COMICS!! Review: Power Girl #23

This review was originally posted on my ComicVine.com account. That's HERE!

Power Girl might just be the most consistently good book I've been reading since I've thrown my hat back into the crazy world of comic books. Whether that's because the character herself is just about everything I like in my superhero(ine) protagonist, or because the writing of Judd Winick and the the art of Sami Basri has genuinely been THAT good is beyond me, but quite frankly I don't care. Power Girl's awesome, and #23 continues that streak of awesomeness.

Every Little Thing She Does is Magic

And really how could it not, with the last sighting of Power Girl had her fighting magic dinosaurs alongside her cousin, Superman. The source of these beasts, a magic thief calling himself Siphon, has captured Zatanna and is intent on making her powers permanently his own. Really, what could have just been a silly, but entertaining side story, actually ends up with Power Girl making a very important step in growth for her character.

And that's really what this book was missing. Sure, Karen's gone through a roller coaster of events both mental and physical since Winick's taken the reigns, but the status quo has always been maintained throughout. Now, we actually get a sense that PG's really got a direction to head in now, and is now fully fleshed out as a superheroine. Combined with Winick's uncanny sense of humor, that makes for a great issue. Few titles make me chuckle like his Power Girl.

Sami Basri continues to provide the solid artistic backbone for the series. There's not much more I can say about his art here that I haven't already stated a bajillion times before, but he continues to maintain the series unique look.

Whu Oh...

The only criticism I'd level is that, now seeing Power Girl and Zatanna side by side throughout most of this issue, you can see somewhat of a sameness with which Basri draws his females' faces and figures. It's not huge, and it's not as if I expect every heroine to look drastically different, but I feel that Power Girl does have a bit of a distinctive build (being an extremely tall, well-muscled, and well... endowed female character).

I also felt that the introduction of the Siphon character ended up being a bigger throwaway than I would have liked. I assume he may return later in PG's book or in some other title, but he felt more like a clever plot device than an actual character or threatening villain.

My Dream Girl

These issues aside, this is just a fun conclusion to a great two-parter. I can say that I've yet to read a comic that began with our heroes fighting magical dinosaurs and that ended with such a huge character advancement. The funny thing is, it was handled in stride and without fanfare or much ado. And that's what I really love about Power Girl as a series, it just has this quiet un-assuming pace and existence, but consistently churns out some of the better story-telling in DC comics. I can't wait to see where Power Girl goes from here.

Issue #23 gets a solid 4 stars out of 5.