Power Girl
Feb. 12th, 2012 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficOkay, so the thing with Power Girl is, she doesn't have an origin. "She's Supergirl from another dimension" just doesn't quite cut it. Usually, with an origin like that, there's a big irony. Like "Oh, Darth Mace-In-The-Face? He's Luke Skywalker from a universe where he was raised as a Sith." That's cool. But no, Peej is just a random copy of Supergirl. Which can also work--see Fringe, which uses Fauxlivia to reflect on Olivia's personality traits--but I don't really feel that compare/contrast with Supergirl and Power Girl. Partly, it's that Supergirl spent years lacking a definitive personality. I blame Jeph Loeb. But I guess I just don't buy a Buffy/Faith kinda sisterhood (yeah, put away the femslash goggles for one second) between Supergirl and Power Girl.
Anyway, once you have Power Girl as just a distaff Supergirl, the question becomes "why do we need two Supergirls?" The answer, obviously, is that Power Girl is her own character with her own personality that people like to read--she just needs an origin that reflects that. So. New origin. Something specific to Peej. I've actually thought up two, so give me some notes, neh?
1. Power Girl is the daughter of Superman and Lois Lane, come back in time from the future. I know they used that as an origin for one of the ten billion "not really" Supergirls DC did, but it's perfectly valid. There isn't really a straight-up human-Kryptonian hybrid in the Superman family (I don't think that we can count Kon, as he isn't really invested in his heritage and if he were, those issues would be overshadowed by his status as a clone and his "Lex is my clone-daddy!" angst). And I think it fits the characters pretty well; couldn't you see Power Girl's brashness as coming from Lois? Plus, you can do all kinds of stories with the future Power Girl came from and is trying to avert--I think it makes a neat counterpart to Superman. Clark is sent to Earth from Krypton to escape destruction and act as a savior, while Karen is sent from the future to the past for the same reason. Plus, it gives her a solid place in the Superfamily--Kara and Kon as teenage girl and boy, with Peej as adult daughter.
2. Okay, Peej has always come off to me as very human. She just seems at home on Earth in a way that Clark and Kara don't. So it makes sense that she used to be human. So, Karen Starr is a regular ordinary human who owns a tech start-up. She's working on reverse-engineering the birthing matrix that brought Kal-El to Earth when something goes wrong and it spritzes her--accidentally turning her into a Kryptonian hybrid.
Anyway, I think either of those origins would give Peej a solid one-line "here's who she is" you could use to explain her to non-fans, without having to compromise her personality at all.
Anyway, once you have Power Girl as just a distaff Supergirl, the question becomes "why do we need two Supergirls?" The answer, obviously, is that Power Girl is her own character with her own personality that people like to read--she just needs an origin that reflects that. So. New origin. Something specific to Peej. I've actually thought up two, so give me some notes, neh?
1. Power Girl is the daughter of Superman and Lois Lane, come back in time from the future. I know they used that as an origin for one of the ten billion "not really" Supergirls DC did, but it's perfectly valid. There isn't really a straight-up human-Kryptonian hybrid in the Superman family (I don't think that we can count Kon, as he isn't really invested in his heritage and if he were, those issues would be overshadowed by his status as a clone and his "Lex is my clone-daddy!" angst). And I think it fits the characters pretty well; couldn't you see Power Girl's brashness as coming from Lois? Plus, you can do all kinds of stories with the future Power Girl came from and is trying to avert--I think it makes a neat counterpart to Superman. Clark is sent to Earth from Krypton to escape destruction and act as a savior, while Karen is sent from the future to the past for the same reason. Plus, it gives her a solid place in the Superfamily--Kara and Kon as teenage girl and boy, with Peej as adult daughter.
2. Okay, Peej has always come off to me as very human. She just seems at home on Earth in a way that Clark and Kara don't. So it makes sense that she used to be human. So, Karen Starr is a regular ordinary human who owns a tech start-up. She's working on reverse-engineering the birthing matrix that brought Kal-El to Earth when something goes wrong and it spritzes her--accidentally turning her into a Kryptonian hybrid.
Anyway, I think either of those origins would give Peej a solid one-line "here's who she is" you could use to explain her to non-fans, without having to compromise her personality at all.
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Date: 2012-02-13 12:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-13 12:50 pm (UTC)Maybe...
Date: 2012-02-13 06:12 pm (UTC)If you put these out there you must want people to use them.
Date: 2013-02-22 09:07 pm (UTC)