Credits: Written by Judd Winick; art by Sami Basri; coloured by Sunny Gho and Jessica Kholinne; lettered by John J. Hill;  edited by Rachel  Gluckstern (associate) and Mike Carlin; cover by Basri and Gho.

Synopsis “One Step Forward — Two Steps Back”: Power Girl remembers telling Maxwell Lord about the time that Blue Beetle (Ted Kord), Booster Gold, Fire, Ice, and herself fought the Royal Flush Gang in the Florida swamps. However, nobody else remembers Max due to a telepathic command that PG has only recently broken (issue #18). She presents the facts about Lord to her team-mates in the JLA All-Stars and Batman (Dick Grayson), but as the pieces start falling into place they all pause and involuntarily forget everything about him. Batman notes that PG is crying even through she can’t remember why. Later she has a nightmare of Divine and Max showing up at her Starrware offices, but even when she wakes up she can’t remember that Max was in the dream. She doesn’t have time to ponder its meaning as Nicco informs her that he’s traced Divine and Crash to Vietnam via a lost ear-ring communicator. PG investigates and discovers a cloaked facility. Professor Ivo appears beside her and tells her that she’s been a large part of his work recently (the implication is that he’s responsible for Divine). He then reveals that the cloaked facility is the new Cadmus Project and shows her the monster’s he’s been building.

Continuity: Max owns wetlands in Chokoloskee, Florida. A lot of what is shown/referenced in this issue took place in Justice League: Generation Lost. Magog is referenced as being dead so this takes place after Generation Lost #13, Professor Ivo was shown working for Max in his Chinese robotics facility in Generation Lost #11. The implication is that Ivo is responsible for Divine’s creation. The Cadmus Project – show here – is referenced as being responsible for the creation of the Creature Commandos shown in Generation Lost #15.

Opinion: It’s not very often that Power Girl is made to look vulnerable, but she has really been put through the ringer by Maxwell Lord. The strain that he’s putting her under really comes across on the page – not just in the writing, but also in the subtly of her expressions and body language. It really shows that all the creators are pulling together to tell a nicely balanced story. The repeated forgetting of PG and Batman isn’t over stated. It happened once in Generation Lost and has now happened once here. It isn’t laboured, but repeats just enough of the beat to keep readers who just follow one book up to speed. The seriousness of the central part of the box is nicely balanced by the opening JLI flashback and the reveal of Cadmus’s daffy menagerie. While I like Generation Lost a lot, but I think the clear and consistent art lifts Power Girl above it as a series.

Writer

Judd Winick

Penciller

Fernando Dagnino

Inker

Raul Fernandez

Colourist

Hi-Fi

Letterer

Sal Cipriano

Editor

Rex Ogle and Brian Cunningham

Cover Artist

Dustin Nguyen

Variant Cover Colourist

Hi-Fi

Variant Cover Artist

Kevin Maguire

Captain Atom: We need to assess if this is a formal attack or a distraction!
Blue Beetle: Could it be both? ‘Cause I’m being attacked and distracted!

Maxwell Lord (as he teleports away with the Blue Beetle): It’s okay Bea, I’ll take real good care him.

Previously: Maxwell Lord – the ex-director of Checkmate and the JLI – seeks to assassinate Wonder Woman in revenge for her killing him (i’ts complex), but he is exasperated that nobody remembers that she ever existed (it’s also complex). The JLI now know this. They had sought a moment of sanctuary at their former Australian headquarters, but Max refuses to let them rest and sends the Creature Commandos to attack them.

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Credits: Written by Judd Winick; art by Sami Basri; coloured by Sunny Gho and Jessica Kholinne; lettered by John J. Hill;  edited by Rachel  Gluckstern (associate) and Mike Carlin; cover by Basri and Gho.

