Symbol Pending - A Power Girl Blog

WHEN FALL THE MIGHTY ALL-STAR COMICS #62 Published: 24 th June 1976 Cover Date:  October 1976 Cover Artists:   Ernie Chan / Tatjana Wood Writer:   Gerry Conway / Paul Levitz Penciler:  Keith Giffen / Wally Wood Inker:   Wally Wood Colourist:   Carl Gafford Letterer:   Ben Oda Editors:   Gerry Conway Introduction Not much to say here except to say that for the rest of the year we'll be looking at the classic All-Star Comic run as I try to get back into the flow of this blog again.  Synopsis We start with an amazing full page of a Kirby-like machine that is keeping Doctor Fate alive! Or at least Kent Nelson, as he starts off out of costume with the helmet off. The fancy machine, as well as showing his vitals also shows the symbol of the Ankh, as pointed out an Egyptian symbol of life (and divinity). In a nice touch, it's Hawkman, and Green Lantern for some reason, explaining to the alien Pee Gee what the symbol signifies. We also get a quick recap of his origins with the wizard N

SPIN CYCLE JSA 80-PAGE GIANT Published:  18th November 2009 Cover Date:  January 2010 Cover Artists:   Freddie E. Williams II Writer:   Jen Van Meter Penciler:  Jesus Merino Inker:   Jesse Delperdang  Colourist:   Allen Passalaqua Letterer:   Rob Leigh Editors:   Chris Conroy Introduction This is five mini-stories that made a whole tale, revolving around the relatively new character of Cyclone who's been thrown back in time, because comics!  Cyclone, as I'm sure you all know is the teenage granddaughter of Ma Hunkle, the original Red Tornado, and DC's first female superhero! Coming out of the same comic as Alan Scott's Green Lantern it was obvious that Ma would be made at least an honour JSA member, being one of the few of the team that's been allowed to grow and stay old. As I seem to struggle to cover a single 22-issue comic I won't try to cover everything, besides the only one that contains Power Girl is Spin Cycle, so that is the one I'm going to cover t

Brainwave Blows Up!  All-Star Comics #59 Cover Date: April 1976 Released: 16th December 1976 ⋅ Writers:  Gerry Conway  ⋅   ⋅ Pencilers:  Ric Estrada  ⋅  ⋅ Inker:  Wally Wood  ⋅  ⋅ Editors:  Paul Levitz  ⋅ Continued from  All-Star Comics #58 . October 9th is the publication date for the original publication date for All-Star #58, hence the birthday for Power Girl. So what better time (more or less) to look back at the original comics. Obviously is not an excuse to improve on my terrible early post, really don't look, no really! When I started this I really didn't know anything about these comics and it's amazing how different looking at this comic with all the many comics between now and them. We start with Brainwave, looks remarkable like how his son will later look (without the googly eyes alas) taking down the Justice Society. Or so it seems as they begin to fade away as Brainwave celebrates his victory whilst talking to a disheveled old man, who wearing a trenchcoat an

Power Trip, Part IV JSA Classified #4 Cover Date:  December 2005 Released:  26th October 2005 ⋅ Writers:   Geoff Johns  ⋅ Pencilers:  Amanda Conner   ⋅     ⋅   Inkers:  Jimmy Palmiotti  ⋅  Colourists:  Paul Mounts  ⋅ ⋅  Letterers:  Rob Leigh   ⋅  Editors:  Harvey Richards / Stephen Wacker  ⋅  Continued from part 3 After all the weirdness of the previous few issues, we settled in to find out just what this was all about. Stop me if you've heard this one before, there was a multiverse including a second Earth, an Earth-2 if you will, and there was a bunch of heroes called the Justice Society of  America. When Krypton-2 exploded not only was Kal-L sent to Earth, his cousin sent his only daughter to Earth, who grew up to be Power Girl! Yes her classic origin is now back. We also learn Psycho Pirates (II it seems) background. His father was a psychologist and also the first Psycho Pirate who used a series of masks called the Medusa Masks, which did a single emotion each, and forged th

