The truth behind Power Girl’s bust

Since I did a post on the origin of Barda, I’ll do the same for Power Girl. Well, not Power Girl, but her boobs and boob window. First let’s take a look at what I believe is the largest that Power Girl’s boobs have ever been drawn on panel in a DC book. From JLA by the late Michael Turner:

Yeah, that looks real.

And now Power Girl in one of her pre-crisis team-ups with Helena Wayne, the Earth-two Huntress:

Quite a difference, eh? So how did we get from the panel “B” to Power Girl being synonymous with big boobs?

The story is that one of the artists created Power Girl’s super-boobs as a joke. Here is Jimmy Palmiotti in an interview in Comics Bulletin from last month:

Okay. When the character was created Wally Wood was the artist that drew Power Girl, and he was convinced that the editors were not paying attention to anything he did. So, his inker said every issue I’m going to draw the tits bigger until they notice it. It took about seven or eight issues before anyone was like hey, what’s with the tits? And that’s where they stopped. True story.

That story was examined, with visual evidence, in this article by Ragnell that you should go read anyway because it’s good (and because it uses the word “Breastrospective”).

Whatever the history of their size, there is no question that once enlarged Peej’s boobs have been used as fodder for creators culminating in the wonderful series from Amanda Conner, Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Grey:



And the “boob window” is one of the most discussed features of any superhero costume“ including last year’s "boob gate”. Of course, the window wasn’t always there.

So setting aside the obvious answer of creators providing “fan service” why does Power Girl wear a boob window? Is it to use her assets as a diversion?

Because it gets hot flying around and beating up bad guys?

Or is it that she just likes showing off a great set of boobs? To me those would all be acceptable reasons. But the only official reason we have is this:

Ugh. I’m going to ignore the “can’t think of a logo” reason and go with ones that from above.