Thursday, May 3, 2012

Worlds' Finest #1 Review!

Worlds' Finest #1
Written by: Paul Levitz
Art by: George Perez, Kevin Maguire, & Scott Koblish

This series is one of DC’s “Second Wave” titles, focusing on the heroes from Earth-2 named Power Girl and Huntress that happen to be stuck on the main Earth. That’s pretty much all you need to know. The issue explains the rest of it. But I would recommend reading Earth-2 #1 first. Even if only just to see what happened to get them here and what happened just before.

Summary
The issue opens with Helena Wayne (aka Huntress) and Karen Starr (aka Power Girl) in a Japanese restaurant. They’re deciding which identity Helena should take on since her old one (Helena Bertinelli) died and the body was recovered and is now officially dead to the world. We hear that Karen is a rich ass lady with a bunch of money from Starr Enterprises, that she owns, I guess. She apparently bought some dirt-cheap lab in Japan and that’s why they’re there. They run off and to a burning building (apparently it’s the one she bought). And hear that there is only one reason she bought that building and it is because they had the equipment to finish a “Quantum Tunneler.” Karen goes running in to make sure it’s okay and Helena follows inside, changes into her Huntress outfit, and finds out that this fire wasn’t an accident. We get a reference to Michael Holt (aka Mister Terrific) so that pretty much confirms that Karen’s sightings in the beginning of the New 52 were actually her. Karen explains that this quantum-doohickey would have potentially been their ticket home. Helena has given up hope on trying to get home but Karen hasn’t. Apparently some of the radioactives stored there are missing. Then we cut back to five years ago on Earth-2. Karen & Robin go flying straight into the boom tube thing that took them to the main Earth. Then we see inside the tube. Karen and Hel are like knocked unconscious and go flying through the Multiverse. They open over an ocean, crash land, and Robin (Hel) takes Karen and drags her to shore. When Karen wakes up, apparently Hel has been doing some snooping around and figures out that the Kal of this world is young (while showing a picture of him in his Action Comics t-shirt and jeans outfit). Then we cut to “59 Months Ago.” Which would be…what? Still nearly 5 years ago? They’re talking about how they will take down Darkseid for killing their loved ones. Helena says they need “outfits.” Meaning new identities…? Okay. Well then we see Karen on the cover of Time magazine, and Hel bursts into...let's just say an "illegal transaction" going on and takes down the guys there. We cut back to the "now" and we see Karen pull out a outfit and saying that she'll become Power Girl as her new identity for the new world. They race to find the saboteur and, obviously, Karen does first and gets punched through a wall and then we meet Hakkou, the Irradiated Man as they get ready to battle, ending the issue.

Thoughts
This was really good, too! This whole Earth-2 thing is so much better than the New 52 started out. Can't believe they didn't set this up 9 months ago! This was all amazing. I loved the humor and fun that went along with the seriousness of them realizing they lost family and friends in Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman (seen in Earth-2). Nothing was really surprising or anything, but it was a really good issue. I can't wait for next month. But I'm not sure about this Hakkou guy. I mean, sure, they can't immediately jump into getting back to Earth-2 but I'd like to see them have a Multiverse-travelling storyline at some point as they try to get back. But it was good, nonetheless. 9.5/10