The Furious And The Fast — Reviewing ‘Absolute Power: Task Force VII’ #5

Even one of the fastest people alive cannot hope to outrun the looming shadow that is Amanda Waller’s iron fist.

It’s a race against time as the Flash finds himself at the mercy of the Amazo robot known as Velocity in Absolute Power: Task Force VII #5. A quick-paced entry in this anthology series from Alex Paknadel, Pete Woods, and Dave Sharpe.

Anthology books, especially for big superhero comic events, are a dice roll. You never know what you’ll get or whether you’ll fully enjoy it, since they can run the gamut. With books of this particular nature, it will really depend on a lot of factors, chief among them your connection to any given characters appearing.

As always with these reviews, and my life in general, I’ll be quite honest here. I’m not a Barry Allen fan. Not even close. Truly the only version of Barry that I liked was The CW’s Arrowverse version, but that’s because he’s very much closer to Wally in Barry’s skin. Yet here we are, me thoroughly enjoying a Barry Allen story.

Paknadel is one of those writers who just makes things click and work, and I love to see what he does with certain characters. Velocity is the one guiding the narrative for the most part, with that computer brain trying to accomplish its mission. But through its eyes and the world we see some pivotal and touching beats from Barry’s life and what Iris (and Wally) means to him.

Also helping is just how gorgeous Woods work is on the page. Everything is just so grand, powerful, and smooth. It actually feels like these characters are running, as well as moving exceptionally fast. Everything is kept in such a very tight focus panel-wise which means we the audience are right in the thick of everything.

A solid mix of colors from the vibrant to the more tonally neutral and even some really pulled back beats give the book such life. All the fantastical elements have the brighter heavier colors to them while the world around them matches the tonal range of what we know around us. Quite a few flashbacks (in the form of Speed Force visions and Velocity dealing with memories taken from speedsters) appear and they are distinct thanks to a great touch of monochrome or slightly toned down palettes.

There is so much heart present in this story even though it’s a dire race to the finish line affair. We feel that so much thanks to what Paknadel and Woods accomplish together. Building off of that is the work that Sharpe is pulling with the lettering. Really letting emotion, personality, purpose, and color surge through to give each word such power.

I really like what is being done with the captions for the Amazos, really hitting home about their robotic presence. Lightly colored words on stark black boxes just works.

Oh, I almost forgot about the Steve Trevor tag for this issue. Steadily these bits have been building to something, and it looks like were finally there. Turns out, if one didn’t read the 2021 Crime Syndicate miniseries and 2021 volume of Suicide Squad they might be a bit confused (it’s me, I was confused).

Long story short, that Donna Troy led group is the modern version of Earth 3’s evil Crime Syndicate of America. They were established in their own mini and in the Suicide Squad book, Waller, through the squad led by Peacemaker, made inroads into their universe. Guess the lead up to this event was longer than I had assumed.

Absolute Power: Task Force VII #5 is now available from DC Comics.