Warning: Spoilers for Power Girl #8!A subtle New Girl reference perfectly symbolizes the tone of DC’s new Power Girl comic. Since the first issue of Power Girl dropped last September, DC Comics has committed to providing a new take on the Power Girl character. PG has gotten herself a new secret identity (Paige Stetler), a cowboy name to go with it, and even a new love interest to fawn over. The Superman family affiliate is being placed in new storylines under a new tone different from what readers are used to seeing from her.
To complement the new tone of her stories, Power Girl #8 by Leah Williams, Eduardo Pansica, Julio Ferreira, and Becca Carey gives a nod to the beloved 2011-2018 sitcom, New Girl. Just as that TV series had a “Douchebag Jar,” Power Girl has the “Psychic Jerk Jar” for her roommate, Lilith Clay aka Omen.
Such a reference would not be out of place in a comic series like this, which, itself, has its own brand of sitcom energy. A New Girl shout-out is the perfect way to highlight the kind of tone the comics have committed to thus far in eight issues.
As mentioned earlier, Power Girl has teased a romance between the title character and one Axel Gust, who seems to be hiding some secrets of his own. PG has mentioned him in passing to Omen before, but not by name. When Omen namedrops Axel’s name to Paige, that can only mean one thing: she used her psychic abilities to invade the personal space of Power Girl’s mind. This is actually a bad habit of Omen’s, one that can only be policed into check with the help of an at-home Psychic Jerk Jar.
The Psychic Jerk Jar is not unlike the famous Douchebag Jar from New Girl. A running gag on the show, the jar applies to all roommates in the apartment. However, it mostly exists for Schmidt to commit a dollar to the jar whenever he says something mean, unpleasant, or qualifies as plain “douchebag” behavior. Similarly, the Psychic Jerk Jar exists for both Lilith Clay and Paige Stetler, but more so for the former whenever Omen reads Power Girl’s mind. The latter says that she’s done it so often, they can afford a second apartment if they want.
The Superman family affiliate is being placed in new storylines under a new tone different from what readers are used to seeing from her. If the newfound tone of her comics had to be placed under an umbrella, one could argue Power Girl has sitcom energy. Whether it’s intentional by the creative team or not, the New Girl reference makes that feeling all the more apparent. Power Girl’s new adventures have her rediscovering herself, discovering love, and even partaking in mundane activities like rollerskating in tropes akin to the sitcom style of storytelling, taking pages out of New Girl‘s book.