Friday, February 10, 2012

World's Finest Ways to Make Sure Fans are Never Happy

I'm gonna keep this short and sweet.

Well...I'm gonna keep this short and sweet for me...

DC's just released an image for World's Fines, starring Power Girl and Huntress, which is a lynchpin of DC's "Second Wave" of comics in their New 52 relaunch.

Here: http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=36931





Fans have been clamoring for a return of fan fave Power Girl since the relaunch happened in September but now the internet is abuzz with "WTF" comments about the new look of Power Girl.

I can explain the look in a few different ways:

1) This look is VINTAGE George Perez. Perez is generally a product of the 70's and 80's in comics and in my mind he's a legend but if you hire a legend, you'll get what that legend does.

2) DC may be a bit self conscious about it's image as it relates to the ladies after last summer's kerfuffle about how they clearly don't like the ladies as evidenced by them working everywhere but DC, Catwoman's libido and whatever the shit was happening in Red Hood and the Outlaws #1 Featuring Starfire as played by Torrie Spelling.

Now Power Girl is back and it's possible that fandom has crawled so far up DC's crack that it has run away from the one thing that it had working for it.

History.

Power Girl is sort of a breakout character of DC's last decade and while many casual fans didn't understand the "boob window", it was as much a part of her look as Batman's arm thingies or Superman's red undies. It was sort of like that rope around Captain Marvel's neck.

No one knows why it's there but they miss it when it's gone.

I don't really want to bash this outfit too much but I do know that the most important thing about Power Girl in this story is that she and Huntress are trying to find their way back to their own dimension and she doesn't need a new and totally foreign look to do that.

This outfit is a space suit with a cape and that "P" symbol screams 1985 to me. I'm a huge Legion of Super Heroes fan and I bet this suit would look GREAT on Phantom Girl. In fact, it's the sort of thing that folks will wear in the year 3012 when capes and monogram clothing are as much a part of our lives as zippers and cell phones.

DC needed to bring Power Girl back but they didn't need to scrap the old look so completely. Especially if they were allowing Perez to add those HR Geiger inspired bracelets and boots.

I don't know. I like the new 52 and I expect good things from this book but DC needs to stop battling itself when the internet screams "YOU HATE US" and stick to what works best for it, which is great characters being done by great creators.

Soon, this costume will, like many of the Jim Lee redesigned outfits of other New DC characters, look pretty dated.

Power Girl's outfit here is so off the mark that I'm shocked she doesn't have a high collar.