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By Andy Frisk
July 19, 2009 - 22:55
Power Girl and The Ultra-Humanite trade blows while The Humanite’s ship slowly raises
Adam Hughes variant.
The Humanite is one of those super villains who has a genius intellect, a mad scientist’s dream of conquest and, until recently, a weak and degenerating body. With the help of super villainess, Satanna, The Humanite was able to transfer his mind to a huge super powered gorilla, but now he has his sights set on a much more powerful and alluring body.
The slightly humorous, yet highly action packed, and somewhat disturbing fun continues in issue #2 of Power Girl. The Humanite and Power Girl, while battling on board his ship, trade blows and quips quite savagely. Most of their satirical jabs at one another have to deal with what makes Power Girl so appealing (at least at first): body image. The Humanite’s body issues are of a different kind than the “am I overweight?” or “am I too thin?” type. He has a brilliant mind, albeit a twisted one, but never has had the strength of body to effectively carry out his plans. Interestingly enough though, he has done pretty well with his original and now gorilla bodies (for a super villain that is), wreaking plenty of havoc, and coming close to achieving his mad goals. Still, he isn’t satisfied and wants to inhabit Power Girl’s body. Palmiotti and Gray picked an interesting theme for their opening story for Power Girl with the choice of a body issue battle. As already mentioned, Power Girl, as a character, is often dismissed, or used only as a cover girl, because of her body. Looks like we’re going to see there’s more to her than just a rockin’ body, blonde hair, and blue eyes.
Amanda Conner's cover.
Conner’s art is great. She really captures the B-movie type of wacky looking sci-fi gadgets one would expect from a mad scientist like The Humanite. Her grasp of anatomy and background detail is superb as well. Power Girl has never looked so good, and that’s saying a lot. Conner’s Power Girl is beautiful, but not overdone.
Overall, this series is looking to build on its witty, fun, yet strangely disturbing beginning. Thematically, its interesting, as there’s more going on here than just a super hottie with a triple D bust line and a low cut, high ridding costume flying around and smashing things. This book would sell without the interesting theme anyway, but Power Girl's looks wouldn’t keep the book selling over time (well, at least not a considerable amount of time). The costume works, so don’t mess with it, and so does the storytelling so far, so hopefully there will be no messing with it either. Power Girl's looks will draw readers in, but they’ll stay for the story.
Rating: 8 /10
