Due to the various storyline resets that DC has seen, Power Girl is known for having a very unclear origin story. However, in this video, we have attempted to simplify everything so that you can comprehend it better.
In the beginning of 1976, this DC superheroine made her debut in the 58th issue of All-Star comics. On Earth-Two, she is a superhero who is similar to Supergirl from Earth One. However, there are variances between the two, which is one of the many topics we will discuss today.
In comparison to her counterpart, she is more mature and serene, and she has a more forceful combat style. Power Girl is also a strong believer in claiming her own identity and forging her own destiny. Gerry Conway, Ric Estrada, and Wally Wood collaborated to design her.
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Who Is Power Girl?
Just like Earth One has Supergirl, Earth-Two has Power Girl. Originally named Kara Zor L, she is one of the two Kryptonians who survived the destruction of planet Krypton.
Her father Zor L, on realizing that Krypton was about to explode, wished to save both his wife Allura In Z and Kara. Unlike in Supergirl’s story where the city of Kandor was miniaturized and put in a bottle by Brainiac, the Kandor in Krypton Two was destroyed along with the planet. Anyway, with the apocalypse coming closer, Zor L had run out of time to save both his wife and daughter and settled on building a smaller ship to carry Kara alone. Her pod was then released alongside Kal L’s. However, her journey to Earth took far longer.
Her Kryptonian starship, a.k.a. The Symbioship, kept her in a statis mode during her journey. For years, she was nurtured in a false reality of Krypton, programmed into the pod by Zor L, unlike Kara Zor El from Earth-One who lived her early years in Krypton itself. In this virtual reality, she went about living a normal life in her city, Kandor, that felt very real with her spending time with her family, and friends, going to college and falling in love. However, it had to end someday.
Kara’s ship reached Earth six decades later compared to that of Kal L. Kara’s aging had also slowed down and she was only in her 20s according to her life in the virtual reality because she had lived for so long in suspended animation. Unlike Superman, who grew up on Earth, Kara reached the planet after her mentality had already been developed as a Kryptonian, which made social life on an alien planet much harder for Power Girl. Fortunately, her cousin happened to be the first one she came across after landing on Earth.
Kal L and Lois Lane adopted Kara to ensure that she gets to have a family while adjusting to Earth. Just like her heroic cousin and her Earth-One counterpart Supergirl, Power Girl’s physiology was amped by the yellow Sun of Earth and she soon became a superhero as well. However, she did not want to remain in the shadow of Superman which is why she adopted the name Power Girl instead of Super Girl. She also ditched the blue costume for a white one to set herself apart from her fellow Kryptonian.
She eventually became a part of the Justice Society of America after Kal L’s retirement, which is the Earth-Two version of the Justice League. Her origin story was expanded in DC’s Showcase, written by Paul Levitz. This is where she met the journalist Andrew Vinson for the first time, who is the primary reason behind the mysterious and stubborn Kara revealing her origin story in the Pre-Crisis storyline.
Later, Vinson helped Kara with fitting into Earth’s day-to-day society. She adopted her alter ego – Karen Starr and joined a computer corporation called the UCC as a software specialist. To gain the necessary expertise for this job, she relied on Wonder Woman’s memory machine which helped her with acquiring knowledge with reference to her field of work. She mainly operated in Gotham City. Vinson later went on to take up the role of Kara’s love interest.
She became best friends with the Huntress, the daughter of the Earth-Two Batman and Catwoman. She later came across Earth-One and ended up preferring that reality over hers on her Earth.
With DC toying around with the concept of the multiverse, things got quite confusing. You might be aware of the Earth-Three superheroes being the bad guys unlike Earth One and Two. With several different realities taking place in different universes, all at the same time, DC decided that it was time for a reset, which birthed the Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline – a storyline that would create one, single Universe in DC.
This went on to result in a revamping of origin stories for several characters. However, here lies an irony. Even though this move intended to simplify everything, it made Power Girl’s origin story a lot more complicated.
With the DC Verse unified, Power Girl’s existence on Earth-One needed a very different story. You might wonder, how much more different can it be? Well, she was actually made to be an Atlantean. She was a descendant of the sorcerer Arion of Atlantis. Instead of spending six decades in suspended animation, she spent a thousand years in that state. That’s what we knew and that’s what she knew as well.
However, that turned out to be a false story that she was fed. The Infinite Crisis storyline once again reset her origin story as a Kryptonian survivor on Earth-Two. She also went on to work for both the Justice Society of America and the Justice League of America.
