With Power Girl off taking care of the man who sent assassins after Huntress, Starr Island is essentially unprotected, allowing a team of armored up hackers to break in to reclaim data and technology they believe belongs to them. Despite the severe beating she took last issue, apparently including a broken arm, Helena must rally and don her Huntress costume and take these intruders on.
We also get a flashback a few years to the beginning of Helena’s career as The Huntress further underlining Power Girl’s uneasiness in this world.
Last issue’s art team returns, with pencilling chores divided between George Perez, CAFU and Yildiray Cinar and once more, it works effectively. Perez is a master and the other two manage to keep pace. CAFU gets to render more traditional page layouts this time than he did last time and proves quite adept. His work is beautiful and extremely detailed. When Cinar steps in, his work is equally excellent, but there’s a sudden continuity problem as Helena’s injuries completely vanish, even the broken arm which is drawn just one panel before.
The characters really drive this book as we fill in who the New 52 Huntress and Power Girl are and their history after arriving on Earth 2 and how it will impact their future and probably those of other characters. (One is fairly obvious.) So far, I haven’t necessarily been captivated by the lead stories, which I’ve found a bit average, but you can’t care about the big action if you don’t care about the characters involved, and the two leads continue to receive some really great character development in each issue. It may be a trade-off for now, but I think by this story’s culmination, the balance will be a lot more even.
Beautiful art, strong character development and lots of action…
WORLDS’ FINEST: HUNTRESS AND POWER GIRL #9
Written by Paul Levitz
Pencils by George Perez, CAFU and Yildray Cinar
Cover by Barry Kitson and Blond
