Review: Power Girl #15
[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]
Writer: Leah Williams
Art: Adriana Melo
Colors: Romulo Fajardo, Jr.
Letters: Becca Carey
Reviewed by: Matthew B. Lloyd
Summary
It’s Ejecta’s story…and Power Girl learns who or what is behind it all! Meanwhile, Omen remains in a coma!
Positives
By this point, you should know that the art is the best thing about this series. Sometimes the covers stand out, but Adriana Melo’s interiors take the top spot for Power Girl #15. Melo gives us a subtle and nuanced look at Ejecta, who she is, how she got her powers and WHY she’s doing what she’s been doing over the past few issues. As I guessed back in issue #13, the Symbioship is behind everything. Williams has kept this subplot running in the background and she’s used it effectively. It may not play out as well as it could, but it’s not a bad element.
Ejecta’s story makes her a sympathetic villain and this really can go either way. It’s important we learn about her backstory so to fully understand what’s going on. Upon first reading her story just felt like an information dump and it could’ve worked better had it been revealed slowly along the way instead of a chunk of the issue just being her story.
Negatives
This set up feels like we are looking at Ejecta as the next member of Power Girl’s friendship group. She’s a victim herself and she will most likely be brought in to the group as another awkward woman/girl. Williams writes PG as an awkward young woman who doesn’t fit in, Omen as an outsider who doesn’t fit, Daily Planet intern Mariposa was added last issue, Natasha Irons is sort of suddenly part of the group…why not add another awkward character to the mix. Hell, even Axel is an awkward character. It feels telegraphed. Sometimes it’s ok to just have a villain be a villain, but Ejecta was never intended to be a villain, she’s just another victim of the Symbioship. Ejecta and Power Girl will bond over being abused by the same “man” and we will all get the “message.”
From a wider lens, this points to the fact that this series is never going to improve. It sells outside the top 200, it’s confounding how this book is still being published. It’s not easy to find fans of this series, despite Power Girl having a fan following. Williams from day one has written Power Girl like a Supergirl variant early in her career instead of a character with a substantial established history that makes her distinct from Supergirl.
Negatives Cont’d
Power Girl #15 is just more of the same. Williams plays the emotional angle to bring Power Girl to tears, something PG would definitely not do…she may act out in denial, but she wouldn’t fall to pieces and be all mopey about the Symiobship being her “abuser,” she’d just beat the crap out of him/ it. It doesn’t help that Williams is just recapitulating something that fans of the character have already read. She’s just trying to tell the same story over again with different details. This was first told back in Showcase #97-99. Williams paints PG as weak and afraid of the Symbioship which is diametrically opposed to Power Girl’s LONG established characterization. I’m beating a dead horse, but the same issues with this series continue to plague it. If the readers know more about the character than the writer, then there will always be a huge disconnect. Williams has essentially reinvented Power Girl in a less interesting and less unique way.
This series hasn’t caught on. The only way this series can be read is as a new character, but from the beginning Williams and DC have tried to make readers believe that this is the original pre-Crisis Earth-Two Power Girl, but without any of the substance of the character intact. Williams’ decision to rehash what Power Girl has already encountered is just as confounding. Williams ignores her deep connections to the Justice Society of America in lieu of this supporting cast she’s forced upon PG. It never feels right. It never makes sense that PG would try and fit in with the Super-family and be bff’s with Omen. There’s no story that gets PG to this point and there’s not even the insinuation, just nonsense that demonstrates that Williams doesn’t understand the character and hasn’t even read any of her previous stories.
Verdict
It’s astounding that Power Girl is solicited up to issue #18 at this point. Power Girl #15 demonstrates that this series has no hope of improving…that Williams is incapable of delivering a satisfying depiction of the character. There’s no following for this series as sales bear out. No matter how much one enjoys Adriana Melo’s art, this comic is a bust.
