I don’t read DC comics, but I keep seeing this character “Power Girl” turn up on covers of books in my local shop. She seems to be a sort of caricature of the oversized-titted female superhero, just really over the top.
But one thing I’ve noticed is that she’s almost always fugly - drawn in a very haggard, masculine way. Is this intentional? Why? Is she meant to be a transvestite?
The fact that you think the Conner/Palmiotti rendition of Peeg looks mannish - or grotesque - is…simply inexplicable to me.
Chacon ca gout, I suppose. Some people think Michael Turner’s art is gorgeous - I think everyone looks like they had a bizarre taffy pulling accident.
Now…if you were talking about Adam Hugh’s badly drawn cheesecake from JSA:Classified 1’s other cover I could see ‘grotesque’, or Rags Morales’s rendition would justify ‘mannish’ to my mind.
But Conner/Palmiotti? I can’t understand it at all.
She IS over the top. And despite continual postings about how her character is strong and overcomes this she’s still the best example of a character that was designed one handed.
The story goes, back when she was introduced, the artist, Wally Wood (already known for drawing buxom women), wasn’t happy with the assignment, and so kept drawing PG’s breasts larger and larger to see if the editors would ever complain. No one ever did. Since then, her huge breasts have becokming a running gag and a character trait. Unlike, say, Catwoman or Wonder Woman she can’t be brought back to more manageable proportions by changing the artist that draws her. not without some explanation at least. Even the version of her the appeared on the Justice League Unlimited cartoon was noticeably stacked although not as hugely as many comics versions, and there was an oblique boob joke.
It’s part of the character. If it’s not your cuppa, then fine.
I don’t care for the cover art of the current JSA:Classified (where the OP has gotten the two links), but the interior art is a lot better. Again, that’s just one artist. Below are a few more images of PG (Power Girl) though the years:
I’d re-post what I re-posted in the other thread dealing with what superheroines wear, but I don’t feel like it. The fact of the matter is, yes she has big boobs, yes they’re fan service, and yes there are reasons to like her even without the boobs. In the hands (tee hee) of a good writer she and they work.
The Conner cover art doesn’t make her look her best though.
Tengu, I like Michael Turner’s art, but I see what you mean. In the full spread of all the heroes at Paradise Island it looks like every woman there has the exact same torso. Where did Morales draw PG? I can’t remember.
I’m not at all familiar with Power Girl or any of the artists you cite, all I did was look at the pics with my eyes, and yeah, Power Girl’s face does look like a transvestite’s. Big jaw, big mouth, heavy eye makeup and lipstick … not just a transvestite, but one of the less convincing ones.
She doesn’t look like a transvestite in the images linked by Wolfian, so I’m gonna have to suspect selection error. Well, actually, the face on the Alex Ross illo – number 4 is KINDA mannish, but she looks more like a 40ish female business type – well in keeping with Ross’ tendency to make his superheros look like souped-up middle management types.
Hawkman. Black…something. Crossover with JSA when Black Adam, Atom Smasher, Northwind, Eclipso, and Nemesis took over Khandaq.
He also took her huge breasts to a new level of ridiculousness. And had a group obvsously based on the Village People offer her beads to show them off, which is almost enough to make me forgive the fact that I find his art amazingly ugly (although it was better in Hawkman than most places I’ve seen it, since he wasn’t inked by Bair).
Amanda Conner’s cover art on those JSA Classified covers doesn’t depict Power Girl in a very flattering way. I agree on the “mannishness” of her face in those images. I’m personally not a bigger Power Girl fan because she was portrayed as a mean bitch for so long, particularly in Justice League Europe. Plus she was a character without a coherent origin, a generic set of super powers, and eventually became little more than a running gag with her big boobs. But other artists have definitely drawn her more attractively. Some of my personal favorite “good girl” artists include Adam Hughes, Art Adams, J. Scott Campbell, Jim Lee, Mike Allred, Darwyn Cooke, Bruce Timm, and Frank Cho.
Hmm. I only have the last two parts of the Hawkman pieces of Black Reign. Maybe that took place in the first issue. She looks kosher in the issues I have.
So what is Power Girl’s (current) origin? The problem is, she was originally an Earth-2 knockoff of Supergirl before the Infinity Crisis, and after was left hanging without a viable origin. She’s been retconned so many times I don’t see how they will ever come up with something plausible*
*Unless they simply throw in the towel and admit she’s an artifact of Hypertime, with no non-anomalous explanation.
The scene I mention is in the first Hawkman issue of the crossover. Hawkgirl looked like crap, too, and the boys, as it typical for Morales’ art that I’ve seen, look enough alike that I spent most of the issue sorting out who was who. I don’t remember the art getting noticably better later, but I also stopped being distracted by it, so maybe it did.
On the other hand, I still can’t agree that Conner/Palmiotti make her look mannish in any way - everything that people are saying make her look like a man just blends into ‘stylisation’ to me - so I’m no doubt getting different cues from the art, so other people, no doubt, aren’t picking up the cues I am from Morales’.
Lumpy - Power Girl’s current origin is unknown, although the current arc of JSA Classified promises to clarify it.
That scene was the exact scene that originally prompted the ‘taffy pulling accident’ comment. The fact that he managed to make BARDA look scrawny simply amazed me. (And it’s not like the men got off easy in that regard either…)
I’ve heard this a lot, but I don’t think it’s true. PG’s breasts aren’t noticably larger in All-Star Comics #65 (Wood’s last issue) than they are in #58 (PG’s first appearance).
