Spider-Man and Power Girl is a Spider-Man/Power Girl crossover fic by Agent-G.
Kara Zor-El finds herself in an alternate universe. A world that, like her own, was full of Super-Heroes and Super-Geniuses for whom the Laws of Physics are more suggestions. Thanks to their help, she is able to find her way back home in short order.
Only to find that her universe was irrevocably changed while she was gone.
Now bereft of her home, she tries to make a new life in another world. But Power Girl will never stop fighting for justice wherever she goes. Thankfully, she has a partner, the local neighborhood-friendly Spider-Man. And possibly something more.
The fic can be read here
and here.
Spider Man and Power Girl contains the following examples:
- Amazonian Beauty: Obviously applies to Power Girl, who is noted as being more muscular than even Carol Danvers and proportionately as muscular as She-Hulk (although Jen is slightly taller than Karen).
- An Arm and a Leg: When Power Girl assists Spider-Man in a confrontation with the Scorpion, she takes time to establish if the villain's tail is artificial or an actual part of him so she knows if she can tear it off. When Spider-Man confirms that it's artificial but still cybernetically linked to him so that just taking it off would be like ripping off a limb, Karen instead targets the circuitry allowing Gargan to control his tail, leaving the limb intact but useless.
- Birds of a Feather: Reed Richards spends some time analysing the dimensional displacement effect with Cyborg to confirm he's taken them to the correct Earth.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Invoked; when Power Girl reveals that she's from another Earth, Spider-Man and the Human Torch each separately ask if she means an alternate reality Earth or the restored Counter-Earth, demonstrating how used to unusual circumstances these heroes are on either Earth.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: Karen muses that she's used to attracting attention because of this.
- Call-Back:
- Peter briefly talks with Karen about Scarlet Witch's role in depowering the mutants after her psychological breakdown (House of M).
- After seeing Power Girl in action, Stark reflects that they definitely need to offer her at least auxiliary membership in the Avengers, noting that they haven’t had a powerhouse on her level since the death of The Sentry (Siege).
- The Cavalry Arrives Late: At one point Thor responds to an Avengers distress call but only arrives after the threat’s been defeated, although he is invited to join the subsequent counter-attack.
- Chivalrous Pervert: Tony Stark muses at one point that while the HR department of his company has a special sexual harassment form specifically with him in mind, he would never abuse his position in that manner, and hopes that all women understand that all they have to do is just tell him "no" and he'll stop.
- Clark Kenting:
- Karen recalls doing this for herself based on Clark's example, the two wearing clothing slightly too large to hide their physique and prevent anyone realising just how fit they are.
- This idea is basically utilised by the FF when helping Karen move house; so long as Ben isn’t present, Reed, Sue and Johnny can help Karen move her furniture in casual clothing without anyone realising who they are and questioning how a seemingly random civilian knows the Fantastic Four.
- Clothing Damage: Karen notes that she's used to dealing with this, which is one reason she's grateful when the FF provide her with a version of her suit made of unstable molecules that can take more punishment without tearing.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Recalling Scarlet Witch's breakdown, Peter observes that if people had been more willing to talk with Wanda about what she went through at least some of what went wrong might have been avoided.
- Crazy-Prepared: Experience with Kang the Conqueror in particular has inspired Reed to devise a means of determining if history has been altered through time travel, allowing him to confirm when the new universe was altered and get some idea as to how it happened.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Power Girl lost her home on Krypton before coming to Earth, and is shaken by the idea of going through the pain of losing her home again once she ends up in a different world.
- Different World, Different Movies: Karen explicitly thinks at one point that there are some films on the Marvel Earth that don’t exist on her world of origin, so she’s eager to watch something new. One example cited is that Jerry Maguire had Tom Hanks rather than Tom Cruise in the title role in the DC universe, Karen noting that Hanks played the role very differently from Cruise.
- Doppelgänger Gets Same Sentiment: Invoked when Diana is outraged to learn that Hercules is seen as a hero in the other world, although she accepts Reed and Johnny's assurances that their version of Hercules never subjugated the Amazons like he did in her reality.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Power Girl complains about not having money for an Internet café, only to realise that she can get her information free at a local library.
- Even the Girls Want Her: Power Girl gesturing to her outfit while conversing with a librarian causes the woman to blush.
- Exact Words: During a talk with her colleagues in her new job, Karen defends Spider-Man by talking about how he helped her on her first day in town, without revealing the full details of how they met.
- Eye Scream: Karen briefly suffers from this when Scorpion hits her in the face with a blast of acid. Her invulnerability protects her from permanent damage, but she still has to find a nearby fire hydrant and blast her face with water so that she can see again.
- Fantastic Racism: Defied; when some of Karen's colleagues at Stark Enterprises discuss Sentinels, they express contempt for the idea of going after mutants just because a person has a slightly different gene.
- Heroic BSoD: Power Girl is crestfallen to learn she not only ended up in a different world but a completely different reality than her own, with not even an alternate version of her superhero allies to keep her company.
- Internal Reveal: Chapter 9 sees Spider-Man tell Power Girl about the time he erased all knowledge of his identity from the world (One More Day, One Moment in Time), although he doesn't tell her his identity yet.
- Jurisdiction Friction: Power Girl's status as a dimensionally displaced alien means that S.W.O.R.D. (Sentient World Observation and Response Department) and A.R.M.O.R. (Altered-Reality Monitoring and Operational Response Agency) could lay claim to being responsible for her. Abigail Brand explicitly states that she considers herself having "lost" for having gained responsibility for the situation, since Power Girl is "a walking administrative nightmare" given how she technically falls under the heading of both departments.
