The Power Fantasy vol. 2: Mutually Reassuring Destruction

In 1989 the whole world experienced what would be called The Second Summer of Love when an alien arrived on Earth and proceeded to do her best to make everyone truly happy.  It was great!  Right up until it wasn’t after the alien succumbed to its own impossibly high standards.  The world survived thanks to the abilities of its superpowered Atomics, but even they struggled with this threat.  None more so than Eliza Hellbound who sold her soul to Hell for enough power to tip the scales when it really mattered.  She’s been living with that cost ever since.  So when Jacky Magus, or rather, the man who gave her the information necessary to sell her soul has decided to sell out to America, well, she may have some very particular thoughts about that.

Meanwhile, the fact that Heavy has a son means that his destructive power has just doubled.  Any guesses as to how the other superpowers, including omnipath Etienne, are going to react?

Writer Kieron Gillen and artist Caspar Wijngaard’s series about superpowered individuals desperately trying to work out their issues without destroying the world delivers its second volume in interesting, if not quite spectacular fashion.  All of the twisty interpersonal politicking that drove vol. 1 is still present, and we even get some payoff to things set up previously while also setting up a potentially devastating new status quo at the end.  This is good, but there are also parts of this volume that feel distractingly compressed.  The Second Summer of Love is positioned as a world-and-reality-destroying event that’s dealt with in three issues – in flashback.  I get that the story being told in the now of 1999 is the focus for the series, yet the events described in retrospect felt like they should’ve been their own epic story.

Aside from that, the main cast of characters continue to bicker in amusing fashion among themselves as they try to keep the peace between them.  The most interesting part of this plays out between Jacky and Eliza as they wind up hashing out past differences in a cathartic manner.  That’s definitely interesting to see unfold along with the effort to flesh out Eliza in her spotlight issue as well as the effort to get Etienne in the final one.  Good stuff, and all very well rendered by Wijngaard, even as it doesn’t quite feel like it’s quite clicking the way it should.  We’ll see if that changes in vol. 3 which is when I assume the most ethically-minded revenge tour kicks off.