World's Finest: Huntress and Power Girl # 4 (The New 52)

 By Mark Rodriguez

The Supergirl and Robin from Earth 2 were blasted to the current Earth. After adapting for years, they renamed themselves as Power Girl and the Huntress. Last time Kara knocked Hakkou, who at this point has become a giant monster, into the rivers of Tokyo to keep him away from civilians. Now they wonder what to do next as they fly over there.

Rebirth Conclusion starts with PG carrying Huntress as they fly towards the river, wondering why Hakkou’s radiation can hurt Karen and if he came from Apokolips. However, Hakkou is now messing with oil tankers that can seriously mess up Japanese waters.

Karen drops Helena on a nearby ship so she can make the sailors go back and rescue all the survivors. Karen dives underwater and tries to lift up the oil tanker and take it away from the sea. However the ship breaks in half splattering Kara in oil, as well as making an even larger oil spill in the ocean. Kara decides to use her heat vision to burn all the oil away.

We then go back 45 months in Rome as the women discuss their plans. They run into boys up to no good hanging in their neighborhood. They invite them do some coke, but Karen blows the blow away. One of the guys gets angry and slaps Karen across the face… which is of course like trying to bitchslap a brick wall. She then lifts up the car to show them it’s not smart to mess with this pair of ladies.

The guys are shocked but think Helena is an easier target. They tell the sassy blonde to set the car down and they won’t hurt Helena too much. However, by the time Karen set the car down, Helena  already made short work of those jerks.

Later in her room, Helena is missing her old life and just feels everything is so strange. Looking up pics in the web she sees how different and weird Batman and Catwoman are since they’re not her parents in this world. A cat comes in from the window, but runs off as Helena tries to pet her. The cat scratched up a newspaper with Batman on the front page, showing a pic of some guy pinned against the wall with arrows. This inspires her.

Back to the present, the sailors want to return to bay but Huntress wants to be dropped off first. A missile is fired at Hakkou but the giant monster smacks it away. Kara flies after it so it won’t explode in the city and takes the hit herself. Kara is fine, though the explosion brought back the classic boobwindow.

 The American ships show up and Hakkou starts attacking them. Helena boards their ship and finds out it has nukes. If one were to go off in Tokyo, everyone will assume it’s the North Koreans and start World War 3. Helena then calls in Kara and tells her to go ahead and give Hakkou what he wants. Kara dives into the ship and grabs a nuke. She tosses it into Hakkou’s mouth and the resulting explosion and shockwave completely withers him away.

They're lucky the explosion not only took Hakkou out but he also managed to absorb all of it so the radiation wouldn't hurt anyone in the area....

Even though they defeated the giant monster attacking Japan, the American soldiers want to arrest Helena for trespassing and other stupid stuff. Power Girl swoops in and carries her away. The women now have more questions than answers. They don't know if Hakkou came from Apokolips or why he was after the quantum tunneler or even if he was possibly working for Micheal Holt. 

Karen still want to know who gets top billing between them and  Helena asks if she’s serious.

My opinions-

Well that was a simple story, at least in regards to current events. The real story is in the flashbacks as we see glimpses of how Karen and Helena adapted to life in this different version of the world they knew, as well how they eventually came to become Power Girl and Huntress. While both women like to banter, Karen is obviously the less serious of the two, though one can afford to be a smartass when you're pretty much indestructible.

The major difference between their motivations is while they both want to go home, Karen is more determined to do so, seeing this world as a temporary visit and thus not caring to waste time learning about this world's Superman. Helena has resigned herself to being stuck on this Earth and even if they find a way back, there won't be much of a world to go back to. She's also way more curious about this world's Batman and Catwoman.

Hakkou was pretty much monster of the week, just a random creature for the women to fight and show off their powers. The most annoying thing is, the cover even asks what is this guy's connection to Earth 2, and we still don't know. Calling attention to something with no answer feels it was more of a reminder to also buy the Earth 2 comics of that month.

This comic was released in August of 2012, and that following month of September had every comic of the New 52 have a special 'Issue 0' that goes back into the origins of the characters. It was actually a good way to re-introduce the New 52 versions of the characters and explain their new origins and differences when compared to the pre-Flashpoint era. One of the examples I'm sure most of us are familiar with, was the change from Harley Quinn having to wear make up, to now having taken a similar chemical bath as the Joker where her whole body is now permanently bleached just like this. Ironically this has become such a staple, people forget her character didn't always have bleached skin. 

Well anyways, issue 0 might show us the lives of these two when they were still Supergirl and Robin in Earth 2, so that should be fun. Overall these first 4 issues were a decent read, the real story being in the flashbacks rather than current events, though it ends with some unanswered questions to drive the series forward. Not too much of a fan of the art shift between flashbacks and current events. The flashback art style was just kinda hit and miss, especially in the faces. We'll see what awaits us. 

subtle nod to longtime fans