Too much Power (girl)

[stubbleupdate]

Since it was announced by absence that Power Girl would be absent from the first 52 DC books in the 90s relaunch, I've been thinking a lot about how she could be included in the reboot. I'm at least glad that she isn't going to be in the new JLA, as I've already got Ms. Marvel as a character who's gone from having her own quite good solo series to having to live on little cameos in the premier team book.

To that end, I've had a flick back through some of the Palmiotti/Gray/Conner series and re-read the first issue of the Winnick/Basri run. Power Girl is quite fortunate to have had two sets of creators present a consistent run on the book, doing the story that they want to tell and then leaving when they want. Compare that to the directionless creative mishmash that Supergirl's gone through since her title debuted and you could probably say that she's had one of her best runs.

Here's three pages of her revised origin from Power Girl #13





I've also been scouring Project Rooftop and Deviantart for other versions of Power Girl. As far as I can manage, I'm going to credit the original artist for everything.


A Minimalist Power Girl, by glsolo


Project Rooftop called this Karen's space outfit. It's designed by Paul Conrad, who did design work for Up, a film that is guaranteed to make me cry. I think that this is a great redesign.


A psuedo-Victorian Power Girl by shoot-o. I do like the look of this. I'm not sure how it would work with flying around, or being athletic and hard-hitting.


Keeping with the retro theme is a 20s-esque design by perpetual insomniac

By Adam Hughes. I don't see Power Girl being the gushing type, and certainly not for Super-Girl.


This is cool, though I do wish that artists would cut the bottom of her suit a bit lower. And not sway the hips all of the time.


By Michael Lopez. Have we seen Power Girl doing much in the way of space-faring, apart from Zardoz recently?


By More979. I think that this one is modelled on the Timm style for the DCAU. This would make for a really smart design for an all ages book.


by jordanmead


by taguiar. I like the way that this Power Girl actually looks confident and strong


by Joel R Carroll, comes sketches without the boob window/windscreen, no gloves, lots of piping and pointy sleeves.


Hipster Karen and Diana by callmepo



by thebit07. It looks a lot like Questionable Content. It isn't though.


Replacing the exposed cleavage with exposed arms and keeping the overall colour scheme intact. I'm not sure that I like the more angular design on her chest.


Apart from the massively swayed hip, I quite like this. The arms give Power Girl a fairly powerful stance. By Mayeko.



by jetjaquar


By didism. You can't imagine that a white outfit would be particularly easy to keep clean, and a cape that long is not could to stay out of muck and stoor.

The next few are largely out of the realm of redesigns and are just cool fanart.

By kit_kit_kit. This Power Girl just looks excited and eager. You would be too if you could fly and were superstrong.


By artnerdem.


By marciotakara


by Paul Sizer. This looks like it's come from Invincible.


By Mbirkhofer

And finally, a massive wardrobe mixup

by xhathaway


I've also got some pictures that would make this post need a nudity advisory. If there's a demand for these, I'll post them at some point in the morning.

Comments

[shanejayell]

Nice!

The origin summary is about the best summation of her origin I've seen. Boils it down nicely.

[blake_reitz]

I find it weird how bizarre and convoluted her origin story got for a while, all in the name of simplifying it. 'specially when, as shown here, her actual origin can be done in a concise page.

[stubbleupdate]

DC have a pretty poor record of managing their continuity.

I'd love to see a secret origins book like the one that Marvel put out a few years ago, where all of the major characters and teams have their origins explained in one page.

Apart from ones like "I shall become a bat", DC would tie themselves in knots re-telling these stories concisely.

[blackruzsa]

What was more surprising is that my gaze didn't gravitate to her boobs in every picture!
Those were lovely. And I think the gushing over Supergirl was because of her hair :)

Man, that was nice.

[salinea]

What was more surprising is that my gaze didn't gravitate to her boobs in every picture!
How do you do it? O_O

[kamino_neko]

All the ones with Terra are awesome. (As cool as Peeg is, Terra is cooler.)

[venatosapiens]

Oh god. We're loosing Terra.
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

[nezchan]

That Paul Conrad one kicks all sorts of ass.

[stubbleupdate]

It is. She looks like a cool, kickass alien

[stubbleupdate]

p.s. I'm disappointed with how the DCU reboot has largely stuck with spandex, instead of going the Ultimate route and finding actual clothes and fabrics that would work better.