But it doesn’t end here because here comes Flashpoint. With the New 52 continuity surfacing, her origin was once again, revamped. However, it remained very similar to her first origin story, minus a few changes. She was apparently known as Supergirl. She later traveled across dimensions with her partner Helena and reached Earth Zero, where Kara adopted Power Girl as her superhero name.
Weird Facts About Power Girl
There were times when her character got involved in unnecessary storylines. With a lot of out-of-character things taking place with all the universal resets, Power Girl has often been handed the shorter end of the stick – not in the way that would make her a person experiencing misfortune but, she really went through some weird stuff.
One of them would be the absurd magical pregnancy. During her run as the descendant of an Atlantean sorcerer, she was made to be pregnant via her grandfather’s magic so that she could birth a super-powerful kid who would eventually defeat an Atlantean demon. To make this worse, this child was supposed to be the offspring of Kara and her grandfather. Even though it happened via magic, that is still some gross incest.
Next, we’ve got her pairing up with Harley Quinn. How did a superhero end up with Harley Quinn as her sidekick? Harley managed to convince Power Girl into believing that she was her sidekick and together, they went on a cosmic adventure.
Kara Zor L also went on to become a businesswoman and a CEO. With fame and wealth to her name, she began to give back to the community using her money. She also adopted one of James Bond’s trademark characteristics. The charm. As the CEO, she seduced Mr. Terrific to make him reveal the secrets of the technology he had.
Power Girl has a weakness. And it is not Kryptonite. However, she is vulnerable to raw natural elements such as wood.
And now we finally get to the weirdest thing about Power Girl – her overtly sexual costume. Female superheroes in comics have 0ften been dressed in sexy outfits for combat, primarily for fanservice. However, Power Girl’s sexy outfit with the chest window actually has a not-so-sexual justification, which somehow makes it weirder.
In the 37th issue of Justice League Europe, Geoff Johns added the explanation as to why Power Girl reveals most of her chest in her costume. So we already know about her not wanting to follow in Kal L’s footsteps, which is why she goes for a white suit instead of the standard blue. Naturally, she did not want to boast the similar S-like symbol that stood for hope. But, she still wanted her own symbol.
She addressed the issue as she was accused of being lewd and said that she couldn’t settle on a symbol for herself so she just left out that part of the fabric for the time being. What made it really awkward was the fact that she seemed to have somewhat of an existential crisis while she spoke to her cousin about it. But hey, it shouldn’t really be a problem for her since her body is more or less invulnerable. This brings us to our next segment –
What Makes Power Girl So Powerful?
As a Kryptonian, she has powers similar to that of Superman and also her Earth-One counterpart Supergirl.
Her Kryptonian physiology powers up under the yellow sun. She can also store the solar energy she absorbs, which helps her retain her strength when the yellow sun’s out instead of suddenly depowering her.
She’s also got the standard Kryptonian hacks such as super hearing, advanced visual powers such as the famous heat vision, telescopic vision, infrared vision, microscopic vision, X-Ray vision, and electromagnetic spectrum vision.
On top of that, Power Girl is invulnerable and has unbelievable strength, immunity, stamina, speed, and flight. Her agility and reflexes rival that of Superman’s and she also has super breath which allows her to create gusts of wind that have the force of a hurricane. She can also use this ability to freeze her targets.
Apart from being naturally powerful on Earth, Power Girl has trained under world-renowned boxers, combatants, and martial artists, making her an expert when it comes to advanced hand-to-hand combat. She is also incredibly intelligent and entrepreneurial.
Tempting Versions Of Power Girl In Various Forms Of Media
Superman and Supergirl have enjoyed their fair share of screen time outside the comics. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree with Power Girl.
She has appeared in the animated series Justice League Unlimited as a clone of Supergirl. She was designed to take down Superman and Supergirl if the Kryptonian cousins were to ever go rogue. She was villainous in nature and wanted to prove her superiority over Supergirl. However, she was ultimately defeated by Supergirl.
She also appeared in the animated movie Superman/Batman: Public Enemies. Her character was sanctioned by Lex Luthor, alongside several other superheroes. She was tasked to bring Superman into custody but she ended up siding with Superman and Batman. However, Lex Luthor ended up defeating her with a battlesuit powered by Kryptonite.
She appeared in Teen Titans Go! To The Movies as a character who attends Batman’s movie premiere with Aquaman.
Power Girl also exists as a live-action character in Smallville. However, she does not make an appearance there. Her company, Starware, is merely mentioned in the episodes Extinction and Trade.
Power Girl has clearly succeeded in forging her own path and identity. This is evident from the fact that fans and writers alike have wanted to keep her as a prominent character throughout all the continuities of DC. And, if DC’s live-action universe branches out into the multiverse, we would surely love for her to be a part of it.
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