Advance Review: ‘The Power Fantasy’ #12 Reveals Etienne’s Startling Secret Origin

After the shocking – then surprising – end to the second story arc of Kieron Gillen and Capsar Wijngaard’s The Power Fantasy, I couldn’t wait for the next issue to drop. One of the perks of this job, of course, is to be honoured with advance issues of certain comics. In this case, The Power Fantasy #12, which couldn’t come quickly enough for this hungry reviewer. And it didn’t disappoint.

With two collected trades and a new issue dropping this October, it really couldn’t be a better time to think about picking up one of the more challenging but satisfying reads on the shelves at the moment. And if you do, consider telling a friend too? It’s the kind of comic that, I think, is perfect ot recommend ot your comic book reading pals, but also to those lapsed readers. A newly minted universe, which is really easy to get into with the lack of decades and decades of convoluted history that most mainstream supes share. With The Power Fantasy, you really can easily get in on the ground floor. I highly recommend it. 

With the false hopes created by the false death of Etienne Lux, the gang once more turns to the end of the millennium and the fears that swirled around then are once more stirred up, with some preferring to party while others take a more sombre view. And don’t get me started about the President of America, who is rather too emboldened by Lux’s death, if you ask me.

Meanhwiul, Valentina is the only Atomic who’s not fooled by Lux’s death. Like Mark Twain before him, it’s been highly exaggerated. And she knows.

For most of the issue, however, we are witness to the Secret Origins of Etienne Lux, in the grand tradition of comic books. Wijngaard once again gets creative in his depiction of the past. Black, white and grey washes may be rather clichéd when used to flash back to Lux’s tragic birth and debilitation, but not so when you consider the wider context. Throughout this visually stunning and format-bending series, Wijngaard has been meticulous in his depiction of certain scenes and certain characters. Each player in The Power Fantasy has a particular voice (with much of the credit for that going not only to Gillen’s scripting, but letterer Clayton Clowes’ craftsmanship too) and a particular aesthetic too. All thanks to the carefully considered design work of Wijngaard. And as such, not only is this one of the more cerebrally challenging comics on the shelves, it’s also one of the more stylistically stunning too. Artist, writer and letterer working in simpatico with one another seamlessly. This is what comics should be, and can be!

But, enough of my hyperbole. All you need to know is that this issue is a great first chapter in a new story arc that, based on the evidence of this issue, is going to be explosive. Not just regaling us with Lux’s origins and his ability to swap bodies (hey, I don’t consider this a spoiler, given the revelations of last issue’s final page), but we get an even more startling revelation that’s both shocking and B-Movie funky and creepy too. In a good way. 

The Power Fantasy #12 is out on Wednesday, 8th October, with FOC today, Monday, 15th September, from Image Comics.