Still, spandex means that you can just draw a nude and colour it in.

[funbox]

Could you add links to the artist that have a deviantart? I like collecting people to watch there. Thank ya kindly :]

[mistersandman]

I like how "Muscly: The New Sexy" has one of the skinniest PGs shown here.

[stubbleupdate]

It's got strong arms and almost no waist.

Not sure where she's keeping her abs

[brilliantnova]

I'm kinda sad that Peeg feels like Kara took her place. It always seemed like Clark ALWAYS thought of her as his family , as much as Kara.
*sad face*

[mrstatham]

Not really. After the first Crisis, Karen's origins were up in the air, but Johns eventually stated that Clark had made a huge noise about Kara (the new version) arriving following the Supergirl story in Superman/Batman, and that Karen had, pretty much, been told off by Ma Kent because she wasn't really Clark's cousin. Both of which made Karen feel left out. The 'Power Trip' storyline pretty much furthered this when Karen was being manipulated by the Psycho Pirate and being chastised by everyone, and Supergirl could get away with whatever she wanted, despite being a colossal bitch.

[aaron_bourque]

I love that minimalist image.

Aaron "The Mad Whitaker" Bourque; and I figure PG is gushing about meeting Supergirl because she's thinking about herself at that age. "Wow, was I ever that little? You're like a button!"

[mullon]

Oh God that poor cat, its spine must be shattered.

[heckfire]

Just an FYI: it's a general rule-of-thumb for most artists who do superhero stuff, from "How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way" to Burne Hogarth to the Kubert School, that the more curved the "action line" that typically runs parallel to the spine through the center of the figure, the more "movement" is portrayed and and more dynamic the figure looks. With a good artist, this holds very true, but since subtlety is typically learned with experience more than anything else, this results in the popular images of crooked spines and female characters drawn with a cocked hip.

[stubbleupdate]

Yep, having read Warren Louw's guide to figure, I do appreciate that a bit more. He was the one who drew the cover to #27

[q99]

-
To that end, I've had a flick back through some of the Palmiotti/Gray/Conner series and re-read the first issue of the Winnick/Basri run. Power Girl is quite fortunate to have had two sets of creators present a consistent run on the book, doing the story that they want to tell and then leaving when they want.-

Agreed. I'm sad that it's ending, but not at all sad it's done what it's done and that the writers did what they wanted to do.

Winick especially surprised me, I haven't read something that good from him in a long time.

[stubbleupdate]

We've also avoided either a string of fill-in creators telling their own stories and dragging the character in every direction with them (Power Girl), or a writer having to work with a series of different artists on a book that they've stopped caring about (Ms. Marvel).

It's quite to sad to think that I'm happier that it was cancelled before it had a chance to be a bad book.

[leikomgwtfbbq]

I love this post so much! PG's my favorite superheroine ever.

[espanolbot]

She's also Buffy the Vampire Slayer's. Canon! ^^

[espanolbot]

I don't think that Peeg is gushing to Kara there, I got the impression that she was being overwhelmingly sarcastic, causing Supergirl to be all like "Grrr".

[icon_uk]

The image you tag as

Replacing the exposed cleavage with exposed arms and keeping the overall colour scheme intact. I'm not sure that I like the more angular design on her chest.

is a Dean Trippe creation unless I miss my guess

[bluefall]

Why is Diana shorter than Peej in that costume-swap picture? >_o

The Supergirl pictures always make me laugh. Peej is one of like five female characters in comics who can consistently maintain a distinct body type across multiple artists who otherwise always draw the same... how did McDuffie put it, 14-year-old boy with giant breasts? So she's the one character who'll always actually look different from the one character who she'd actually have an excuse to look just like. I'm not sure why that amuses me so much but it really, really does.

[proteus_lives]

I like that artnerdem one.

[sevarem]

I really need to read this. It looks like a lot of fun.

[minervasolo.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna be honest, when I was learning to draw I started doing hipsway because I realised that was how I stand, most of the time. Equal weight on each foot is much less common. So I'm usually happy to give it a pass in comics, except when a pose is obviously meant to portray strength, because it's not a strong stance.

[eyz]

I really liked those pages!

See, even Winnick can write decent non-retconning origins.

And love most of these fanarts :'3
Specially the cartoonier take on her.
Heck, she's got a pinup vibe in her design.