Now This Promises To Be Good

Worlds' Finest 6
DC Comics
Paul Levitz, writer
Kevin Maguire, George Perez and Sandra Hope, artists

This is the first installment of a new story arc for this title, and it looks to be a good one as the superhero community of the main DCnU Earth is going to learn more about the existence of Huntress and Power Girl, two heroines stranded here from Earth 2. Power Girl narrowly avoids a chance encounter with her Earth 1 doppelganger, Supergirl, while returning to her corporate headquarters after a quick jaunt into low-earth orbit. I don't know much about the DCnU version of Supergirl, so I have to admit, that meeting didn't hold much appeal for me at this point, and I wasn't sorry to see the encounter avoided.

Huntress is not quite so lucky. She has made reference in previous issues to "borrowing" money from this world's version of Bruce Wayne when the two heroines first arrived in this universe. That was five years ago. With Huntress' globe-trotting adventures, that money stash has been used up, and Helena is forced to return to Gotham City for more operating funds. She explains through the narration that for her "thefts" to go undetected, she must access a terminal inside the actual bank, otherwise she wouldn't risk a visit to Batman's city.

Huntress' activities are interrupted by the appearance of the current Robin, Damian Wayne. Unlike the previous Robins, Damian is the flesh-and-blood son of Batman just like Huntress is the flesh-and-blood daughter of her world's Batman. Now this meeting/conflict is cool!

Damian has discovered the theft of funds and has been waiting for the culprit to make a return appearance. Through the course of the ensuing fight, Damian lets it slip that the thief's greed is what tipped him off to what Helena had previously believed was an undetectable incursion. It seems money has been disappearing from Wayne accounts every few weeks, but this is only Helena's second "withdrawal." Helena explains that she is not the thief Damien is after and offers to help him catch the real villain. Damian agrees, providing Helena explains who she is and how she can be related to his father as Damian senses she is. This was a great setup, and next issue ought to be good!

They Were Keeping Things Close To The Vest

Huntress: Crossbow at the Crossroads tpb
DC Comics
Paul Levitz, writer
Marcus To, artist

I opted to pass on this six-issue limited series when it debuted early in the beginning of the DCnU. It was a victim of my new scaled-back buying habits. I don't dislike the Huntress character. I'm very fond of her original incarnation as the daughter of the Earth 2 Batman and Catwoman. (The creator of this character is Levitz, by the way.) I'm less fond of the post-Crisis incarnation of Huntress, the daughter of a mobster who turns vigilante, but I still like a number of her appearances. Cementing my decision not to buy this limited series was the lack of any clear indication in the solicitation information about which Huntress this story would be about. At the time, it seemed safe to assume it would be the Helena Bertinelli version of the character rather than Helena Wayne, so I figured why bother.

That was before the debut of the Worlds' Finest title starring Huntress and Power Girl, which followed immediately on the heels of this series. Once I read the first issue of that title and saw that Huntress was once again the daughter of the Dark Knight, I decided to pick up the Huntress trade. And I'm glad I did. This is a solid read with world-traveling adventure and some international bad guys engaged in political intrigue, human trafficking and a number of other vices. Huntress dispatches them quite nicely.

It was also interesting to note that the vagueness of which Huntress this is was not limited to the solicitation information. Throughout the entire collected series, the character is never given a last name. In fact, Levitz seems pretty deliberate about not revealing the central character's origins until the very end, when Huntress seems to be cornered. That's when a friend makes an unexpected appearance to help Huntress out, making it crystal clear which Huntress this is. Of course, by that time, the news of the new Earth 2 and Worlds' Finest titles had been announced and there was no reason to play it coy any longer.

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.

World-Hopping Ladies

Worlds' Finest 1-2
DC Comics
Paul Levitz, writer
George Perez and Kevin Maguire, artists

This is a companion book, of sorts, to Earth 2, which we discussed last time. On Earth 2 five years ago, Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman died repelling an invasion from the forces of Darkseid. Supergirl, Superman's younger cousin, and Robin, Batman's daughter, are powerless to prevent their mentors' deaths, and in the aftermath of that epic battle, they pursue what they believe to be one of Darkseid's minions, being swept into what may or may not have been a Boom tube, the means of traveling between dimensions for those from Apokolips.

The two teenage girls awaken on the main DCnU Earth shortly after the newly formed Justice League fights back a similar invasion, and the pair has no idea how to return to their own world. Robin, Helena Wayne, uses her training to secure the pair some money through Wayne Enterprise funding, and the two decide to keep their true identities secret, not knowing who on this new world they can trust. Supergirl takes on the civilian name Karen Starr and secretly uses her powers and smarts to amass a small fortune, which she is using to back scientists with theories about alternate dimensions and how to travel between them. Helena uses a variety of aliases as a civilian and continues to fight crime under the name Huntress.

Keeping with the other DCnU titles, it is now five years after the pair's arrival on this world. Karen and Helena are dining together, catching up as they frequently do, at a restaurant in Tokyo. They are in this city at Karen's request, as she has a promising piece of trans-dimensional tech she wants to show Helena, but the meal is interrupted when the research facility is attacked. Karen and Helena arrive to find the tech destroyed and an irradiated man wrecking what is left of the facility. Helena changes to Huntress, and Karen reveals her new costumed identity of Power Girl, and the two women pursue their quarry, whose attire Helena notices bears a striking resemblance to that of the Apokoliptian uniforms the invading parademons wore back on Earth 2.

As with the Earth 2 title, I'm liking this story so far, and I'm along for the ride for at least a little while. Keep up the great work, all!