30 Days of DC – Day 12

I had such grand plans this weekend.  I was going to finish a post on an artist I love, and finish reading last week’s comics and put up reviews.  Instead I studied for a citizenship test, went out with friends and worked on this.  Which, as it is, leads nicely into today’s topic.

Favourite Friendship

After waffling for a while (Dinah and Babs?  Renee and Helena? Steph and Tim? Dick and Roy?) it came down to two women I’ve come to love a whole damn lot over the past year

Atlee and Kara.  Or Terra and Powergirl.

When I picked up Terra a while back now, I remember thinking ‘oh, it’s the Jonah Hex guys’.  I flipped it open and immediately was struck by the art and how expressive it was.  I was then struck by how not Jonah Hex this book was.  Hooked, I grabbed the four issues from my LCS and then had to start picking up the Powergirl monthly.  Because how could you not love these two characters and what that creative team brought to them?

Kara/Karen/Peeg/PG whatever you’re calling her, she’s a girl who’s been aroud the block a few times.  A character with a complicated history who’s found herself part of a team but without real friends time and time again, especially since final crisis.  One of my favourite moments for her is when she seeks out Huntress, even though they aren’t friends, because she needs someone to talk to and in her old reality they’d been friends.  (When I said complicated, I wasn’t joking)

Enter Terra.  Third of the name, a young girl who’s innocent in a whole lot of ways and not used to the whole ‘Earth culture’ thing for all she’s grown up beneath it.  She’s an emissary of her people, trying to stop the bad stuff that’s happening up above and to say that she and Peeg don’t get off on the best of feet would be a bit of an understatement

(Please note that entire sequence is quite possibly one of my favourite things Amanda Conner has ever drawn, and you should really read the book to see all of it)

But they manage to work things out.  They see they’re on the same side and help each other.  There’s an inexperience  and naivete to Atlee couple with boundless enthusiasm that Kara seems to love – even if she sometimes looks at it in amusement.  She sees someone who needs a bit of guidance and help, but who also doesn’t know her and her past and pre-judge who and what she should be.

It’s a friendship that works, both in the Terra miniseries and over into the Powergirl series where Terra appears as well (thankfully).  The two manage to build a trust with each other, and on some level they really get the other and what it’s like to be slightly out of place where you are.

Which, in my mind, is enough reason to love them.

The rest of the days so far here