Power Girl first appeared in the DC universe in All Star Comics issue 58 in 1976.
Created by Gerry Conway, Ric Estrada and Wally Wood, she’s the cousin of Superman, and
shares many similar powers to the flagship superhero.
She’s been a member of some of DC’s finest superhero teams, from the Justice society
of American, Birds of Prey, Justice League Europe, and Infinity Inc, to name a few.
Kara has a whole fascinating history behind her, on the pages of the comics and off, so
today, we’re diving into our list of the top 10 Power Girl Surprising Facts.
Also be sure to stick around till the end of the video; we’ll be reading off some
comments from a previous list.
Let’s get to it!
10 She’s from Earth 2 Power Girl, aka Kara Zor-L, is the alternate
of Supergirl from Earth 2, which was the designated Earth for all of DC’s heroes from the Golden
Age.
She’s more mature and experienced that Supergirl, yet has a similar origin as her counterpart,
being Superman’s cousin.
On Earth 2, her best pal is actually Batman’s daughter, Huntress, who she often fights crime
with as one of Earth’s greatest heroes.
Because of events we’ll be discussing later on, she became stranded in the main continuity
of the DC universe, and has stuck around there ever since.
9 Her First Origin Back in 1975, DC decided to re-launch a title
it had back in the Golden Age; All-Star Comics, which would follow the Justice Society, in
an attempt to bank off of the success the Justice League comic was having.
In this re-launch, a group of heroes called the Super Squad were created.
It featured an older Robin, the Star-Spangled Kid, who was brought back from the Golden
Age, and a brand new female character in order to balance them out.
They decided that this character could be Earth 2’s Supergirl, since Supergirl on
Earth 1 had emerged after the multiverse was established, and Earth 2’s Superman had
never had one.
She was named Kara Zor-L, with the L being spelt with the letter rather than EL in order
to help distinguish her as the Earth 2 Supergirl, and match Kal-L’s Earth 2 spelling.
The editors had included a little note on the panels that stated Superman had kept her
a secret, which is why we had never heard of her before.
Thus Power Girl was born.
She was a hit with readers, being portrayed as a feminist icon with a brash and outspoken
personality.
8 Her Second Origin Later on in All-Star Comics, there was a story
in which Earth 2’s Superman made an appearance, and Kara’s origin was revised ever so slightly.
It was revealed that Kara had come to Earth also on a rocket from Krypton, but her ship
was slower than Superman’s, hence why she showed up in the comics much later than Earth
1’s Supergirl had appearance.
This made it easier to believe that she had been kept a secret for only a few years.
7 Her Third Origin In 1977, Power Girl’s origins changed yet
again, this time shown as part of a dream sequence.
After having a successful run so far in All Star Comics, DC gave Power Girl a solo run
in Showcase, which was a common move on the publisher’s behalf when testing out the
potential a character could have for a solo series.
Her father, Zor-L had created his own modified version of the spaceship that his brother,
Superman’s father, had crafted.
While Kara was flying through space, her mind was in ‘suspended animation’, or rather,
in a state of virtual reality that would ensure she was given a proper Kryptonian education.
It’s actually this new origin detail that fans of the 1978 Superman film would see up
on the big screen, with a similar concept making it’s way into the movie.
6 Crisis on Infinite Earths In the 70’s, DC had to cut back on a bunch
of its titles, including All-Star Comics, and instead would go on to appear in All Star
Squadron and Infinity Inc.
Then came 1985’s Crisis on Infinite Earths; the story event that would abandon the DC
Multiverse and revise the continuity, with the Justice Society having existed during
the Golden Age, and heroes like Superman and Batman being revised so that there were no
Earth 2 versions of them.
In issues 11 and 12 of Crisis, Earth 2 characters were removed, and we were given somewhat of
a confusing explanation to revise the timelines accordingly.
But Power Girl kind of just remained in limo.
She didn’t have any aesthetic ties to Superman.
And thus, her origin was retconned in a major way, along with many others that were altered
and changed in the stories immediately following Crisis.
5 An Atlantean That retcon led her to be told that she was
a descendant of an Atlantean sorcerer.
If you’re scratching your head wondering why, well, so did a lot of other readers at
the time.
DC released a title called Secret Origins to help clear up a lot of the confusing origin
stories and retcons, and in issue 11 in 1987, Power Girl, along with Hawkman, were highlighted.
This issue is known as one of the more confusing post-Crisis stories, since it declared that
Power Girl remembered the events of Crisis, and that she was actually revealed to be Atlanean,
with her powers being the result of her Atlantean sorcerer grandfather messing around with her
genetics.
All in all, it was an attempt to justify why Power Girl had not been wiped out of the continuity
like most of her other Earth 2 peers had been.
And it was messy; it’s a whole chapter of the character’s past that is often ignored,
and was officially retconned in the 2005 Infinite Crisis story arc, which restored her as being
from Krypton, although she would get yet another origin story in the New 52 reboot that say
her as the cousin and adopted daughter of Earth 2’s Superman, where she was stranded
yet again on Earth 0.
4 Her Son The weird Atlantean stuff didn’t end there.
In Justice League International, issue 52, Power Girl got slammed with a really silly
storyline where she became mysteriously pregnant.
How was this explained?
Her grandfather, the Atlantean sorcerer, used magic to knock her up.
During the Zero Hour cross over event, she would leave the team and join the Justice
League of America, and give birth to a boy who was named Equinox, whose purpose as far
as his grand pappy was concerned was to fight an Atlantean demon by the name of Scarabus,
who Equinox, according to prophecy, was meant to defeat.
Equinox defeated the demon, and then was NEVER HEARD FROM AGAIN after 1996.
