Worlds' Finest #6

It's more accurate simply to say when anyone meets Damian Wayne, blood flows. Notice how I resisted the temptation to make a menstruation joke. Notice how proud I was in not making the joke that I had to point it out so it sort of becomes a joke anyway. Notice how horribly placed the "...blood flows" caption is?

The Huntress is currently in Gotham City to make a withdrawal from the Bank of Batman. I don't know if she's so arrogant that she thinks she can keep taking money from The Batman without him noticing or if she's just stupid. And I don't think she's stupid since they've spent a lot of time pointing out how she's the best of both her parents, Earth-2 Catwoman and Batman. So she has a big brain and a big heart and big boobs and big muscles. But there's another Bat-prodigy that has all of those things too! Except the boobs. Or the heart. Or the, um, muscles.

Why did I even scan this? It's the same image as on the cover!

Robin catches The Huntress in the middle of her withdrawal because, like I said in that previous paragraph, she was acting stupid. Instead of maiming her instantly, Damian decides he's going to brag about how easily he caught her. And then The Huntress decides to brag about how easy it was to discover this Robin's identity. Ha! Of course it's easy to figure out who Robin is when you begin with the knowledge that Batman is Bruce Wayne!

The Huntress: "Let's see. Who could Robin be? Batman's son, Damian? I don't know. It could be Alfred Pennyworth, his butler. No, no. The height is all wrong. Perhaps it's his dog Titus. The smell is right but I'm pretty sure Robin is a human boy. Hmm. This is a real stumper!"

While The Huntress and Robin bicker like interdimensional siblings, Power Girl is off in space adding some component of her own to Morgan Edge's communications satellite. She's gotten pretty wealthy on her own so I don't know why she doesn't just put her own satellite in the sky. She's probably scanning information that goes through Galaxy Broadcasting, looking for potential clues to dimensional openings back to her home world. While she's in space, she flirts a bit with the Russian Cosmonauts.

As Power Girl is making reentry, she has a near miss with another hero.

No shit! Who wants to get punched in the face?

Power Girl's suit burns off in reentry, of course. But she assures her assistant that they'll get the formula for an indestructible suit soon! She also mentions that her Remora-like device stuck to the Galaxy Satellite works by scanning the Earth for signs of Apokoliptian energy sources. And then she's alerted to a little squabble currently taking place in Gotham City.

I think this counts as another Boob Window shot.

Taking away Power Girl's traditional Boob Window suit has simply called more attention to it. Suddenly all she is is her cleavage and trying to find ways to get her back into that image. It's probably just the writers and artists finding ways to mock the editorial decision to give Power Girl a new uniform minus the cleavage. And I love her characterization so far in this book, so I have no problem with the creative team doing this.

What all this reminds me of is the way things that are being shielded form someone tend to bring more attention to that thing. Here, someone made the call to remove Power Girl's cleavage uniform which, after years of seeing it, wasn't really a big deal to anybody. She was the female hero with the biggest boobs and she showed them off. One of the female characters had to be the one with the biggest boobs, right? We also know one of the male characters has to be the guy with the biggest dick it's just nobody's ever going to know the answer to that (It's Plastic Man). Hide Power Girl's boobs and now everyone is interested in Power Girl's boobs.

This story is somewhat different but the whole aspect of making something more visible by trying to hide it reminds me of something I learned fairly young. I learned an awful lot about things adults thought I shouldn't know about because they made a point of limiting our behaviour. In second grade, we made paper airplanes one day. Mine wouldn't fly so I proclaimed, "My plane sucks the big one!" My teacher turned angrily to me and said, "I won't have that kind of language!" What did I say? I never thought about the actual meaning of the thing I had just said. I just knew it meant my plane was horrible. But was there a literal meaning? What could possibly be sucked and big that was so...oh. Oh! I get it! Thanks, Ms. Marshall! I also learned a bit about the phrase "the chicks will cream" when my mother told me that was disgusting when I was spontaneously singing Greased Lightning one day.

Just like the Boob Window, these were phrases I never really thought much about until I was told not to think about them.

My favorite example which isn't mine. It's a celebrity's so I think I can repeat it here. Ricky Gervais became an Atheist when his big brother asked him why he believes in God and his mother cut the conversation short by hissing Ricky's brother's name. I love that from simple body language and trying to keep something hidden, the entire lie was immediately exposed. I would love to hear other people's experiences like this when they were growing up. It's also simply a good thing for parents to remember. Kids are fucking smart and they're always thinking. Especially when you tell them they can't say or think or discuss something. They're going to put all of their faculties to working out why the adult reacted that way. Raise your kids with honesty and transparency since hiding and lying to them obviously doesn't fucking work anyway.

Now where was I? Oh yeah! The boob window! So, Boob Window, I mean Power Girl, probably isn't going to get to relax in the jacuzzi because she has to go save The Huntress from Robin.

Ha ha! That was a pretty funny statement! Someone needs to be saved from Robin! Well, it was twenty years ago. This century, Robin is a fucking sociopath.

Little sociopathic genius.

The fight really does break down into a petty sibling blow-out. And I wonder how much of The Huntress's loss of composure is due to the same feelings of jealousy and rivalry that Damian feels towards Bruce's previous Robins? The Huntress has lost her family and her entire world and here is a little angry brat that has everything but is too fucked up from his life with Talia to recognize it.

The Huntress seems to feel pretty secure with her secret. Why would Damian guess she's from an alternate world, right?

Meanwhile in space, Power Girl's addition to Morgan Edge's satellite mysterious disappears in-between two panels with BOOM sound effects. Sinister!

Huntress and Robin continue to bicker although bicker might not be strong enough a word for it since Damian seems intent on killing The Huntress. Or probably just severely maiming her just in case daddy is watching. He's pretty much come to the conclusion that The Huntress is possibly a bastard child of Bruce Wayne's but he doesn't really care much about that. What he's really mad about is yet another person coming along and telling him that he doesn't deserve the name or the uniform. Standing triumphantly on top of The Huntress while in a dumpster (can you stand triumphantly in a dumpster?), he proclaims that he is Robin!

I wonder how many internal organs were ruptured from this light kick?

At this point, Robin mentions the thieving of his dad's money has been happening weekly which The Huntress jumps all over. She's taken money once, she admits, and she was about to take a little more. But whoever Robin was after, it wasn't her. Robin says a corny line about seeing the truth in her eyes but I think he's just dying to know who the fuck she is, so he pretends to believe her so he can get her story. And since The Huntress wants to tell somebody and this somebody in particular can get her to maybe, possibly, meet her near-dad, she's going to tell him where she's from. Also, she now has Power Girl to back her up against this eleven year old monster. So why worry?

Next issue, Robin gets to learn about Earth 2!

Worlds' Finest #6 Rating: +1 Ranking. Power Girl and The Huntress have quickly become my two favorite characters in The New 52. I'm really showing my bias towards comics and characterizations built from an 80s aesthetic by enjoying this comic so much. But it's fun. And I think fun is the main thing I've been demanding from The New 52 since I started reading comics again at the beginning of the year.