It's been well over a year since I picked up "Worlds' Finest," which was never a bad book but just hadn't held my interest that strongly. With that in mind, it seemed like a good a time as any to pop in and see just how this team-up book of Power Girl and Huntress is coming along, courtesy Paul Levitz, R.B. Silva, Scott McDaniel and Joe Weems. (And if nothing else, see how well it follows the "everyone's issue is someone's first" school of thought.)

As it turns out, "Worlds' Finest" #18 is in mid-storyline, as Power Girl's abilities are going haywire while Huntress tries to save her. That's the overriding plot of the issue, as they also try and find a character with tattoos, who (presumably, based on what's presented) stole or altered Power Girl's superhuman powers. The logic in some of the issue feels a little spotty, though. Something strong enough to take out the Williamsburg Bridge can be stopped by getting dunked in water, for example, and the way that Huntress pulls herself and Power Girl down using a tugboat and some lines doesn't seem to quite line up with geometry.

On the other hand, I did like the chatting that Power Girl and Huntress (who are originally from Earth-2) had about the duplicates of people they knew from their own universe. It's a nice touch, and in many ways came to be what I took as the most interesting aspect of the comic. Power Girl randomly blasting a bridge is something that we could read about almost anywhere, but a pair of friends trapped in an alien-yet-similar universe is a real story hook. That's the sort of material that would bring me back -- not a strange horned faux diety.

McDaniel provides layouts for Silva and Weems, and the end result is a book that doesn't look as great as I'm used to from Silva. The smooth and slick look that I remember from Silva's collaborations with Rob Lean just isn't here; it's very blocky and rough in spots. It's hard to tell why that happened (McDaniel's layouts, Weems's inks, or even Silva's pencils are all possibilities) but while it's not bad it's also not the lure that Silva normally creates for me. In many ways this looks much more like Scott Kolins' old art, to the point that I'm sure I'm not the only one who double-checked the credits box. The art is ultimately all right; it doesn't do anything particularly off (save for the not-at-all-right geometry of how Huntress and Power Girl got dragged into the river, as mentioned earlier), but it also never jumps out as anything more than average.

It was nice to revisit the series via "Worlds' Finest" #18, if only to see what had happened in my absence. It's not a bad book, but in the end it's still not a book that promises to grab interest and compel readers to find out what happens next. There are some good bits here and there, and I'd love to hear that Levitz is focusing more on Power Girl and Huntress adapting to not being in their own universe and less on random attacker of the week. As it is, this book is just all right, nothing more.