Power Girl: Power Trip

El producto llegó a tiempo, bien empaquetado y sin daño

Als DC Fan wusste ich seltsamerweise nichts von "Powergirl". Mein erster Gedanke war: eine DC Sexbombe zum LowBudget für pubertierende Teenager. Und tatsächlich: die permanenten sexualisierten Anspielungen ziehen durch das ganze Comic. Und doch ist das nur vordergründig. Dieses ganze erotische Bombardement wird auch reichlich auf die Schippe genommen, nicht zuletzt - und das ist wirklich gelungen - in einer Begegnung von Powergirl mit einem sexistischen unsterblichen, behaarten Typen mit ziemlichen Geheimratsecken. Und ich fragte mich ständig: woher kenne ich das nur? Na klar: Jean Connery in dem alten Sci-Fi Klassiker Zardoz und die Figur ist niemand anderes als Jean Connery. Dieses und viele weitere Anspielungen hier in diesem Band. Wer einigermaßen Englisch kann, kommt gut mit. Kein Muss, kein Must-Have, aber für die DC-Sammlung empfehlenswert.

Power Girl is a superheroine that no one could really decide what to do with for a while. She passed from writer to writer, her portrayal, costume, and even her figure suffering inconsistency along with her backstory at one point (she went from being an alternate-universe Kryptonian to being an Atlantean from the distant past to being a Kryptonian again). Then, with JSA Classified issues 1 through 4 and her somewhat short-lived solo series, which ran right up until the entire DC universe got rebooted in 2011, DC finally seemed to decide who the heck Power Girl is and hasn't looked back since, not even during the post-reboot Huntress/Power Girl "World's Finest" series. Power Trip contains JSA Classified #1-4 and the first twelve issues of the Power Girl series--Power Girl's entire run under this particular handful of creative folk. Amanda Connor draws her art in an unusually whimsical, cartoonish fashion by modern superhero comic standards--which admittedly looks a bit weird when a familiar face such as Superman shows up, even if it fits characters like Power Girl, Ultra-Humanite, or Psycho Pirate just fine. The writing focuses on witty humor and playing Power Girl as a hot-headed, sarcastic, and entertainingly flawed character. The stories in this graphic novel, while not exactly tied together into a single cohesive arc, for the most part flow into each other to form a fun "day in the life of a superhero" routine that I find refreshing considering DC Comics' tendency to start superheros with really established lives and personalities. The exception is the first story arc in this collection, the titular "Power Trip," which is the first four-issue arc from JSA Classified and takes place some time before the twelve-issue chunk of the Power Girl series. Annoyingly, it ends with a cliffhanger that I suppose gets resolved in another series and another graphic novel collection under other writers and another artist prior to Power Girl #1. But that kind of thing is par for the course with superhero comics; it just prevents this collection from feeling as self-contained and self-sufficient as it could have. If there's one irritating complaint I have for this particular story it's that it tries too hard to justify having a super-feminine, somewhat over-sexualized character design for Power Girl by hammering in feminist messages all over the place, something the Power Girl solo series in particular never really found a good balance for until very late in its two-year run. This includes but is not limited to: people always staring at Power Girl's chest and her being annoyed by it, guys hitting on her and her friend at the movies and being sassed for being disrespectful, an entire short story arc about an interstellar manly man traveling to Earth to fake a victory over a planet-eating immortal monster to woo Power Girl (admittedly one of this collection's more amusing entries), and Ultra-Humanite being generally disdainful of female intelligence whenever he gets the chance. As with the 2009 animated Wonder Woman movie, I'd be happier with this stuff if it were dialed back. The message about women being allowed to wear what they want without being viewed as objects is particularly iffy; it doesn't translate as well when it involves a *costume* like Power Girl's as opposed to street clothes. I appreciate the attempts to be progressive, but the design of the character clashes with that progressiveness to a point where it sometimes feels like Power Girl exists to shove boobs in your face and then make you feel bad about it, especially since Amanda Conner isn't shy about drawing Power Girl or her sometimes-sidekick Terra in pretty fanservicey situations at times. Overall that's a small complaint that didn't really hinder my enjoyment much, hence the five-star rating. This collection of issues was overall more fun than the second half of Power Girl's solo run (collected in the graphic novels "Power Girl: Bomb Squad" and "Power Girl: Old Friends") and turned out to be one of the best times reading a superhero comic that I've ever had. Unless Power Girl's costume just offends you that much, I can't not recommend this one to any lover of superhero comics.

能天気でおっちょこちょいで喜怒哀楽をストレートに出すPower Girlが中々可愛い。しばしばコンビを組むTerraとの付き合いもヒーロー仲間と云うより仲の良い友人同士と云った感じで良い。 絵は完全に日本の漫画、特に高橋留美子の影響が表情や仕草（特に脱力した時など）に顕著に現れており、全体にコミカルな雰囲気に仕上がっている。又、年頃の娘らしい行儀悪さなども存分に描かれたPower Girlが表情や動作の豊かさと相俟って中々可愛い。

I've always enjoyed Kara/Karen Power Girl since her time in the JLA back in the late 80's early 90's. And I couldn't help but look. When I saw this collection by Geoff Johns I had to grab it as he rarely disappoints. It's a good sized book and the stories are great. Gives depth to her character. The art work is smooth, not harsh.