Collected in three trades to date, “The Power Fantasy” offers a thought-provoking take on a super-powered world where the planet’s top powers coexist in a careful detente, a la the United States and the Soviet Union.
Writer Kieron Gillen does a great job anchoring the story in the disparate personalities of his core cast, and artist Caspar Wijngaard is adept at capturing day-to-day life as well as weird happenings from other dimensions.
It’s a compelling, rewarding read, particularly if you’ve ever found yourself weighing in on a “Professor X vs Magneto” debate.
Volume One: “The Superpowers”
Brisk and intelligent, Kieron Gillen’s “The Power Fantasy” casts superheroes as super-powered states, with a stalemate between them of mutually assured destruction.
Set in 1999, the first volume of the series introduces us to a small set of “supers” with world-threatening power. The heavy hitters have a kind of detente, one that’s tested with countermeasures and petty annoyances. But things get complicated when the government intervenes to try to reset the board, with drastic consequences.
Gillen’s writing is excellent here–he does a great job building distinct personalities and setting them against each other. He also aptly throws us into the deep end of decades of history and lore, doling out details bit by bit to keep us turning pages. It’s strong work and engrossing world-building. The art by Caspar Wijngaard is wonderful too, detailed and distinctive, with good street-level scenes and global power displays.
Volume Two: “Mutually Reassuring Destruction”
The second volume of “The Power Fantasy” maintains the high interest and creativity from Kieron Gillen and crew.
Plot-wise, we find our six potentially world-cracking superfolks jockeying for position in “modern day” 1999. We also get an extended flashback to the “Second Summer of Love” in 1989, one that begins with an alien figure spreading euphoria in Manchester, England and ends with dire results for the European continent and Eliza Hellbound’s soul.
It’s engaging stuff, tight and smart. Gillen delivers several big twists with the storytelling that really worked for me. More than that, he does a great job with voice and character, capturing a good array of memorable personalities in a tight page count.
The art by Caspar Wijngaard is excellent too. He conjures hellscapes and space-age tech and some pretty astounding fractures of reality. It’s a great partnership delivering an exciting super-hero read.
Volume Three: “The End of History
Volume three of the Power Fantasy offers a thought-provoking “wrap” on what seems to be the first season of the ongoing title.
The series’ theme is superfolks as superpowers, of the mutually assured destruction sort, and here we see what happens when one of them presses the button. Betrayals and back-stabbings pile up until the whole systems of counterbalances collapses spectacularly.
Writer Kieron Gillen does a great job anchoring the conflict in the disparate personalities of his cast. He raises big questions about free will, the greater good and individualism, even as he extrapolates superhuman abilities to their natural ends.
Readers will have ample room to disagree about characters’ actions and motivations as the series adds up to a smart, satisfying read. My only complaint is the speed with which everything fell apart. The system’s fragility is clearly indicated, but I would have enjoyed a couple more issues drawing it out.
The art by Caspar Wijngaard is strong throughout. He has fun illustrating different eras as well as cosmic entities. It’s a fascinating framework, and I look forward to the creators revisiting it.