The Power Fantasy vol. 1: The Superpowers

It’s a brand new creator owned series written by Kieron Gillen!  This is something that should be cause for celebration after his work on titles like “Phonogram,” “The Wicked + The Divine,” and “Once & Future.”  Yes, there was also “Die” but that was a case of being Not Bad rather than Actively Terrible.  That this is coming after the writer’s most recent stint at Marvel would also imply that he’s itching to cut loose after having to work within the restrictions imposed by mainstream superhero comics.  Gillen being Gillen, however, means that his big post-Marvel superhero work is something that actively tries to avoid the kind of spectacle that the genre routinely traffics in.  Which, in this case, isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

“Atomics” are what people with powers are called in the world of “The Power Fantasy” but to call them superpowered individuals would be a misnomer.  A “superpower” in this world is used to describe a nation state with an extreme influence on global politics, or an individual with the equivalent destructive capacity of such an entity.  There are currently six individuals here that can be described as superpowers.

We have Etienne, the ethical but not moral omnipath who always tries to resolve a situation in a way that involves the fewest deaths.  Valentina, who is here to try and save us all from ourselves and may be an actual angel.  Heavy, the gravity-controlling aging stoner that’s hiding a big secret from his fellow superpowers.  Masumi, the Japanese artist whose mental state is tied to keeping the most powerful kaiju imaginable in check.  Jacky Magus, a sorcerer anarcho-arsehole-punk who once tried to control magical knowledge in the world, and has since decided that selling out is the way of the future.  And Eliza Hellbound, who sold her soul for immense power and may have saved the world by doing so.

If any of these individuals were to actually fight, the ensuing conflict would destroy the world.  So they keep the peace by not getting into each others’ business and by making small compromises to avoid bigger conflicts.  Compromises like killing off a few hundred specific people to avoid the death of millions from an act of superpowered reprisal.  It’s a delicate balancing act that has kept the Earth spinning – barring the occasional bit of inter-dimensional/galactic interference – that has become increasingly precarious to maintain.  What with all of the major players getting older and finding that they don’t think about things in quite the same way that they used to.

What we’ve got here is a superhero comic that’s all about superheroes not fighting each other.  Given how much of the genre revolves around these kinds of characters getting into personal fisticuffs or Earth-shattering conflicts, this setup seems perversely at odds with its bread-and-butter.  Unless you haven’t been reading superhero comics for this reason all these years.  Say, for example, the appeal of the genre hasn’t been in seeing these characters lay into each other month after month, but in seeing how they’re going to get out of the impossible situation they’ve been forced into during that time.

So if the idea of seeing impossibly powerful characters talk, haggle, connive, lie, and manipulate their way out of events that vary wildly in scale yet are usually never less than world-threatening, then this is the comic for you.  The conversation between Etienne and Valentina that opens the volume sets all of this up quite well as they try to decide whether it would be better to take over the world or maintain a balancing act of powers.  Things only get more fraught from there as we learn more about the history of the world and the small and big compromises and strokes of luck that allowed it to survive to the present day.  As well as the current behind-the-scenes struggle between the superpowers to keep each other in check.

The drama from that angle is usually spearheaded by Etienne as he represents the clearest superhero analogue in the volume.  He’s basically what Professor X would be if writers didn’t have to worry about breaking the general setup of the “X-Men” or the Marvel Universe itself.  Despite all of the power that implies, it’s fascinating to watch him try to adhere to an ethical worldview, and commit some truly monstrous acts here as a result.  While this is very much an ensemble series, Etienne is clearly made out to be first among equals and that looks to be a solid narrative choice so far.

The rest of the characters are also interesting in their own ways, even if some of their backstories are partially obscured by events the series doesn’t want to get into just yet.  Valentina says she’s here to save us from ourselves, but she’s already been nuked once by the U.S. in the process of this.  Jacky started out as a punk who wanted to bring magic to the masses he wanted to, but after that blew up in his face, he’s now out to get what’s his.  Eliza Hellbound… well, we don’t know much about her beyond the soul-selling bit.  Then there’s Masumi who can apparently summon something world-ending on her own, so long as she’s in the right (or wrong) mindset to do so.

If any of these characters would have benefitted from a more action-driven version of this story, it’s Masumi.  While it’s amusing to watch characters walk on eggshells around her, the actual nature and threat represented by her powers is only hinted at in the two pages that open her issue.  This is also to say that “The Power Fantasy” is a very talky book with nearly all of the drama coming from the words exchanged by these characters.  It’s as well-written as you’d expect by Gillen in that regard; though, this is definitely one of his less witty books as a result of its approach.  What separates this from “Die,” however, is that there’s a better sense of mystery regarding the stuff it’s keeping secret, and better worldbuilding in the sense that I find myself asking questions about the things it’s not explaining.

You’d hope that a series as dialogue-driven as this one would look good enough to maintain your interest as everyone talks things up.  Caspar Wijngaard illustrates this series and pulls off that aspect well enough.  I wouldn’t say we get anything jaw-dropping here, but the man is very adept at getting the emotions of the cast across in his art while also switching up the scale of the narrative at a moment’s notice once the use of superpowers is required.  There are moments where things don’t quite work – an encounter with a mech-suited individual in a Japanese airport feels more clunky than dynamic – but Wijngaard’s versatility still feels key to why this first volume works as well as it does.

If there’s anything working against this first volume of “The Power Fantasy” it’s that it doesn’t quite offer one jaw-dropping moment that would have me recommending this series to people who aren’t looking for its action-adverse brand of superheroics.  As a superhero comic that’s driven by the characters and their ideals rather than actions involving their powers, I think it sets up a really intriguing story where the pressure is only going to build as things go on.  Whether that results in more compelling or more overbearing drama remains to be seen, but I’m feeling that the latter feels more likely than the former after this volume.