Big Questions, But What’s The Right Answer? ‘The Power Fantasy’ #13 Advance Review

Your kid’s in a coma, and you naturally want atonement. And you are one of the few people in the world who has superpowers. So that atonement was always going to be messy. And that’s exactly what happens when Raymond “Heavy” Harris comes knocking on Jacky Magus’s door ion The Power Fantasy #13. Or rather, Dev’s door, parading as Magus as he has for the past decade. Magus’s response? “Kill All Hippies,” which you can’t help but wryly smile about, even with all the deaths involved. A slice of writer Kieron Gillen’s wicked sense of humour beautifully punctuates a rather tense standoff. As all great comic book writers know — and I place Gillen in this bracket — a little bit of well-placed humour helps break the tension. And there’s a good deal of tension in this issue. 

Thankfully, before a single hippy can be killed, intervention — and a steadier head — intervenes. But it’s a good example of the seething tensions that now exist between the Atomics after believing they killed off Etienne Lux, who was revealed last issue to be a big, gelatinous brain hiding out in a New York basement. Another deliciously daft comic book trope that, in the hands of Gillen, isn’t so much so. Indeed, it was a genuinely shocking revelation. Besides, who can’t help but love a huge, pulsing, sentient brain with a master plan every now and again, right? 

Beyond this tense standoff comes the exposition and explanations. It’s another revelatory issue and one that, as is often the case with Gillen, poses big ethical and moral philosophical questions. It’s a big part of this series’ success and what makes it stand out so much from any other superhero comic book out there at the moment. In a world that produced the Holocaust, if you had the power to make a difference — albeit one without the consent of the masses — would you do it? Who watches the Watchmen, indeed. No one can say Gillen takes his readership for granted. In fact, he challenges you to consider these questions, just like Valentina, Masumi et al. Although I doubt any of us reading this issue will have the same solution as Heavy has. 

As for Caspar Wijngaard artwork? What can I say that I haven’t already? It’s distinct, contemporary and cool. His economy of line works so well, with clearly defined characters and an eye for fashion, outfitting all the cast in appropriate clothing for the time and for their characters. In a comic book series where a lot of decisions are made not with brawn but with brains, there’s a lot of dialogue and talking heads. To be able to pull that off, issue after issue, and still keep the reader engaged, is a skill of both art and script combined. You’ll be encouraged to ponder the big, morally complex questions while being drawn in with the art and the acting. A comic book that won’t allow you to simply passively read it. Now that’s a book I can relate to. The ideas floated around about how much one interferes with society’s trajectory were one Watchmen embeds it into the very fabric of the series, and why, I suspect, reviewers like me will still, inevitably, compare it to this classic. That and the clear comparisons easily made between the ever-calm Etienne and the equally calm, but detached, Dr Manhattan.

The Power Fantasy #13 is out on Wednesday, 10th November, from Image Comics.