The second-to-last chapter of Power Girl Vol. 2: More Than a Crush is a surprisingly effective romance issue; writer Leah Williams leverages a unexpected, familiar setting and a stunt artist appearance into 20 pages that succeed despite nary a supervillain around. If only it felt more like an actual Power Girl story.

More Than a Crush offers two three-part stories, one a tie-in to the Superman: House of Brainiac crossover and the other following events among Power Girl and her cast while “Paige” is out on a date. Within these rather tight constraints, I’d say Crush is better than Williams' Power Girl volumes previous; at least Power Girl protecting Metropolis from aliens while Superman’s out of town is something Power Girl would do. But as before, the book is plagued by leaps of logic, questionable character decisions, and just plain silliness that continually pulled me out of the story. Even at Crush’s most impressive, it’s trading on a tie with another series' story, and an ill-fitting one at that.