Is there a DC title more boring than Worlds' Finest currently?

Because I swear to God I can't find one, at least not now that Legion of Super-Heroes has been cancelled.

Do you wonder what both titles have in common? They have Paul Levitz as their writer. During the last couple of years and even before the New 52 I have been amazed about the amount of work that DC has given to this guy despite that his works doesn't receive neither critical nor sales success.

This may be due to his history. Paul Levitz has a long list of DC works including a classic Legion of Super-Heroes run from the 80's which was also drawn, and probably co-written, by Keith Giffen which became an instant achievement in both acclaim and sales. This might have been one of the reasons why DC gave Levitz the reigns of Legion of Super-Heroes relaunch in the New 52 as well as the recreation of both Power Girl and Huntress in Worlds' Finest.

Now you may believe that this is an article made exclusively to complaint about Paul Levitz but I can't assure you that it isn't despite of evidence of the contrary (I'm saving that topic for another day in fact). This article has been created to criticize the current New 52 Worlds' Finest series due to its lackluster quality and to try to find a way to make it improve.

The first thing you may notice from the little image at the top is the atrocious costume that Power Girl is wearing (The blond girl, if you're not familiar with the character but even if you are you may not recognize her in this book). That costume is frankly an aberration, the colors are poorly matched, it has a dated retro-futuristic feel, it contains a big, obnoxious "P" as Power Girl's symbol and even her own design is a downgrade, her hairstyle looks like something pulled straight from the 80's.

Why do I complaint so much about her current looks? Well, because she used to look like this before the New 52:

Oh, you may say: "How can you like that?! It's fanservice made just for drooling fanboys!"

Well, you would be wrong, it could also be for certain drooling fangirls.

Jokes aside, it has become one of the most iconic costumes from the comic industry and you have to admire why. Is quite sleek, the colors are excellently distributed, the cleavage is unnecessary sure, but it adds an unique factor which made it an instant classic.

I could have lived without the cleavage if the new costume itself was actually good, but it's not for reasons that I already explained. Fortunately, it seems like DC has reacted from the fans' response and gave PG her classic costume back recently.

Which may make you say: "Well, you don't have any reason to complaint now"

You may be wrong again because this PG is a completely unlikable characterand a disgrace to her previous incarnation. First, she doesn't care about anything else but going back to her original earth (She comes from an alternate universe called Earth 2 for those who don't know, it's a crazy multiverse) which means she's pretty okay with not helping people at all unless it's too late. Second, she uses men to get what she wants which includes either fame or technology to get back home. Third, if she doesn't get what she wants by those methods, she steals such things. Finally, whenever she has to fight a threat from her same power-level she always ends losing and needs the assist of her partner, the Huntress, who doesn't have any powers whatsoever which makes the situation even more pathetic.

On her past incarnation, Power Girl was a superheroine that never doubted about helping others and even was the owner of her own company which she got by herself. She was also smart, caring, funny and she didn't take herself seriously (At least when she was correctly written), this lead to a lot of fun adventures of her own series that lasted for 27 issues. The current PG simply doesn't even try to achieve these points.

I know what you're thinking, "Hey, this topic is supposed to be about Worlds' Finest and you're only talking about Power Girl". Yeah, but let's see how you react if your favorite superheroine gets mistreated.

Anyway, I have been wandering enough so let's go to the subject in question. Worlds' Finest is an incredibly dull and unsatisfying read, you want to know why? These are the reasons:

The plot never progresses

The first storyline consisted of 4 issues dedicated to the heroines fighting a random japanese inspired monster named Hakkou fluctuating between past and present events. That could have been interesting but Levitz manages to make it dull as possible by making the past scenes irrelevant to the main plot and the present scenes a generic action sequence. Not to mention that all the characters included here were as one-dimensional as you can get, both protagonists and villains.

Then comes a couple of one-and-done issues where, I'm not lying here, nothing absolutely happens, our heroines just fight some random menaces and that's it. After it, there's an arc focused on the interaction between Huntress and Robin (The dead one) which barely made any development on her character. Oh, and the worst part of this was that Helena could have met Batman but prefered not to, sure, why try to make the story move forward?

Finally, we got to the Desaad storyline which is still going and doesn't seem to have a true resolve yet which is pretty sad considering that it has been going for six issues already.

The protagonists are shallow as hell

Some characters start being interesting from the get go, Power Girl and Huntress don't. I have presented my views about PG already so I will focus in Huntress this time, it seems like Levitz has concentrated in only a type of personality for her: The strong, serious and independent woman.

This is not bad mind you, since Helena had all those traits on her previous incarnation but there were always layers. Writers like Greg Rucka and Gail Simone knew how to make her a more dimensional heroine besides of the obvious stereotypes, Levitz instead focuses on simple and cliche characteristics without any sense of depth.

And, despite all those flaws, she still comes as a better character than PG on this book.

The antagonists are even more shallow

As I mentioned, the first villain is a creature called Hakkou who doesn't have a particular motivation other than try to cause mass destruction.

After him, I'm not lying here, we have some common thugs, robots and wolfmen who neither have a reason for attacking.

Finally, we have Desaad who based on previous interpretations of the character, has apparently lost all the subtle traits that made him a New God and has become a simple sadist monster.

The best adversaries are the ones who represent an opposite side from the protagonists or at least a different perspective who make the main characters questions their own motivations and actions. World's Finest's antagonists don't do anything like that, they are a distraction at best and a pretty lame one at that.

Okay, I guess there's enough complaining for today, so how can we fix this series? A different creative team would be the obvious guess sure, but I'm talking about a complete different change of direction. For one, this books is called "Worlds' Finest", however, these heroines haven't demonstrated anything to deserve that title so here are my suggestions:

• Make both Power Girl and Huntress the embassadors between Prime Earth and Earth 2 where they protect both worlds from different threats and also help with the interaction between the two earths.
• Turn the title into a team book, just because is called Worlds' Finest doesn't mean that it needs to focus in only two characters. They could even make it a female centric series considering that DC's current female-only book title (Birds of Prey) is really undewhelming.
• Finally, just make it fun. The interactions should be written better, the stories should be more exciting, the characterization could be more complex, the dialogue should be more inventive, etc.

 Now, who should be the writer to handle any of these premises?

• Judd Winick: He wrote a fantastic Power Girl series before the New 52, he loves superheroes and has a pretty modern vision for them. Not to mention that he has a quite nice sense of humor.
• Bryan Q. Miller: His Batgirl series was one of the most entertaining books pre-Flashpoint and I'm shocked that he doesn't receive more work. He's funny, creates fantastic characterization and likes his superheroes having a positive view in life.
• Michael Alan Nelson: He's one of the most promising new talents that I've seen lately and injects personality and excitement in any script he works on.

Seriously DC, is not hard to make this book better, you just need to get rid of Levitz before he turns this into another Legion of Super-Heroes borefest and the audience completely quits.

Please, this book and characters deserve better, don't let them go to waste.