Thank Heaven for Super Girls

Power Girl #2

The Ultra-Humanite has captured Power Girl and is holding New York City hostage — by suspending it high above the earth and threatening to drop it. Ultra’s plan is to transplant his brain into Power Girl’s head, which PeeGee is not real happy about. Extended fisticuffs occur, the Big Apple panics, the Justice Society tries to maintain order, and Ultra tells Power Girl the latest version of his origin, in which he started out as a very sickly genius but, with the help of the kinkiest femme fatale ever, was reborn in the body of the mutant albino gorilla he now lives in. Finally, Ultra has drained her of enough solar radiation to allow him to start cutting into her skull — is there any way for Power Girl to get out of this?

Verdict: Thumbs up, but I gotta quibble about the Ultra-Humanite’s new origin — it leaves out a lot of the creepiest elements of Ultra’s traditional origins, like his co-opting of Hollywood starlet Delores Winters’ body in the ’40s. However, I love the characterizations of the employees in Starrware Industries while they worry about the world falling apart around them.

Wonder Woman #33

Wondy’s gravely injured, but she’s made it back to Themyscira — just in time for an attack by giant monsters. The Amazons fight the monsters, and eventually, Wondy joins them, after having her lasso and an ax taped to her hands, ’cause she’s too injured to hold them properly. In the end, the monsters are driven off, Ares apparently takes a mortal wound to the face, and Zeus appoints Achilles as the new ruler of Themyscira. Will Wonder Woman bother sticking around after all this?

Verdict: Thumbs down. The storyline was far, far, far too long, and for very little payoff. No one expects the Amazons to be out of power on Paradise Island for long, so this whole diversion is particularly pointless.