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Following her popular appearances in Justice Society of America, her solo story in JSA Classified, and major role in the Terra mini-series, it doesn’t seem much of a stretch for Power Girl to end up in her own ongoing title. And given the fan reaction, it also seems only natural for writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti to once again team with artist Amanda Connor to deliver the goods.

Power Girl was one of DC’s great Earth-2 characters. She appeared alongside the Justice Society in the 1970s revival of All Star Comics and her origin was first explained in detail in Showcase #97-99. She was basically the Earth-2 version of Supergirl, but she didn’t want to live in her older cousin’s shadow.

That part was pretty straightforward. Then came Crisis on Infinite Earths and things got a lot more complicated. Since Crisis eliminated the multiple Earths, Power Girl was left without an origin. The DC Universe had a Supergirl, so who was Power Girl?

A lot of good writers tried to answer that, mainly to no one’s long term satisfaction, until recent events restored DC’s multi-verse and the possibility of her original origin story once again making sense.

All during those in between years, though, readers wanted to like the character. She was more bombastic than Superman, but she lacked his confidence. She could stand toe-to-foe with the big guys, but was definitely a woman. She was a great character for team-ups, but she didn’t seem to really fit in.

Geoff Johns and the other writers of DC’s big events the last few years capitalized on this to give her a unique role, and that role in turn gave her a whole new reason to be her old self. With that, the stage was once again set for her to stand on her own.

Gray, Palmiotti and Conner gave the character a fun turn in a multi-part solo story in JSA Classified and then gave her a large supporting role in the Terra mini-series. Both stories offered levels of the character that were below the surface, but they also didn’t dig too deep.

It seemed like an ongoing series would have to go further in exploring the character, something that the creators clearly seem to have considered. Without losing the tenor of their previous take on Power Girl, this first issue definitely has a more serious tone to it. Palmiotti said that is deliberate.

“We had a lot of work to do here for a first issue since we wanted to make it user-friendly and at the same time make sure that the information provided not only moved the story forward but served as good introductions to the world around her,” he said. “There are a lot of light moments in the book, not all in the dialogue but in the background action around her. As far as being too serious, the villain of the issue is destroying a city and millions of people are attacking each other, so we felt the threat should be a bit more serious in a way.”

He said that as the series progresses, there will be numerous “less heavy,” but readers won’t forget they’re reading a superhero series.

One of the challenges in making Power Girl its own kind of series is that there’s a temptation to fall into the trap of always making her a substitute Superman. It’s only one issue in, but it already appears that Gray, Palmiotti and Conner are taking steps to avoid that by making sure Power Girl has a group of supporting characters that are not just Supergirl and Superman.

“We spend a decent amount of time in the first three issues making this happen. Add Terra to the mix and Power Girl really doesn’t have to interact with the Superman family characters,” Palmiotti said. “Yet.”

So far so good. We’re ready for the next one.