Power Trip, Part III JSA Classified #3 Cover Date:  November 2005 Released:  21st September 2005 ⋅ Writers:   Geoff Johns  ⋅ Pencilers:  Amanda Conner   ⋅     ⋅   Inkers:  Jimmy Palmiotti  ⋅  Colourists:  Paul Mounts  ⋅ ⋅  Letterers:  Rob Leigh   ⋅  Editors:  Harvey Richards / Stephen Wacker  ⋅  We start with a very dodgy supervillain, Doctor Houngan, fighting against Huntress, the Helena Bertinelli variety, putting on a good show until Plasmus tries to basically melt her. Luckily at that point Power Girl turns up to save the day! Power Girl then give our plot summary to Huntress as she looks more and more confused as to why she's come to Gotham and tracked her down. Meanwhile Psycho Pirate turns up to the site they're taking Power Girls bioship to, fighting both the Checkmate troopers and Mr Terrific and the Flash (Jay Garrick). It goes as badly as you'd expect with Psycho Pirate turning everyone against each other whilst he claims the ship for whatever he has planned. M

Power Trip, Part II JSA Classified #2 Cover Date:  October 2005 Released:  24th August 2005 ⋅ Writers:   Geoff Johns  ⋅ Pencilers:  Amanda Conner   ⋅     ⋅   Inkers:  Jimmy Palmiotti  ⋅  Colourists:  Paul Mounts  ⋅ ⋅  Letterers:  Rob Leigh   ⋅  Editors:  Harvey Richards / Stephen Wacker  ⋅  We start with a little walk and talk as Mr Terrific and the Flash (Jay Garrick) discussing how Power Girls powers are  fluctuating   like crazy and that because she's still (relatively) young she want to figure this out by herself. They we're going to examine the pod that Power Girl arrived to Earth (or at least this century, almost barely her being Atlantean), when they discovered it's been seized by Checkmate and Director Bones. Power Girl however is still feeling a little sorry for herself on the Daily Planet globes in Metropolis. She's soon joined by Jimmy Olsen who snaps her picture before chatting, in a really nice two page spread. He offers to call Superman if she want and w

Girl Power, part 1 Supergirl (volume 5) #5 Cover Date:  October 2005 Released:  10th August 2005 ⋅ Writers:    ⋅ Pencilers:  Ian Churchill  ⋅ ⋅  Inkers:  Norm Rapmund  ⋅   Colourists:  David Moran / Beth Sotelo  ⋅ ⋅  Letterers:  Richard Starkings / Comicraft   ⋅  ⋅  Editors:  Jeanine Schaefer / Eddie Berganza  ⋅  If you wonder why the writer isn't mentioned, please read this first . This starts so well with Courtney (Stargirl) and Kara (Supergirl) talking among themselves, sounding as close to teenagers when written by middle-aged men! Meanwhile, most, of the JSA are fighting Solomon Grundy. A big deal is made about the absence of Power Girl, her lack of presence is felt strongly in this first part of the story. This is probably the last nice thing I'll say about this issue. The first cracks show when they talk about Power Girl's relationship with Kara and the rest of the Super Family. Now I'm on record in several places that continuity isn't the be-all and end-all

In Search of... JSA #76 Cover Date:  October 2005 Released:  3rd August 2005 ⋅ Writers:   Geoff Johns  ⋅ Pencilers:  Ken Lopez  ⋅  ⋅   Inkers:  Fernando Blanco  ⋅   Colourists:  John Kalisz  ⋅ ⋅  Letterers:  Rob Leigh   ⋅  Editors:  Peter Tomasi / Harvey Richards  ⋅  Continued from JSA #75 So 'erm apparently Atom Smasher is... alive and well, that whole heart thing being some kind of magical metaphor or something... This is an issue where we finally get Infinite Crisis starts to show its influence on the title, and this being the JSA we get several storylines weaving together, none of them yet being related to each other. The main story is members of the JSA, Alan Scott (Green Lantern), Jay Garrick (Flash), Ted Grant (the real Wildcat), Michael Holt (Mr Terrific) and Carter Hall (Hawkman) fighting, and generally losing, against an OMAC. It's complicated but OMACs are nano-machine that can take over people and make them into super fighting "robots", that super-paranoid

Power Trip, Part I JSA Classified #1 Cover Date:  June1988 Released:  1st March 1988 ⋅ Writers: Geoff Johns ⋅ Pencilers: Amanda Conner ⋅     ⋅   Inkers: Jimmy Palmiotti ⋅  Colourists: Paul Mounts ⋅ ⋅  Letterers: Rob Leigh ⋅  Editors: Harvey Richards / Stephen Wacker ⋅    Remember last issue when I said that when a character gets a focus issue it was normally there last? Well, Power Girl not only buck that trend, but she also gets four issues all of her very own!   The reason for that is that despite it not being mentioned anywhere, this four-part series is a lead into Infinite Crisis and fixes the thorny issue of Kara's origins. Though it's probably worth mentioning that whilst thanks to blog time it's only been a month or so, in real-time it's been nineteen years since her Atlantean origin was established. This means almost a generation of readers knew this as her origins, well sort of it seems like it's very rarely mentioned after the big push at the start

