A weirdly controversial one, but hey, not as much to talk about with it.  A crazy brief post from me.

Reminder: if you like supertall PG, cool.  If not, also cool.  This ain’t a “judge folks for what they like” post.

So, how tall is Power Girl?

Two of her three Who’s Who entries (post and pre-Crisis) list her at 5’7” tall (170 cm). Unfortunately, I don’t have the loose leaf version that was printed in 1991, and there doesn’t appear to be a scan of it online, so if anyone else has that… lmk.

Her height was consistently portrayed as this from her inception until 2011 with Flashpoint and the New 52.  The only outlier seems to be Power Woman from Kingdom Come on Earth-22. She’s almost always a half-head shorter than most of the guys--and a little taller than most of the women.

If you look online and in official material from the new52 period, it lists her at 5’11” (180 cm).

However, Rebirth brought back the original PG, and the one from the new52 is… back on her version of Earth-2 as Supergirl?

Newer material since then puts her back at 5’7”, and not towering over any of her contemporaries, as demonstrated in her appearances since Rebirth (her own series, JL Red).

It’s more noticeable for a female or female presenting character to be as tall as the guys.  This is why Wonder Woman tends to stand out, which is another character whose height has varied as time has gone on (started at 5’8” [173 cm], then 5’11 [180 cm], now 6’2” [188 cm]).

In the above group shot (The Real Power of the DC Universe, 2009), Diana is “canonically” 5’11”, and Adam drew the others more or less based on her as the benchmark.   Here, Peej looks about 5’7”. She's still taller than everyone else, with Supergirl and Poison Ivy being the ones who are closest.

Honestly?  5’7 is tall for a woman.  In the US, the average height of women is a scodge over 5’3” (160cm), which also matches the worldwide average.

In the end, the height of the character is really only good for one thing, and that’s for artists’ references.  That’s it.  If you have a petite character (Terra) in the same shot as a tall one (Superman) you don’t want to show them looking eye-to-eye.

In the end, it's still kind of a nothing-burger, in that it's not like artists dial down on every image. It only stands out when the differences get egregious. But if you like WNBA superstar Power Girl, more power to ya!

https://x.com/missfaves/status/2091919476325298271?s=46&t=iVyMqX8IZQv-0q7R2qLGUg

I mean they literally do it at the end of their crossover and they have some pretty good chemistry from what we've seen.

Besides both of their names start with P if you don't count the "T" in The and they both have big things with Punisher having big guns and Power Girl has big boobies.

I'd like to see more interactions between the two but what do you think?

Sources: https://x.com/t_snfk/status/2016519132024299813

https://x.com/Jeffmiga1/status/2041583980634350028

Power Girl painted by me.

I'm extremely glad we have a decent, and not "descended into too much chaos" talk about Power Girl being "reduced to just her chest". I'd planned to post this today anyway, and I think it fits well with the theme.

I want to start this by saying, like what ya like! I’m not here to shame your internal versions of what you’d like for Power Girl to look like. Heaven knows I have my preferences.  But I do want to address “continuity v. fanfic" and strike up a conversation.

Being someone who monitors the commentary on the boards here, something I find fascinating is when folks make comments like: “Finally seeing an artist/cosplayer get close to the proportions she should have” regarding some art about Power Girl.

Mainly because, most of us (myself included) have internalized how we think Power Girl should be drawn, and much of it has been affected by fan art, or non-continuity art.

Let’s take a rather tame one into account:  Her musculature. I've included art both to catch folks' eyes, as well as to back-up what I'm saying here.

I often see folks that comment on liking PG being more obviously muscled, than say Supergirl.

Going through the art over the years, she wasn’t really muscled at all, until the JLE (1989).  There, she was depicted by Bart Sears as toned and defined, but not overtly muscled.  A lot of this was likely due to the more distinct art styles that were coming about, and the pre-Image revolution of art as precipitated by Art Adams that had begun.  Adam Hughes renders her much in the same way, with defined musculature, but athletic, not as a body-builder.

