Best Power Girl arcs: 2009 run tops the list

This bibliography has an unusual form: it is not made up of adventures but of status changes. The character gains a world, loses it, receives a fake one, then gets the real one back.

What matters about her is almost never what she faces. It’s what we take away from him or what we give back to him.

1. The 2009 run (Palmiotti, Gray, Conner)

The pinnacle of the character, and the only arc on this list that we can recommend without reservation to a reader who knows nothing about the rest.

He finds the register that has suited him for thirty years: a heroine of considerable power confronted with problems ordinary. A business to run, an apartment to find, a neighborhood to support.

The drawing of Amanda Conner does a decisive part of the work - expressive line, attention to faces, sense of comedy in the situation. The character gains a presence that decades of team stories had never given him.

It is also the arc which has lastingly fixed the way in which subsequent authors write it.

2. The loss of one's world (mid-1980s)

The editor removes the parallel Earths to unify its continuity. Power Girl survives; its origin, no.

It's not an arc in the usual sense — the character is not the subject — but it is the most consequential event of his career. He leaves her in place without foundation, in a universe where his biography has become impossible.

This corpus ranks it so high because everything that follows follows from it: fifteen years of inconsistency, a substitutional origin, then a reestablishment.

3. Creation (All Star Comics, 1976-1978)

Gerry Conway, with Ric Estrada and Wally Wood.

The introduction of the character into a team made up of figures from the very early years of the support. The generation gap is accepted: it is from the outset the element that does not fit together.

A position that she has never left, and which explains her longevity - a character who stands out remains useful to the authors.

4. The Showcase Origin Stories (1978)

A series of solo stories in the publisher's essay magazine, where his story is expanded upon for the first time.

Of particular interest to the collector: these stories document the version original of its past - the one which will be deleted seven years later, then reestablished twenty years later. To read them is to understand what has been lost.

5. Recovery (mid-2000s)

A second continuity overhaul returns the character to his initial origin, twenty years after his deletion.

Few editorial situations have been corrected after such a delay. This says something about the persistence of readers on this particular point — and the fact that a poorly accepted rewrite sometimes ends up being undone.

How to read this set

If you only read one thing: the 2009 run. Autonomous, funny, and the character is finally treated for himself.

If you want to understand the file: Showcase (1978) for the lost origin, then the late 1980s rewrite issues, then the reinstatement. Three stages which tell less of a life than of editorial management.

If you want the modern character: the run of 2009 then the stories of the 2010s with his exiled partner.

What is special about this bibliography?

A remark of substance, because it explains the unusual form of this list.

For most characters, arcs are classified by narrative quality. Here, two of the five entries are not stories but business decisions: delete a continuity, then restore it.

This corpus has already encountered an adaptation whose object was an administrative decision. Here is the symmetrical case, on the paper side: a character whose main biography is that of his editorial treatment.

It's more interesting than it seems. Few characters allow us to observe so clearly how a catalog is managed - what is deleted, what is replaced, what is eventually restored under pressure from readers.

Collection side

These arcs are spread over four periods, only one of which is costly.

1976-1978— the expensive segment, with the first appearance. ⚠️ Check the year: the numbering taken from an old title creates lasting ambiguity.

Late 1980s— the rewrite numbers, totally unvalued. The best opportunity on file.

Mid 2000s— the recent and abundant recovery.

2009 and after— the solo series, which can be completed in full for a paltry budget.

As always, condition and gradation determine value; relying on real recent sales is strongly recommended.

For number-by-number selection, see ourPower Girl key issues, and for the overview ourcollection guide.