One feminist with a sword, another with a cleavage window

Power Girl- Valkyrie

When I started to pay attention to super hero culture again a few years ago, I was very amused to see that, in the past decade, Power Girl has been established to be…ahem…the super heroine with the biggest rack in the DC universe.

Look around message boards frequented by the kind of miscreant who could possibly understand what I’m talking about here long enough, and you will find drooling references to the character.

This perplexes me, as I’ve never been turned on by, or have crushed on, distaff fictional creations of this sort. But adherents of “creator’s intent” should approve of DC’s prevailing policy on Power Girl’s pontoons, since legendary artist/co-creator Wally Wood apparently resolved to draw her breasts bigger and bigger until his editor noticed and told him to stop.

Otherwise, PG was created to be an Earth II answer to Supergirl. But Crisis Numero Uno did away with parallel Earth conceit, and then Power Girl was said to have been an ancestor of the obscure Atlantean wizard Arion…or some shit! Under this origin, she could have been paired with She Hulk or Warbird. But, come Crisis II, PG was again said to have come from Krypton of Earth II’s universe and as such is the only survivor of that universe…or some shit!

So she’ll go with an Asgardian character…one who was initially cooked up by Roy Thomas to clumsily acknowledge second wave feminism in the pages of the Avengers, and afterwards was convolutedly shown to be a female iteration of the Mighty Thor. My gawd, you try and untangle all the history of the Valkyrie!

Commonalities:
Respectively, these two are female versions of Superman and Thor, and both often spouted feminist boilerplate at the time of their creation.

Differences:
I’m not sure, but I think Power Girl has been shown to be essentially a modern woman; hardly a mythological maiden charged with escorting fallen warriors to their eternal reward in Valhalla.

Alternate histories:

PG: A kryptonian warrior named Kara Zor-L is put into suspended animation: her consciousness comes to reside in the body of an earth-woman named Karen Starr. The two aspects are fused, and under the code name Power Girl, she serves in a organization with the Martian Manhunter, Aquaman and others. Although the “Kara Zor-L” aspect eventually perishes, the earthling Starr has survived and retains some kryptonian abilities.

VA: A parallel universe iteration of Asgard is destroyed by Ragnarok: like her cousin, the Mighty Thor native to this universe, Brunhilde is transported to Earth, where she emerges as an adult with all the abilities of an Asgardian: she takes the human identity of Barbara Norris. As the Valkyrie, she serves with the Liberty Legion until all universes are melded in to one. While under the impression that her heritage is entirely different, Valkyrie joins the Avengers and a new Liberty Legion; she has recently realized her true nature.