Taking Him Down

Worlds' Finest 3-4
DC Comics
Paul Levitz, writer
George Perez and Kevin Maguire, artists

These two issues complete the first story arc of this title as Huntress and Power Girl take down the radiation-spewing bad guy, but they only manage to do that after first inadvertently feeding him even more raw power. Before his demise, however, this villain lets slip a few things that give the heroic duo some food for thought: Power Girl observed in the first two issues that the irradiated Hakkou resembles a parademon, one of the minions of Darkseid of Apokolips. As the battle continues in these issues, both women make note of  Hakkou's knowledge that they are not originally from this world and the fact that he targeted what Power Girl hoped might be a successful way to bridge dimensions.

I like this book just a bit more than Earth 2 because these two heroines are just plain fun. Robinson is writing Earth 2 as a much more serious drama, and that book is quickly seeming to become a little too melodramatic. Levitz, on the other hand, despite all these two women have lost, is keeping things lighter in tone. Huntress is usually no-nonsense and serious, as one would expect from the daughter of Batman, but Power Girl is all about having a good time along the way and helps to keep her friend from going too dark.

I didn't talk about it last time, but the idea behind the art is a nice touch in this book, too. George Perez is the artist for all of the modern sequences in the book, and he is handling those art chores in his usual highly detailed and simply gorgeous style. But a large focus of this book is these characters' lives from before they were mysteriously thrown into another world, back five years ago when they were Supergirl and Robin, not Power Girl and Huntress. Kevin Maguire handles the art chores whenever there is a flashback sequence to these women's time on Earth 2 or just after they arrived on this Earth. And he handles those art chores with his own clean, curvy linework. Maguire and Perez each have their own distinctive styles, but the two draw these characters similarly enough that the transitions aren't at all jarring. And the format means fewer pages for each man to turn in. That's another plus because both of these fan-favorite artists might have trouble working solo on a monthly book and making their page counts. Really liking this book right now and looking forward to where it will take us.