Power Girl

As strong-willed as she is strong-armed, Earth-Two beauty Kara Starr has proven to be a stellar first chairwoman of the Justice Society of America. I don't know if these Ame-Comi statues are creating their own variant backstories, or what - in real comic continuity Power Girl is Karen Starr, that being the one-time secret (human) identity of Kara Zor-L. She is a great JSA chairwoman though, they got that right, and she's one of my favourite comic book characters as well. In fact, I'm not sure I'd have bought any of these anime-styled things had she not been in the line-up; I ignored Series 1's interpretations of Batgirl and Catwoman until this series showed up, and then more or less bought the others just so anime Power Girl would have someone of her own artistic style to mingle with on my shelf. Power Girl's outfit is basically the same as her current comic one, which in turn is only different in a couple of ways from her original: long-sleeved leotard with cleavage window, gloves and boots, red cape off the left shoulder held by a gold cord. Ame-Comi hit her hard with the sci-fi stick though, so her bodysuit and boots have become a segmented battle armour kind of ensemble, her gloves are now techno-gauntlets, and the gold cord is replaced by a heavy gold chain. The gauntlets are her most heavily technical feature, a sculpted armour design with open backs providing space for some kind of space-age doohickey that looks like it might be a communicator/tricorder/laser all-in-one device. Her boots are more streamlined, but augmented with space-boot feet and engineered ankle joints, and weird exoskeletal rod thingies on her calves - they also extend up her thighs, almost to her butt at the back, and instead of being all-blue the blue is now the upper segment, with the heavier shins and feet in armour white. The bodysuit is similarly detailed, with pale blue edging on the segments (mimicking the seams of her costume, but not really capturing the look somehow), and full blue patches on her sides, her collar, and forming shoulder plates. Highlighting the parallel-universe link between Kara Zor-L and the one with the extra "e" (and brain damage), Power Girl's face is almost identical to Supergirl's. It's set apart largely by the trademark bob of sun-bleached blonde hair, the different body language - primarily that she's looking ahead, rather than up - and a little bit of paint variation, a slightly more tanned skin tone plus eye shadow, whereas Supergirl is un-made-up. The similarity is a nice visual connection between the two characters, but it does mean that - even accounting for the anime styling - Power Girl is rather distanced from her very much adult comic incarnation, at least so far as her face goes. Her cape, which is normally a thigh-length drape, has been transformed into a streaming banner kind of design, which would probably be twice as tall as Kara is were it not blowing artistically in the wind. Also blowing artistically is the chain holding the cape on - either it's very light, or (more likely) it's one of those "anime pose" moments, where she strikes an impressive posture, the background turns into a sunburst, and everything just billows about impressively for no reason. Speaking of impressive, the combination of "anime" and "Power Girl" produces a prodigious pair of breasts. She's got the usual circular Ame-Comi base, and since her boots are sensibly flat rather than sporting preposterous heels, she gets a pair of plain pegs to keep her stable. Ame-Comi Series 2 is an improvement on its low-key predecessor, but there's still improvements to be made, in terms of really exploring the options available in redesigning the characters, and producing really attractive finished products from those designs - which brings us to Series 3...

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