  Black Vengeance, Part III JSA #75 Cover Date: September 2005 Released: 7th July 2005 ⋅ Writers: Geoff Johns ⋅ Colourists: John Kalisz ⋅ ⋅ Pencilers: D on Kramer / Leonard Kirk / Stephen Sadowski ⋅   Inkers: Keith Champagne / Michael Bair  ⋅ Letterers: Rob Leigh ⋅  ⋅ Editors: Peter Tomasi / Harvey Richards   ⋅  This is not a Power Girl Story! I know I've been saying this a lot, but all team books occasionally take time out to focus on a single character. And as is common it often seems to happen when the character is on the way out, and this issue it's poor Atom Smashers time. We get flashes of his past from a young kid deciding to do good, joining the JSA and eventually being offered a chance to help Black Adam, all done in a suitable sepia tone. Finally, he grows to giant size, well beyond his normal limits, and takes on the, also suitable gigantic Spectre. In the end, Atom Smasher chooses to sacrifice his life so that Spectre will stop looking for vengeance here, who

  Black Vengeance, Part II of III JSA #74 Cover Date:  August 2005 Released:  2nd June 2005 So The Spectre has gone crazy and is trying to destroy all magic in the world. And to underline this we open with him attacking two characters I honestly didn't expect to see after the end of Infinity Inc, Hector Hall, who has kinda sorta given up being Doctor Fate, and Lyta who is just sort of hanging around these days. We don't however see what happens to them as we cut to where the main part of the story is taking place Kahndaq, which is being attacked by giant Kaiju Spectre. In a quiet bit we get Power Girl being pretty protective of Star Girl, that aunty character I liked from the end of her time on Infinity Inc (almost). It seems poor Courtney is taking Atom Smashers "betrayal" pretty hard, and there seems to be some beef with her and Captain Marvel (or Shazam, whatever). Which he try's to explain and Kara firmly tells him to just leave it for now. We also get a neat

  Black Vengeance, Part I of III JSA #73 Cover Date:  July 2005 Released:  11th May 2005 So obviously after coming off of one crisis I want to slam into the next one! But the plan has always been to look at either end of the Atlantis era and her rediscovering her Kryptonian origin (again). In fact you'd have to remember she's meant to be Atlantean as most here seem to think that she one of the Kryptonian.  Previously in Countdown to Infinite Crisis poor old Ted Kord (Blue Beetle) was ignoreed by the entire DC Universe and found out Maxwell Lord (who founded the JLI, we'll get to that soon) was actually a villain, fatally. Interesting in that story both Ted and Supes act like Power Girl is Kryptonian, and Superman mentions her powers have been getting a little wonky (Kara appears in a few panels but doesn't do much but arrive and leave). And in the previous issue of JSA whilst traveling forward in time, they were in the WW2 era, she has a bit of a freak out with multiple

What Private Griefs... Cover Date:  September 1986 Released:  19th June 1986 When I was talking about Aftershock, issue #11 of Crisis I mentioned how I thought there should be an issue(s) about people coming to terms with what had happened to them and all they lost. This issue here is exactly what I was talking about, a breather issue dealing with the "death" of the JSA. Not much happens in the issue, the various members of Infinity Inc tell the friends and family of the JSA about what happened to them. Everyone has different, and suitable, reactions to the news. Though being a superhero universe no one reacts to them being somewhere else. Though in places it can get a little complex as we've skipped a good year's worth of subplots between here and issue twelve. Rather than sum up the comics, which really is X gets told about Y and has a reaction to the new, for once I'm going to focus on the two pages dealing with Power Girl processing what happened to her recent

  Last Days of the Justice Society Cover Date:  July 1986 Released:  24th April 1985 In my copy of Crisis on Infinite Earths Marv Wolfman declare that he didn't kill off the JSA in the Crisis, and he's right this is the book that killed the team and boy what a crazy ride it is! But as I'm apparently still not done with getting irked at Crisis fallout we get one doozy of a retcon. For we start with the JSA gathered at the graveside of both Helena and Dick Grayson. But I hear you say, metaphorical reader, Robin survived that disaster, didn't he? Well according to this no! Even worse we don't find out how he died during the crisis, just that between the last scene we saw him in and this funeral he somehow died. Also, the funeral mentions all the other JSAers that have been lost between their start and (then) current day. We also get the obligatory info dump about Infinity Inc and the sudden influx of new members. The plot starts off simple enough, Hitler has the Spear