Snow Globes Hold The Key To The Secrets Of The Universe

Reading Power Girl #1 something I liked was that Power Girl collects snow globes. Not because of the 'Please stop messing with my globes' joke, though that was amusing*. It's one of those little things that I like, because I think it tells us something about the character. It's something she's interested in, so as readers, we can infer something from that.

You know where this is going.

What is the appeal of snow globes to Power Girl? Well, snow globes are typically designed to reflect a particular locale, usually based on popular opinion of the place, set in a convenient, easy to store design, that has the added advantage of being pretty, and encouraging shaking vigorously.

So they could serve as a stress reliever, either through releasing frustration with lots of shaking, or just by staring at the serene scene within. I think Power Girl probably views fighting evil as a bit of a stress reliever, because it's OK to elbow the albino gorilla trying to destroy the city in the face, but that's generally frowned up in the corporate world**. And heck, she's trying to start up and run her own company, so taking some time out to gaze at snow falling on a boxing glove sporting kangaroo could probably calm her down, especially since she looks like she might also enjoy a nice large coffee***, which could amp up the nerves. Unless she was drinking tea. Hmm, what is Power Girl's beverage of choice? Wait, straying off-topic.

Snow globes are something people frequently collect as a reminder of someplace they've been. They can point to it and say "See, I visited {insert location}!", and this may trigger memories of that trip, leading to a lengthy reminisce that bores the hell out of everyone present. Kidding! I mean, it's probably an entertaining story about a person in an unusual place, and their adventures trying to go sightseeing, or find good restaurants, or keep cabbies from swindling them, or whatever. Power Girl's from Krypton, which is gone, and she (and whatever was in that capsule with her) are all that's left. And whatever pieces of her Kryptonian heritage are left over, probably she can't set out in plain siight in her office****. Plus, she's from another universe, and I don't know what she has left over from her time on Earth-2, so out of lack of options, she may have developed a strong bond with this current Earth, and she would like to remember all the places she been and seen on this world.

It might be ana ffirmation of her existence. She was somehow replaced on Earth-2, by another (kind of nutty) Power Girl, who has all her friends, and the life she had. So that was taken from her, so maybe the snow globes are a way of saying "Yeah, I visited these places. Me, not some other person that looks like me."

Or, they could represent the aimlessness of her character since Crisis on the Infinite Earths. Different powers, origins, costumes, different teams, stupid mystical pregnancies, not having a lot of roots set down in any one place. So she drifts, and picks up snow globes as she goes, just so she can say she got something out of that particular period in her life.

Anyway, those are just some theories.

* And I had a moment of "What? I would never! Oh wait, she's talking to the nutty scientist guy." Cursed meta-commentary panel design.

** I think. I've stayed out of the corporate world to this point in my life, but hitting irritating people has generally been verboten at my jobs.

*** That raises a question: Kryptonians are tougher than Earthlings, immune to all sorts of stuff that would affect us. Would the caffeine of a large coffee - assuming it's not decaf - even faze her? Or would her metabolism just wipe that stuff out before it could kick in?

**** I know Power Girl has a civilian identity, but is it a secret identity? It wasn't at some point pre-Infinite Crisis, but that could have changed somehow, given all the universe upheaval since then.