It’s safe to assume that he’s been retconned out of existence, since there’s a new Equinox
on Prime Earth whose real name is Miiyahbin Marten; a teenage superhero who goes on to
join Justice League United.
3 Kryptonite Being Superman’s cousin, and also a Kryptonian,
it would make sense that Kara’s weaknesses would include Kryptonite.
But in Superman issue 670, Kara is shown to not be affected by Kryptonite from New Earth.
This was the product of retconning that occurred in Infinite Crisis issue 7.
Back then, prior to Crisis on Infinite Earths, Kryptonite from other Earths did work on Kryptonians
who are not from that Earth, like when Ultraman from Earth 3 fought against both Earth 2’s
Kal-L and the Earth 1 Superman.
Kara was also briefly affected by unprocessed raw natural materials, like branches and rocks
for a short while, as seen in Supergirl vol 4 issue 16.
2 Marvel’s Disdain Back when Power Girl first hit the scene,
she had some critics.
Specifically, Stan Lee over at Marvel.
In 1978, Stan Lee noted that a few years prior when Power Girl was created, he was pretty
darn annoyed, since Marvel had created Power Man, aka Luke Cage, just a few years before
that in 1972.
Lee stated, I quote, “I’m pretty annoyed about that.
I’ve got to ask the Marvel lawyer.
She’s supposed to be starting a lawsuit about that and I haven’t heard anything.
I don’t like the idea.
You know, years ago, we brought out Wonder Man, and DC Comics sued us because they had
Wonder Woman, and…I said okay, I’ll discontinue Wonder Man.
All of a sudden, they’ve got Power Girl.
Oh boy.
How unfair.”
Lee’s disdain didn’t end there.
Marvel would go one to make a joke about the situation in one of their What If comics,
issue 34 in 1982, in a panel that included a title that read What if wonder man were
a woman, and Power Man were a girl, along with images of the two characters drawn as
the opposite gender, and a note in between them that read, “dear Marvel, our lawyers
advise you not to print this gag.
With love, your Distinguished Competitor; a slight jab at DC, with distinguished competitor
standing for D and C.
1 The Sexual Harassment Despite her independent and brash behaviour,
Power Girl has always been plagued by objectification.
According to rumours, Wally Wood, one of her creators reportedly told his friends that
he had planned to draw Power Girl’s breasts bigger and bigger as All-Star issues went
on, until editors finally caught on and told him to stop.
Apparently, no one ever did, as the story goes.
Since her early days, Power Girl has constantly had to deal with a whole lot of harassment
from male characters, even in her first appearance, when Wildcat calls her a chick and broad and
she slams a door shut in his face.
This would only continue the older the character got, with her years in the Justice League
Europe title modifying her costume to no longer have an oval cut out over her chest, replacing
it with a very deep neck line that arguably showed off even more cleavage.
In the very first issue of Justice League Europe, it became clear that writer Keith
Giffen would be using her sexuality as the butt of his jokes, with her immediately being
harassed by the Flash upon arriving in Europe.
She often would be portrayed as obsessing over dieting.
Wally West would comment on a new suit of hers by saying he enjoyed seeing “skin tight
clothing stretched over awesome female bodies” to which Carol would threaten him by saying
he better un-notice it quick.
Villains would grope her occasionally.
Then, after Giffen left the title, he original costume made a come back, although slightly
revised, yet the ridicule continued.
Her costume would be constantly mocked for being too sexual, she would often be objectified
by her teammates, especially the Flash.
A villain by the name of Blue Devil who captured her at one point spent most of his time making
crude comments to her.
One French superhero by the name of Crimson Fox straight up slut shamed her by saying
“if your dignity is so precious, why ‘ave you zis front window in your costume?”
Carol would respond with “the costume only shows what I am.
Female.
Healthy and strong.
If men degrade themselves by staring and drooling at tripping over themselves, that’s their
problem.
I’m not going to apologize for it.”
We could go on and on.
Kara’s sexuality and her harassment have long been staples of the character’s stories,
and comedic relief, to the point of being one of the most harassed characters ever to
be featured on DC’s pages.
There we have it friends!
What are your thoughts on Kara?
Are you Power Girl fans?
Let us know in those comments below!
Speaking of comments, let’s read off a few from one of our previous videos, top 10 things
we want to see in the avengers 4 trailer.
From Woozle 03 Productions, concerning the title of the Avengers 4 film, “It’s can’t
be Avengers Assemble because that was the name of the first film.”
This is something some of you in North America might not be privy to, and is a really, really
good point.
The UK release of the first Avengers film was titled Avengers Assemble, which was due
to the fear that the film’s title might get confused with the TV show The Avengers
that ran from 1961 to 1969, and has literally nothing to do with Marvel, but was quite popular.
This is one of the reasons why some fans have doubts that the film will be titled Assemble,
and why some believe that Endgame is way more likely.
Although, there’s a lot of theories that think it might be called Eternity, because
of the celestial’s potential involvement, and the fact that the Russo brothers denied
that avengers Forever would be the title, but said the actual title was something similar.
Speculate away friends!
Next up, from Luis Ricardo Vera Suarez, “Personally I don’t think Doctor Strange wanted to save
Stark per se, rather, as I see it what was needed was Thanos winning (temporarily).
Why so?
Not sure, but maybe let him win was the very key to his destruction.”
Considering Thanos track record in the comics, that’s a pretty solid theory.
Thanos has a habit of failing due to his own self doubt and insecurities, something that
Adam Warlock would use against him on one occasion.
It would be one hell of a way to conclude the Infinity War storyline.
Alright that’s it for now!
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