Although I make an effort to shy away from the DCU books (one over-complicated superhero universe is enough for me, thanks) I do dip in on occasion. It was actually 2009 that I started picking up the odd issue of Power Girl, purely because it was one of those series that had been on the radar for years, but never quite come around, and I wanted to see what the fuss was about. I enjoyed it from the start, but it wasn’t until January’s issue #8 that I had to admit I’d gone from being casually interested to looking forward to it more than almost any monthly I was getting at the time.

Of course, less than 2 months later, it was announced that the entire creative team would be leaving the book following issue #12. Oh well.

It’s easy to see why Gray and Palmiotti decided to leave the book at the same time as Amanda Conner. Not since Kurt Busiek and George Perez teamed on Avengers over a decade ago have I seen what could easily have been generic, mid-level superheroics transformed so definitively into must-read comics. As a title, Power Girl was a bit cute, a bit funny, a bit sexy, a bit violent and a bit ridiculous – in short, all the things that Power Girl, as a character, embodies – and so much of that was down to Conner’s artwork and execution.

In fact, Conner’s work was so consistently entertaining and technically brilliant that she can easily be called one of the greatest pencillers working in the industry today. Every panel was packed with detail, personality and expression, and yet it always serviced the story first. She rendered grand alien landscapes alongside 70s sci-fi throwbacks and made you believe they belonged in the same world. I’m hard pressed to find even the smallest thing to complain about.

Perhaps the biggest surprise, of course, was that when the creative team left and Judd Winick & Sami Basri took over, it wasn’t half as terrible as I was expecting. Admittedly, I have no interest in the more DCU-centric stories Winick is telling, and dropped the book instantly, but at least, from what I saw, the quality remained reasonably consistent. It’s not a matter of living up to the standard of Gray, Palmiotti and Connor – few could – but, at least it wasn’t a pale imitation of their work.

As it was, for the first 5 months of this year, Gray, Palmiotti & Conner undeniably provided the starring role that Power Girl was born for. Although the 12-issue run was too short by half, at least it exists at all. A story so well-told that it deserves a place on everyone’s shelves, and the 5 issues (plus the collection, and a Conner-penned/pencilled short in Wonder Woman #600) that came out this year make the Gray/Palmiotti/Conner run one of 2010′s greatest comics without reservation.

Comic Book Resources reports that the current Power Girl team of Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray will be leaving after issue #12. If you read my recent review of Power Girl #8 you’ll know that even as the site’s designated Marvel zombie, I felt that this was a really special series, so It’s a huge disappointment to have the run suddenly capped off with such little warning.

The reason for this decision is that Conner can’t, for whatever reason, continue her commitment past issue #12, and Gray & Palmiotti feel like they should all bow out together rather than carry without her contribution to the book’s tone and appearance. In that sense, good for them – it’s always good to see creators make a timely exit – but on the other hand, as one of the few DC books that outshines the majority of Marvel’s output, it’s a blow for them to be going just as people were really starting to sit up and take notice of their work. The follow-up creative team has not yet been announced, so good luck to whoever that turns out to be – after all, they’re going to need it to live up to the standards that have been set.

On the plus side, there’s a collection of the first few issues out soon, and a second will presumably follow collecting the rest of the run. I’m not much for DC Universe books, but I suspect I’ll be buying those TPBs.

I’ve been casually reading Power Girl ever since it was launched a few months ago – first with a kind of tentative curiosity, but more recently with genuine enthusiasm. As a die-hard Marvelite (can’t say Marvel Zombie anymore, unfortunately…) it’s rare for me to get involved with a DC book on a month-to-month basis, and yet even though it’s snuck up on me a bit, these last two issues made me realise that I’m actually finding Power Girl more entertaining that almost any other superhero book I’m reading right now.

The tone of the book has definite shades of She-Hulk about it, a little bit funny, a little bit sexy, but never particularly reductive or titillating (indeed, no more so than any other superhero comic). This issue is the second part of a 2-part story in which Power Girl fights off a beast accidentally brought to earth by the hilariously 70s-influenced alien, Vartox, who is attempting to woo Power Girl so that he can repopulate his race. The idea of an aliens needing humans to mate with is an idea almost as old as sci-fi itself, and this issue is as much a thoroughly wry deconstruction of the idea as it is a pastiche of it -  Vartox’s light-heartedly chauvinistic attitude actually works as a pointed reference to the normal course of this plot, while his fashion sense makes a similar mockery of the way female aliens are presented in series like Star Trek.

As funny as Gray and Palmiotti’s plot and dialogue are, it’s Amanda Conner’s artwork that makes a book like this really stand out. The comic timing is note-perfect, the emotional range vast and nuanced, and the storytelling easily stands alongside the best in the business. Admittedly, the art is fairly cartoonish and not quite as on-trend as some would like – but that gives it a timeless, rather than outdated quality. People often complaining that they want classic superhero books rather than event-driven, mega-crossover titles that take themselves far too seriously, so if you’ve ever found yourself agreeing with that sentiment, then take it from someone who barely ever even reads DC comics: give Power Girl a try immediately.

This week: Capsule reviews of Dark X-Men: The Confession, Giant Size Wolverine: Old Man Logan, Hellblazer #259 and Power Girl #5! Read the rest of this entry »