Power Girl

Template:Superherobox Power Girl (real name Kara, aka Karen Starr; formerly Kara Zor-L in a previous continuity) is a comic book superhero in the DC Comics universe. She is best known as a member of the Justice Society of America, and has also been a member of the Justice League and Infinity Inc.

Publication history

As originally created, Power Girl was Kara Zor-L, the cousin of the Superman of the parallel world of Earth-2 (she was her world's counterpart of Supergirl). Her father sent her from Krypton in a ship slower than that of Superman's, so that she arrived on Earth in the early 1970s, decades after her cousin.

She was originally conceived as busty, with a bob of blonde hair and a form-fitting white costume. Rumor is that artist Wally Wood intended to draw her chest larger in each issue until the editors noticed, though Wood left the title after issue #65, and his successor Joe Staton was more restrained. On the other hand, Power Girl was written as a feminist, often resenting the attitude of the men (both older and younger) towards her, and particularly resentful of her cousin for making her appear to be his sidekick. Her fighting style is also typically far more aggressive than either Superman or Supergirl.

Having been raised by an artificial intelligence, Power Girl had trouble fitting into life on Earth, but eventually adopted the secret identity of programmer Karen Starr. At some point, her identity was revealed to the public.

The Crisis on Infinite Earths erased the existence of the Earth-2 Superman, and Power Girl's continuity was thus substantially disrupted. Her background was retconned so that she became the descendant of the Atlantean sorcerer Arion, frozen in suspended animation for millennia until the present day.

In the late 1980s, Power Girl joined the Justice League (the Justice Society having been disbanded in the interim), and, while a member of Justice League Europe, she was badly injured. She would have died if Superman had not personally performed laser surgery on her. Although she survived, she was significantly weaker and lost all of her vision powers, and could not fly for a time.

Later, she became pregnant and gave birth to a son (Equinox) during the Zero Hour crisis; her son was subsequently artificially aged, became a supervillain, and died.

When the Justice Society re-formed in the late 1990s, Power Girl joined as a key member. In the early 2000s, her backstory as a descendant of Arion has been called into question, but the new, revised truth has not yet been revealed.

In the mini-series Kingdom Come, artist Alex Ross restored Power Girl's busty shape, but also rendered her as heavily muscled, as if an ardent bodybuilder, an approach which has been carried forward by some other artists since. The character has become somewhat controversial as a number of recent comic book appearances have tended to make light of her voluptuous figure.

In the summer of 2005, Geoff Johns will launch the new series JSA: Classified, and the opening arc promises to resolve the question he reopened, giving her a third origin.

Powers

Power Girl originally had powers similar to those of the original Superman: super-strength, flight, invulnerability, x-ray vision, heat vision, and super-sensitive hearing. However, after sustaining severe injuries early in her JLE days, she was left significantly weaker, could not fly and lost all of her vision powers and enhanced senses. She eventually recovered her ability to fly, and remains a powerhouse nonetheless. She also has an occasional weakness to Kryptonite, which hasn't been explained.

Other media

Power Girl, not famous enough in her own right to overcome the inevitable handicap of being rather too similar to Supergirl, has been overlooked when it comes to movie/television/etc. adaptations.

The closest Power Girl has come to a television appearance was an episode of the Justice League Unlimited animated series in which villains created a clone of Supergirl for nefarious purposes. Grown into a slightly more mature physical state, and wearing a form-fitting white costume, the clone - Galatea - resembles Power Girl.