I started to write that, with Power Girl Vol. 3: The Star, Leah Williams' series ended better than it began. But that’s not quite true. When it was good in the beginning — Power Girl comforting an alien lion in its death — it was good, and equally here at the end, with Power Girl’s quirky found family, it is also good. Perhaps it is just that, with the ending status quo, this finally begins to feel more like a Power Girl book than any part so far, perhaps even answering the question of what a Power Girl book is.

The series still has significant problems panel to panel, which are no less prevalent here. One among many examples: Power Girl, Steel Natasha Irons, and others are trapped within a giant pink force field. Steel John Henry Irons tries to get them out. Later, the force field finally comes down, as depicted by artist David Baldeon with an interlocking triangle pattern. From this, Williams has John Henry say, “Magic? It was made of magic? Tch, I knew Natasha was hanging with the wrong crowd.”

My questions: What about the pink force field when it went up versus when it went down indicated to John Henry that it was caused by magic and not some alien ray gun? Why does it bother John Henry that it was magic? Why wouldn’t John Henry want Natasha to hang out with magic users? (Between Power Girl and Omen, there aren’t magic users in the group, which you’d think John Henry would know, and additionally, Natasha recently dated an actual magic user, Traci 13.) Why does Steel have such strong opinions on how his adult niece spends her time? (One more: Later, Natasha gets flowers, signed from “M.,” but then checks to see if they’re from Traci even though she lives with someone named Mariposa.)

It’s these kinds of things. I’m not sure Williams' Power Girl is bad issue to issue as that if you parse the dialogue and actions, there’s just so much, like the Steel bit, that doesn’t make sense on a moment’s reflection. I continue to think that editorial didn’t interject here as much as they should have.

[Review contains spoilers]

By the end of The Star, Power Girl “Paige Stetler” is once again leading a corporation, a social media platform defined by a so-called “human algorithm,” whose eccentric employees also do some superheroics on the side. I agree it’s debatable whether “superhero tech CEO” is endemic to the Power Girl character or not (Starrware Industries has appeared much less than I had thought), but it was rather emphasized in Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray’s Power Girl, through to the New 52 and etc., and I think I’ve glommed onto it as what distinguishes Power Girl from other characters. By the end of Williams' Power Girl Vol. 2: More Than a Crush, I wasn’t really sure what defined a Power Girl adventure at all; now, Williams has landed on an essential element, if too little and too late.

Granted that in the original telling, I think Power Girl got all her tech knowledge from an Amazonian “memory teacher” ray McGuffin, but later iterations of Power Girl as a genius as well as a buxom bruiser are compelling. Particularly in our era of tech billionaires as both business people and increasingly cultural and political figures, a well-done Power Girl series could have considerable relevance. It’s why certain ways that Williams has portrayed Power Girl have grated — that she’s naive, that she’s unfamiliar with basic idioms and social norms, that she’s not particularly technologically-minded — because they both present a Power Girl different than what we’ve seen recently and absent some of her most interesting traits.

And yet, as has been typical for this series, Williams seems to want things both ways. Some 16 issues into the series, Power Girl suddenly reveals she’s a millionaire, validating at least some part of having been successful in her Karen Starr identity, despite admitting to not knowing what an intern does and her general naivety otherwise in Williams' depiction.

Again, questions: Why wouldn’t Power Girl mention it before now? Why, with all that money, did she have to move in with Omen? Why didn’t she invest any of that money into she and Omen’s (now seemingly forgotten) counseling business? In Power Girl Returns, we’re told blithely that the Karen Starr identity “no longer exists” (though a villain is able to pick it up here with little difficulty), but still, why adopt the Paige Stetler identity and work rather miserably for Lois Lane when Power Girl could as easily have funded a new company? I’m not sure the series itself knows.

“The Star” itself refers to Power Girl and Omen revitalizing the Daily Star building, of Golden Age Superman fame, for their new venture, “Stargraze.” Of the seven issues here, to an extent the real arc of the whole series is resolved in the first three, as Power Girl defeats Ejectra, who’s been turned to evil by the Kryptonian symbioship that tried to do the same with Power Girl.

As such, Power Girl essentially confronts her own dark self; in the final issue, when Ejectra impersonates Karen Starr, Power Girl lets her be, those demons now fully excised. In between are three issues where Power Girl’s work on the Star building apparently disturbed some elemental-space-demon creatures and much punching ensues, which is less relevant to the plot but at least cements the Power Girl-Omen-Natasha Irons trio. No small part of this is rote superhero comics, though in an end-of-the-book splash, it did seem Williams had built Power Girl a workable rogues gallery all told.

On the topic of Stargraze, Williams' Mariposa pitches it to the public as “the world’s first honest social media platform” while in the very same breath lying about where some rampaging dinosaurs came from (the space creatures, not a Stargraze publicity stunt as Mariposa claims). The book seems wholly unaware of the irony.

Later, Williams has Mariposa describe Stargraze as, again, “the world’s first social media with a human algorithm” with “no ads … You pay once to join and that’s it.” More questions: What’s a “human algorithm”? Does that mean people will recommend content to you instead of a digital algorithm, and if so, how will they defend against bias or accusations thereof? Who among this super-team will take on the difficult work of content moderation? And what is the revenue model once this no-ads, pay-once platform reaches market saturation? Having recently gone off on being at the mercy of Big Tech’s whims and knee-deep in Cory Doctorow’s latest, I’m hardly one to dismiss a plan for social media done better, and I grant this is fiction and not a prospectus, but here too, some of this sounds good but I think is functionally meaningless.

David Baldeon, I should mention, is a revelation for Power Girl Vol. 3: The Star, an artist who should have received more work on this series sooner. His semi-cartoony depictions are pitch-perfect for the zany series this wants to be (shades of Sami Basri on Judd Winick’s Power Girl), versus the tonal mismatch of Baldeon on Joshua Williamson’s Superman. I also noticed a couple times where Leah Williams and Baldeon choreographed tics — Power Girl tucking her phone away in her costume, Omen pinning up her hair after a battle — that I thought was better choreographing of people-in-panels than we generally see.

And Williams' Axel, Power Girl’s boyfriend, is guileless and sweet and surprisingly likable for it. And “You bet jurrasican” is a great line. If only Williams didn’t have Power Girl and Omen renovate an entire looming skyscraper in downtown Metropolis seemingly for only themselves to live in. If only the police didn’t know Power Girl was reachable at the Star, but then Paige Stetler passes herself off as a resident. If only a social media platform meant to reduce passivity wasn’t called “Stargraze.” If only a character wasn’t called Ejectra because she was rescued out of a car crash. If only it wasn’t that “due to quirks of quantum travel, the television only played a channel that looped vintage commercials.” If only the book’s lone psychic character could tell whether the right person was coming in the door for yelling “Surprise!” If only, if only.

[Includes original and variant covers]