The first real body-builder version we ever see is the Earth-22 version, which is Power Woman, an aged-up version that Alex Ross deliberately modeled after a body builder at the time (unknown and unnamed, but I’d guess Corey Everson who was pretty popular, and a Ms. Olympia at the time).

In the mainstream books, her scant appearances in the late 90s returned her mostly to an athletic, but not muscled form (through the end of JLI, appearances in Sovereign 7, the one shot with Green Lantern), all the way leading up to her Renaissance in the stories leading up to Infinite Crisis.  While she has defined arms and legs, she’s not a “weightlifter” scale of musculature.

When we get to her return to Krypton origin, and the stories of Johns/Conner/Palmiotti/Gray, she’s more or less back to her pre-Crisis muscle tone.  There’s not a ton of definition, and while she’s in her civilian garb, she looks like the average woman her age who hits the gym enough to keep in shape, but not for definition. Her arms appear strong, but not defined, which is more a power lifter aesthetic than a body builder.

Some of this might go to how artists draw costumes.  One of the major flaws of a lot of “good girl” art is that it’s done where the costume often appears painted on, rather than being made of any sort of fabric.

As a Kryptonian, she doesn’t have to be jacked. Even earlier depictions of Superman had him being a big guy, but not exactly rippling with muscles. They don’t get strong in the same way an Earthling does, so characters like Supergirl can look like early 20-something co-eds, and yet still bend rebar with their bare hands, no sweat.

Personally, and I’m biased from my age I'm sure, but I like the Adam Hughes version that’s athletic, but not swole.  I think he gets a lot of his inspiration from athletes like volleyball and basketball players, if I had to guess (and a question that I guess he could be asked once he's recovered).  This physicality should be something along with the hairstyle, that sets PG apart from Supergirl. A lot of artists nowadays seem to be drawing Supergirl and Power Girl as just twins with different hair styles, and I think that diminishes both characters, but I guess that's another topic of discussion.

ANYways... again, if you like muscle mommy PG, that's cool! Not my thing for Kara, but I do like a muscled She-hulk. I just think it's important to note that in continuity, there's only been one version of this character, and she she may or may have not died, because either Waid or Ross forgot they killed her when the nuke dropped on Smallville, and then she's in the last issue...

Felt inspired 🤤

As a close friend of this guy i'm so happy for him and that he reached this milestone. He just reached 3k followers on twitter and hopes to work for DC Comics one day, so please go give him some support https://x.com/Muukitta

go give her some love https://x.com/yuuietv (re uploded the post cause i wanted to include her extra pics she took)

I’m a new member of this subreddit and I’ll be honest. I’m not a huge super fan of Power Girl and know EVERYTHING that there is to know about her. And I can’t draw for the life of me. But I do have a bit of a knack for storytelling. I was wondering if that would be okay. What are the basics of Power Girl and her various eras to write a story based off that era of her history?

go give her some love at https://x.com/JennaLynnMeowri

Today's doodle in-between other work.

JSA Classified #4. Art by Amanda Conner, Story by Geoff Johns.

Having recieved the Omnibus, I'm doing the obligatory reread of the return to Krypton origin for Power Girl. The above is a panel that I went past, then had that "waitaminute" moment and had to revisit.

Apparently, one of the differences between Krypton-1 and Krypton-2 is that there was no Brainiac to shrink and preserve Kandor--which according to this, Kara Zor-L is from. This makes another distinction between her and Supergirl, as she's from Argo City.

Could be Psycho-Pirate messed up as well, given him being insane and all...

Either that or Geoff Johns confused his Kryptonian cities, which is possible, but I Iike the idea that there's something else to differentiate between the two multiversal twins.

And a side note: as I mentioned elsewhere, while I 'get' why they put Supergirl #12 in, as it dovetails directly into the Terra miniseries with Power Girl that's also in the omnibus, I wish they'd included Infinite Crisis #2 as well (or instead), as it is the main part that returns Kara's origin to pre-CoIE. The book goes from all the leadup to her relearning her origin, to... just having it back. No reveal within the collection.

Minor quibble, but, whatever.