterns in the accelerator tube itself.

This doesn't last as the accelerator causes a portal to form in the tube, after Pee Gee (gently) knocks the scientist out she faces a robot that's come out of the portal. To stop damaging the scientific equipment, apparently, even over her budget, and people she flies out of the facility and into the air above the alps. The robot isn't much of a fight, though she notices some strange features of the robot before it explodes causing the second.

Helena on the other hand has a simpler, if not any more complex, story. She's attending a Take Back the Night rally, which for those not in the know are protests about sexual assaults (at the time most women but now more inclusive). Though they've been going on since the late 70s, and still go on even now, they were pretty prominent in this era, hence the inclusion here.

Helena makes a friend with one of the protesters, before hearing a shot and spotting the flash of a sniper's scope, apparently, he's a terrible sniper it seems! She changes into costume and swings up to the roof to face and stop the sniper, berating him for why he's attacking the people below. After that she allows him to be arrested as she rejoins the march.

The two affirm that will try and help people, though Kara is less keen as she's hoping they'll get home soon, before flying off in a lovely half-page spread of them smiling away!

As I mentioned above this is a filler issue, getting us from the longer story, and origin issue, toward the next story! Though it's in one way slight, it really gives us an insight into these two characters, showing us how they think and act differently but are still at the end of the day friends. 

At the end of the day, I had fun with this, and after a few rough rounds of continuity-heavy comics, it's a breath of fresh air!