Power Struggle
Tangent Comics: Powergirl #1
Cover Date: September 1998
Released: 29th July 1998
⋅ Writers: Ron Marz ⋅ Pencilers: Dusty Abell ⋅ Inkers: Dexter Vines ⋅
⋅ Colourists: James Sinclair ⋅ Letterers: Chris Eliopoulos ⋅
⋅ Editors: Eddie Berganza ⋅
It’s Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month so what better time to explore another Power Girl, this time from Earth-9 the Tangent universe. Basically, it’s a chance to start from zero, whilst the names are the same as the basic DC Universe everything is looked at from a different angle, mostly as if supers were relatively new in ’98.
Being a comic called Power Girl obviously, she doesn’t appear much in the comic, in fact, the threat of her spurs different groups into action. As this revolves around China creating Metahumans it could very easily be a metaphor for nuclear powers. If it is it’s very subtly done as there doesn’t seem to be any clues given about such things.
We start with a great scene of a muscle-bound Chinese Supergirl being tested on their own troops, she’s a white-skinned cloned (possibly a call back to Bizarro). After devastating the troops however she begins to melt, to an error in her DNA coding. This is being shown in the White House and we’re told that the problems have been ironed out for the next clone of the Supergirl Program, Powergirl!
During a visit of the First Lady Schwartz (a Martha at that) to the China, where we learned on this Earth Nixon died during a visit to China, a covert team goes into the facility where the program is being held. These Metal Men are quickly bogged down in a fight as they’ve unfortunately picked a guard changeover to do their raid. The guards here are really stylised, as is the art in general, and I’m not sure if they’re meant to be wearing masking or their faces are changed in some way (which could get into problematic really quick).
Taling of potentially problematic things, the pinned downed the Metal men are saved by a glowing red dragon, coming from the red tattoos of an Asian woman calling herself Jade. She is a magic user who works from the resistance, the government frowns on such things. She also tells how the government use female clones as apparently, they’re easier to make and potential breeding opportunities. To finish all this yikes she apparently has her personality imprinted on her based on the people she first meets.
A Metal Man, they have names but it’s really hard to tell who is who, uses a de-krypto-key (get it!) to open her cloning pod. But before all that can happen a bunch of Nightwing, US government agents who police metahumans, turn up to stop all this. How or why they turn up now isn’t really clear but it makes for a good climax I guess. Not like you’d want anyone from the country this is set in getting involved or anything!
A fight breaks out as Powergirl comes out of the clone pod, all glowing with a bright white light. We then get a full-page splash showing her in all her glory, though to be honest, the cover image is better. Like I said the art is highly stylised and here it really doesn’t do it any favours.
And Powergirl gets a strong start bringing someone back from the dead, going on Doctor Manhatten about the whole thing. Then the two sides try and recruit her to their sides, and to rush things Chinese troops arrive to the alert that must have been raised by her being released. Being that she’s none too keen on being held a slave, or serving anyone really, she (maybe) kills the troops with a bright light and then just flies away from it all. And that’s basically it for the comic and Powergirl.
Though interestingly this isn’t her only appearance…
It’s obvious that the Tangent comics are meant to be all read to get the context of anything, which I haven’t done, but apart from now knowing who is who it isn’t really difficult to figure out what’s going on. Really all the characters are cyphers and really don’t have any real personality. That includes the character who the comic is named after, who only appears on a few pages max. Though really that is to be expected as she’s a literal innocent to the world. If this had been the first issue in an ongoing series some of this could have been smoothed out to a fascinating story of a character that wants to do good whilst avoiding being used by others.
Despite all this I don’t dislike this comic, I think the strong start helps a lot in overcoming the rather weekend, and I really wish the book had been about Powergirl instead of people trying to use her as a weapon.