Synopsis “I don’t know your name (but you look really familiar)”: Power Girl has traced the mysterious mastermind who has stolen her company’s assets to a hidden base in Antarctica. She was attacked by a raven-haired female kryptonian as she approached the base. The woman (we later find out she is named Divine) admits that she’s a near-clone of Power Girl (“I think my boss wanted to put his own spin on it.”) However, that’s all she is willing to admit before she attacks Power Girl. The two women brawl across the ice as Power Girl tries to get the upperhand. The fight crashes through the roof of the buried base revealing tank after tank of earlier failed clones. Their brawl is brought to a sudden halt when Maxwell Lord disables them both with red-sun radiation. He then has CRASH help Divine up and they escape before PG recovers. As she lies on the ground she sees the Kord Industries logo and her memories of the Blue Beetle and Maxwell Lord come flooding back. An explosion incinerates the lab, the tanks, and any evidence, but it isn’t strong enough to hurt the recovering Power Girl. She pulls herself out of the crater and tells Nicco that she finally knows/remembers that Max is behind everything.

Continuity: Maxwell Lord created Divine by bargaining for Captain Marvel’s arch-foe Dr Sivana’s help. His speech implies he’s after the energy processing abilities of Kryptonian cells and that Divine is just a side-product. In the normal DC Universe Power Girl is a parallel universe version of Supergirl. However, in the DC Animated Universe of Justice League Unlimited a version of Power Girl called Galatea is a clone of Supergirl created by an evil version of the Cadmus Project. Divine parallels that clone origin. PG got her first look at Max in Power Girl #15, but she didn’t recognise him. She told Batman (Dick) about that in Justice League: Generation Lost #10 and they came within a whisker of remembering Max before his post-hypnotic blocks made them forget again.

Opinion: “As much as I like a good cat fight” says Max and this is quite a good cat fight. That’s what I like about PG -  the fights aren’t watered down just because she’s a superheroine (her battles are probably rougher than most male superheroes battles). Basri’s art is great as never really descends into a the T&A route that artists of the Ed Benes school would have taken. As always I think  Sunny Glo and Jessica Kholinne’s delicate and muted colouring is a large part of the success of this book. It just doesn’t look like most of the other books out there. It has a definite tone, look, and feel that is brilliantly its own. Divine has the potential to be a very interesting character (every superhero needs their own evil clone).

Credits: Written by Judd Winick; art by Sami Basri; coloured by Sunny Gho and Jessica Kholinne; lettered by John J. Hill;  edited by Rachel  Gluckstern (associate) and Mike Carlin; cover by Basri and Gho.

Synopsis “Snow Job Part Two”: Batman (Dick Grayson) continues to aid Power Girl in her search for the mastermind who stole money from her company and created the C.R.A.S.H. android. They raid the arms dealer who was trying to sell C.R.A.S.H. when it went live (back in PG #14) and he tells them that it was briefly stored in Antarctica. They knew this was connected with the purchase of massive thermal generators (implying somewhere cold), but they needed to narrow the search area down. Power Girl’s superspeed/x-ray search of the ice cap finds a man-made structure hidden beneath the ice. However, she’s ambushed by a super strong masked combatant as she approaches the base. Nicco’s remote sensors can’t get a lock on his physiology, but whoever it is they’re as strong as Power Girl. She finally manages to pull her attacker’s mask off to reveal that “he” is actually a dark-haired female just as Nicco radios her that the woman is a kryptonian.

Continuity: C.R.A.S.H. stands for “Cybernetic Re-Adaptive Simulant Humanoid”.

Opinion: Well I didn’t see that one coming – another excellent twist by Judd Winick. I’m writing this review after I’ve read the next issue so I (and possible you dear reader) know who the raven-haired kryptonian is. However at the time my mind was racing with who she could be – a survivor from Kandor, one of Zod’s crew escaped from the Phantom Zone, another Mutliverse refugee. The fight with Divine (she get’s named next issue) was the opening sequence for last issue so it’s almost two issues of re-sequenced drama before we’re back in sync. This works really well and gives a boost to what could have been a very procedural/non-action investigation. It seems that Dick Grayson gets his best solo outings as Batman in Justice League titles. Both James Robinson and Judd Winick manage to retain that sense of joy and flair he had as Nightwing whereas most of the Bat-titles tend to over do the Bruce Wayne Batman impersonation.