- Kryptonite Factor: Doing research on her new world, Karen notes that kryptonite itself almost certainly doesn't exist in this reality, although she recognises that there are enough magic-users in this world to be a potential problem for her.
- Living Emotional Crutch: Spider-Man basically becomes this for Power Girl after she returns to her reality only to find it changed, returning to the other world as the grief feels less oppressive.
- Male Gaze: Spider-Man can't help but be taken in by Power Girl's incredible beauty when they first meet.
- Mundane Fantastic: Having already had experience with alternate dimensions, Peter Parker isn't remotely surprised by the idea of Power Girl being from another world, and knows scientists who could help Karen try and go home.
- My Eyes Are Up Here: Karen has reached a point where she'll tolerate at least three seconds of staring at her cleavage before she gets annoyed; one reason she swiftly likes Spider-Man is that he didn't look at all (to be clear, he was tempted, but was able to control his reaction).
- My God, What Have I Done?: Barry Allen/the Flash is horrified when he realises that his own recent experience with time travel (Flashpoint) may be the reason for the reality shift Karen experienced, although Reed's analysis confirms that Flash only played a part in what happened rather than being the sole cause.
- My Suit Is Also Super: Karen is suitably impressed by the "unstable molecules" used to create the Fantastic Four's costumes that she asks the FF if they could use that material to make a new version of her own costume.
- Not So Stoic: Doctor Manhattan is genuinely impressed that Reed Richards managed to build a means of crossing dimensions.
- Old Shame: Sue Richards muses at one point that she's particularly embarrassed about a particularly scant costume she wore in the past, speculating that she was trying to "prove" to herself that she was still sexy after becoming a mother.
- Reed Richards Is Useless: Deconstructed somewhat in a scene showing Peter Parker working at Horizon Labs, as he has to dismiss certain ideas such as personal force field devices for the average citizen because he's concerned about what might happen if criminals got their hands on his work.
- Ret-Gone: Diana is shaken when Karen mentions Donna Troy, horrified at the idea that she had a sister that has apparently been erased.
- Riddle for the Ages: When discussing Annihilus’s rebirth cycle with Power Girl, She-Hulk notes that nobody’s ever actually timed how long it takes Annihilus to regain his adult form after he’s “killed”.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: When Peter, Reed, and Johnny take Karen back to her world, she arrives in the altered New 52 universe, which still registers as Power Girl's reality of origin to Reed Richards' equipment even though history has clearly changed from what Karen remembers.
- Rogues' Gallery Transplant: Jokingly discussed when Spider-Man reveals the scale of his rogues' gallery to Power Girl and she muses that she doesn't have many "unique" foes of her own, prompting Spidey to jokingly suggest he could trade her a few of his own villains (offering her a Hobgoblin, Sandman and Electro in particular).
- Selective Obliviousness: Invoked; when Power Girl takes Spider-Man back to his flat after he's injured, she avoids looking too closely at any photographs or anything that might give away his secret identity until he's ready to tell her the truth on his own.
- Shout-Out: When some of the Avengers are citing what they have that could destroy an enemy lab, Spider-Man adds “And my axe”, admitting afterwards that he just couldn’t resist the opportunity.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Once Iron Man confirms that Annihilus’s current forces are basically as smart as dogs and controlled by cybernetics, Power Girl has no problem cutting loose and literally blasting them in half with her heat vision.
- Willfully Weak: It's noted that Karen always holds back in her first few assaults on a new opponent so that she doesn't kill someone by accident, such as basically giving Scorpion a light push in the initial confrontation.
- World's Smartest Man: Spider-Man immediately takes Karen to see the Fantastic Four to ask Reed for help getting her home, and Reed creates a portal to her reality in a matter of weeks (and even that was only because he had to wait for her molecular state to stabilise so he could be sure he was getting a lock on the right reality). Even when he spends time working with Cyborg in the DC Universe, Cyborg is impressed at Reed's level of intellect when he needs his own cybernetic components to keep up with some of Reed's leaps.
- Worthless Foreign Degree: When Karen has been provided with sufficient identity documents to exist in the Marvel Universe, there is no way to forge her credentials without attracting too much attention, requiring her to build a reputation in a more conventional manner.
- Would Hurt a Child: Diana is disturbed to learn that her counterpart in Flashpoint killed a child.
- You Can't Go Home Again: Power Girl, having already lost one home on Krypton, is more than a bit horrified at the idea of once again losing her home and Earth and having to start over in an alternate dimension. When she learns how Barry Allen unintentionally changed her world's history and accidentally erased everything she knew again, she is left completely devastated, returning to the other universe as the grief at least feels less oppressive even if she can't get over it.
- You Remind Me of X: Some non-romantic versions of this;
- When Karen meets the Avengers, she muses that Captain America has a similar presence to Superman. Witnessing him in action as the Avengers’ leader later, she observes that he has a sense of old school morals that reminds Karen of the Kents on Earth-2, as well as a commanding presence.
- While talking with Spider-Man later on about a science project he's working on, she finds herself comparing him to Jimmy Olsen if Olsen became a hero in his own right, albeit with more scientific expertise.
- In her first meeting with Tony Stark, Karen muses that Tony is basically like Bruce Wayne if Bruce's "billionaire playboy" persona was genuine and had a larger ego.
- Hearing about how Annihilus can resurrect himself reminds Karen of the Resurrection Man on her world, save that Annihilus is basically the same whenever he comes back where Resurrection Man got a different power with each rebirth.
