#ame-comi

Batgirl

Ame-Comi Girls #2, Jan 2013

Ame-Comi Girls #5 ends the Brainiac story arc with a whimper.

Steel is the most underrated gal of the bunch; her co-operative nature makes her really likeable unlike Wonder Woman whose arrogance, while needed in a team book I think, does get on my nerves. I take it Steel’s comment about not giving Poison Ivy mouth to mouth for obvious reasons means she doesn’t want to get poisoned or taken over by her pheromones. That and she’s not a lesbian.

As for Brainiac, what a weak villain. All she could do was turn Supergirl evil, but settled on wrapping her tentacles around other heroes. All things considered, quite an ineffectual villain. The way Wonder Woman and Power Girl take her down to save Flash is really underwhelming. There’s no plan, no close calls, just brute strength.

I get this line was done to only sell toys, but c’mon! Outside the character designs and aesthetics you really need to make the readers care.

Batgirl, Robin, Steel, Flash, Catwoman, Poison Ivy, Harley, Duela Dent could have all easily been removed from the story and very little would have changed. Those pages should have been used to give us more action surrounding Power Girl, Wonder Woman, Supergirl and Brainiac.

By the end of the issue, the unconscious Supergirl is used as a plot device and a vehicle to show us how caring and badass Power Girl is and what a jerk Wonder Woman is. Granted, I understand why Diana would distrust Supergirl after her turn to evil. If this was a good story, we’d have a surprise twist where Power Girl and Wonder Woman fight each other with Supergirl’s fate being in the victor’s hands.

The promise of that fight, that scenario should have been the cliffhanger. Instead, Power Girl just flies away with Supergirl and later at the Fortress deems her to be in danger of dying from Black Kryptonite poisoning.

As a reader, I only care because Karen cares. I care very little for Supergirl, Ame-Comi verse or not. Power Girl is the only reason I’ll be covering the future issues. After she’s gone, so am I.

For the first arc, Ame-Comi Girls should have been all style; sleek, action-packed and well drawn. Instead we got underwhelming art and action with a so-so story and barely servicable characters.