JSA CLASSIFIED #1 - 4

"POWER TRIP"
Writer: Geoff Johns | Penciler: Amanda Conner | Inker: Jimmy Palmiotti
Colorist: Paul Mounts | Letterer: Rob Leigh
Assistant Editor: Harvey Richards | Editor: Stephen Wacker

My Thoughts: The first four issues of 2005's JSA CLASSIFIED ongoing series are dedicated to cleaning up the history of Power Girl. This is an admirable goal, considering that I knew the bare minimum about the character coming into this series, but even then I was aware that her backstory was considered a royal mess.

To put it as simply as I can, Power Girl was a denizen of Earth-2, a parallel world from DC's Silver and Bronze Age past. But Earth 2 was destroyed, completely wiped from both existence and history in 1986's CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS limited series. And since the Power Girl of Earth 2 was Superman's cousin, but it was established post-CRISIS that Superman would be the one and only surviving Kryptonian in the newly re-formed universe, a new origin was required for Power Girl. Thus she became Atlantean rather than Kryptonian.

I don't know what happened from that point, but the gist I get from JSA CLASSIFIED is that Power Girl's powers varied in the intervening years, and perhaps even her origin was played inconsistently. Whatever the reason, writer Geoff Johns decided to fix the mess by simply declaring that Power Girl is from Earth 2 after all, having crossed over to Earth 1 (or Earth Prime or whatever DC calls it) sometime before the CRISIS ended.

The vehicle for this explanation is a story in which Power Girl's power levels and her very powers themselves have been fluctuating, leading to her Justice Society teammates running tests on her. Subsequently she begins to see people who aren't there, some taunting and attacking her, leading to a couple of public misunderstandings. Eventually everything is revealed to be the work of the villainous Psycho Pirate, also a survivor of Earth 2, trying to restore Power Girl's memories since he believes they're two of a kind.

From there the story ends on a cliffhanger which was resolved in 2006's INFINITE CRISIS limited series, obviously not collected as part of the POWER TRIP paperback. But I assume all turned out well for Power Girl, since there are a dozen more issues following JSA CLASSIFIED #4, published subsequently to INFINITE CRISIS, to read here.

I've read very little by Geoff Johns over the years. In fact, I'm pretty certain the only work I've read from him was his year-plus stint on AVENGERS over at Marvel in 2002 or so. But I know his reputation and he seems to be mostly considered a good writer with a strong sense of continuity. And while that may be the case, while his knowledge of the past is excellent and he sets Power Girl's story straight by simply outright stating that every version of her origin since CRISIS has been untrue, I can't say I'm much impressed with Johns here.

My issue is merely that this story doesn't seem to have much reason to exist. It's four issues of Power Girl hallucinating and then fighting Psycho Pirate, while bringing readers up to speed on her confusing backstory -- but in the end, it's just a four-issue prologue to INFINITE CRISIS.

Plus, beyond this, Johns commits what, to me, is a cardinal sin of comic book writing: he assumes that the reader is familiar with his subject. Like, really familiar. Power Girl's recent memory issues and power fluctuations are presented well enough, but Johns constantly introduces characters without naming them or explaining who they are. This is most glaring when Power Girl's Justice Society teammate show up to confront her after one of her public incidents, and none of them are called by name, either in dialogue or narration. Later, Psycho Pirate uses illusions of the Legion of Superheroes against Power Girl and this time only two of them are named on panel.

And then, further along in the story, Power Girl has a heart-to-heart conversation with someone named "Ma Hunkel" at JSA HQ. Who the heck is Ma Hunkel?? I'm glad I got her name, but I have absolutely no idea who she is or what her relationship is to Power Girl. Is she the JSA's housekeeper? An octogenarian superheroine? Don't ask me! The information simply isn't here.

This is a terrible way to write the opening arc of a new series. Even if you assume the majority of the readers are pre-existing fans, there are bound to be people, like me, who know nothing about the JSA but are checking the series out to learn about Power Girl or to enjoy Amanda Conner's artwork.

Oh, and lastly -- my final objection to Johns's script is his need to explain the "window" on Power Girl's costume. She says she'd always intended to put a symbol there, but never came up with one. Really? Then why is it a hole rather than white frabric like the rest of her outfit? But more than that, why does this even require an "explanation" in the first place? Can't it just be a simple fashion choice? It bothers me that Johns feels a need to explain this because the choice implies that he thinks the look needs defending, which it doesn't. "Peek-a-boo"/"keyhole" tops have existed forever. Women wear them all the time. And since it's not like the nigh-invulnerable Power Girl wears her costume for protection, it can and should be a stylistic choice; nothing more. That's all there should be to it.

Anyway -- overall, it seems an odd choice to include this story arc in the POWER GIRL trade paperback. These issues were published years before the remaining chapters in the book, and they lead into a massive crossover event which is never mentioned again in the subsequent ongoing series. I suppose the idea was to make this a showcase of Amanda Conner's Power Girl stories, but I would've much rather seen the book include the four-part TERRA mini-series, from the same creative team as the ongoing POWER GIRL (including Conner), which includes a Power Girl guest-spot and does in fact tie in with her series, as we'll see next time.