Rebirth, part IV
⋅ Writers: Paul Levitz ⋅ Pencilers: George Pérez / Kevin Maguire ⋅
We start with the two going out to Tokyo bay, discussing possible Darkseid influence – something that Kara seems to be obsessed with. With the now kaiju villain attacking ships the two split up, with Huntress helping to rescue sailors in the water whilst Power Girl starts by stopping an oil leak from a tanker. Trying to lift it causes it to break, so she resorts to using her laser eyes to burn away the oil.
We then flashback to their meetup in Rome, set up in last issue’s London visit. Kara has her plan to get experts to work for her, buying a small Micronesian island for her business (all of which we’ve already seen). Overhearing this a group of slimy guys try and hit on then offering them a ridiculous pile of white powder. When Kara blows the pile away one of them tries to hit her, with predictable results. She then lifts the car with some of them still inside, a Kryptonian tradition. Some of them think Helena is an easier fight but quickly find out that this isn’t the case. Later that night we see a still awake Helena, in a Batman shirt no less, looking at pictures of not!dad (Bruce) and not!mom (Selina). A passing, less than friendly cat, rips the file she was looking at showing a thug pinned up with arrows underneath a picture of Batman. It’s not said per se, but it’s implied that this is why she becomes the Huntress.
Back in the “present”, the Japanese navy tries to hit the villain with a missile, only for him to knock the missile to head toward Tokyo. Power Girl chases down the missile blocking it with her almost invulnerable body. The only damage is to her costume which is suspiciously damaged to give her the classic boob window.
Huntress meanwhile figures out the potential danger of the US 7th Fleet, with nuclear warheads on board, and just how they might be able to stop Hakkou. instead of stopping him she suggests Kara actually feed him more radiation, so she grabs a warhead and throws it into the glowing villain, who overfeeds and basically goes pop!
You might have noticed that I’ve not mentioned the villain’s motivations, because really he’s not got any and that’s perfectly fine! He’s not here to be a real threat to the two heroes, really they come out of this relatively unharmed. He’s here to give the girls something to do whilst we get to know the characters and feel out how they interact with each other. That with the flashbacks relatively quickly keys us into what the two have been doing in the last five years. For comparison, it takes four issues to set up what it took Infinity Inc twelve issues! (And yes to be fair it’s only setting up two character not multitude of characters of that book).
I like this issue, and the book so far, for all the reasons given above. It’s not perfect, I’m not completely sold of Kara’s more flirty attitude. Though this is probably to be a counterpoint to the more serious Helena. But these are nitpicking something I enjoy.
