Originally, Power Girl was created to be the Supergirl of Earth-2, the universe in which all of DC’s golden-age stories were set. DC allowed time to pass on Earth-2, though they kept their main universe in a perpetual “now.” After Crisis, DC declared Superman was the only survivor of Krypton, so they cleared out Supergirl, the bottled city of Kandor, etc. But they kept Power Girl around. She was explained away as a survivor of pre-flood Atlantis, given false memories of being Superman’s cousin. The origin served for nearly 20 years, but Power Girl remained a second-stringer. So? After suggesting a number of possibilities, her new origin is her original origin: she really is Superman’s cousin from Earth-2, and somehow survived the Crisis.

It’s telling that Donna Troy is best known by her real name. She started out as Wonder Girl, adopted sister of Wonder Woman. After Crisis, Wonder Woman was re-introduced as a new hero, but Wonder Girl had been running around with the Teen Titans for the last few years. The result: a new origin where she was adopted by the Titans of Greek mythology, and after she learned the “truth” she took on a new name and costume as Troia. Then she lost her powers. Then she joined a Green Lantern-like group of space sherrifs called the Darkstars. Then she quit. Then she got a new origin as a magical duplicate of Wonder Woman, and became Troia again. Then DC killed her off for pure shock value. Now she’s back, linked again to the Titans of Myth. Her background: all of her origins are true. She’s the sum of all possible Donna Troys from the pre-Crisis multiverse!

The new origins do have something in common: both are linked to the multiverse that existed before Crisis on Infinite Earths—a fact that looks likely to become important in the unfolding Infinite Crisis.

Verdict:

• Villains United: Fun adventure book with bad guys. Last-issue revelation was interesting. Cheshire is genuinely insane—I can believe this is the woman who nuked a small country just to prove she wasn’t bluffing.
• Day of Vengeance: 3-issue story stretched out to 6. Some nice character moments, but overall have to wonder what the point was.
• OMAC Project: Suspension of disbelief hung by neck until dead. And the worst part? The most important thing to happen in the series didn’t actually happen in the series.
• Rann/Thanagar War: Total mish-mash. Even knowing who most of the alien races were didn’t help me keep up with what side anyone was on. Someone remarked that this was like a 12-issue epic condensed (badly) into 6 issues, and that sounds about right.
• Donna Troy: I wanted to like this book. I really did. Donna Troy, George Perez/Phil Jimenez art, a direct sequel to a classic Titans story, and they all-but ignored John Byrne’s Dark Angel retcon-fest. But all the characterizations seemed off from the first page on. Even the art didn’t grab me. (The coloring didn’t help.) And while it’s interesting to take the idea that all her origins are true, the ending—particularly how Donna dealt with the Titans of Myth—really disturbed me. (While we’re at it, Donna doesn’t need her own moon for a headquarters.)
• Power Girl: Believe it or not, I didn’t read it for the cheesecake. Like Day of Vengeance there were some great character moments (PG and Jimmy Olsen sitting on top of the Daily Planet building while Jimmy ate lunch and tried not to stare, for instance). But I had a hard time believing this was the same Power Girl I’d read in Justice League Europe during the 1990s. (Yes, JLE was populated by caricatures of the leads—anyone who read that book and Flash should know that—but it became more serious near the end of the run.) And again, I thought that the story could have been told in half the space—even keeping the character moments. And even though I’d guessed PG’s true origin early on—or perhaps because of it—the finale felt like a let-down instead of a “Hell, yeah!” Maybe if they’d let her say “So that’s who I am!” instead of slinking back to her apartment as confused as ever, only to run into a “To be continued…” sign, it might have felt less like an Infinite Crisis setup piece and more like an origin story.

Verdict: One hit, two sorta OK, three turkeys.

On a related note, Warren Ellis’ arc on JLA Classified, which started strongly, is rapidly going downhill. The plot’s holding up, but the dialogue has gone from “Clever!” to “Okaaaay…” to “You have got to be kidding me.” J’onn’s rant last month about how we insist on calling his home planet “Mars” was one of those moments. (You know, I don’t normally refer to Japan as “Nihon,” or the capital of Russia as “Moskva,” but that doesn’t mean I’m calling them by the wrong name.) And I think Wally used the words “speed force” more times in 5 pages than he has in the last 5 years of his own book.

Let’s face it: like killing Superman, Troia’s death was never intended to stick. It was an admitted gimmick: what would shake up the Titans and Young Justice so badly that you could break up both teams and create new takes on the Teen Titans and Outsiders? Throw in the backstory with multiple lifetimes and the sequences in Graduation Day itself that showed her in another life, and you’ve got more than a back door to bring her back: she just lingered a bit longer than usual near the revolving door.

I’m of mixed feelings on this. On one hand, I think comics should take death a bit more seriously. If you can bring back Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, and a dozen other heroes, why should any of the Titans have expected Donna’s death to be permanent? Why should anyone have expected Sue Dibny’s death in Identity Crisis to be permanent? Then add in the fact that I’d generally rather see comics follow through on changes (Wally replacing Barry as Flash, Kyle replacing Hal as GL, etc.) than reversing them.

On the other hand, Graduation Day was a lousy story. It was basically “How can we dismantle two teams in three issues?” And Donna’s death was clearly intended to be temporary. And unless you count Cassie, the new Wonder Girl, no one really replaced her, so bringing her back doesn’t push anyone else out of the spotlight.

Heck, it’s got George Perez and Phil Jimenez working together. How can I not read it?