Huntress investigates Holt Industries, to discover how an apparently missing man ordered his goon's to Power Girl's island. In a flashback Huntress and Power Girl break into a government facility to find what information they can use to get home, but find that the government doesn't even know anything about parallel worlds. Back in the present the two of them attend a Holt Industries convention party. Here is where Michael Holt reveals himself to actually be Desaad in disguise.
The Review
With the exception of what I consider miss-characterization on the part of Power Girl, I quite liked this issue. I'll be interested in how Apokolips plays into the rest of the DC universe from here, but for now I'm content to see it in the context of this series alone.
I think it's a testament to the strong writing that I continue to be interested in the story, despite my issues with the characterization of fifty percent of this book's leads. The story itself, with a mystery surrounding the actions of agents of Apokolips is interesting. Though for the sake of this book I'm concerned that the conflict is too big to be ignored by the rest of Earth's heroes. It's possible that Superman and Batman will be getting involved, which would be fun and all, but dangerous ground to tread as it would undermine the actual main characters of this series.
As usual I preferred Huntress' section of the story, and her characterization. I think part of why I prefer her over Power Girl in this book is that she is just more interesting as a character. A lot of her conflict revolves around her relationship with her family, and the difference between them and their alternate universe selves. Power Girl on the other hand is ignoring the issue entirely.
A lot of Huntress' conflicts seem to be a bit similar to conflicts present in Power Girl's story pre-New 52. And while I am a bit annoyed that one of my favorite characters has been supplanted as the interesting one, my love of all things Batman makes this version of Huntress very interesting to read about. Fans of the pre-New 53 Huntress are probably not too happy with this, but for me at least it works. It takes a character I wasn't interested in, mostly because from everything I'd seen of her there wasn't much to go off of, and repackages her in a way that piques the interest Batman fans enough to bring them into this series.
It helps that the story itself, as long as Power Girl's contributions are more or less ignored or tolerated, is really strong. However, as I've said, this book is really Huntress', and fans of Power Girl probably won't get too much out of it. Unless of course they don't mind the characterization issues.
The art, as usual, varies. The biggest problem is that for some reason there have to be multiple artists per issue, as usual. And characters end up looking nothing like they did a few pages ago. I don't know if Helena cut her hair, if she's wearing a wig, or if the shorter hair is just how the artist drawing those pages thought she was supposed to look. I love how she looked in the opening, but would like some consistency in the art department. I know sometimes circumstances require changing artists, but for the love of all things holy, please pick an artist and stick to it. The changing art styles are distracting, and constantly switching artists reveal this as the low level title that it apparently is.
Worth a read definitely, it has some fun moments and a good reveal at the end. I consider it more necessary than some previous issues, mostly because it advances the story in an interesting direction.
The Grade
3/5
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