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Kieron Gillen's Power Fantasy About Political Assassination (Spoilers)

Kieron Gillen and Caspar Wijngaard's Power Fantasy About Political Assassination (Spoilers)

Published Wed, 07 Aug 2024 12:01:08 -0500

Article Summary

Kieron Gillen's Power Fantasy explores superpowered beings altering history and politics with dramatic stakes.
Dramatic tension as a political assassination by a superpowered protagonist shakes the comic world and readers.
Comparisons to works like The Boys, The Wicked + The Divine, showing a mix of superpowers and political intrigue.
Comic set near a timely real-life political event, raising questions about art imitating life and its consequences.

Power Fantasy #1 by Kieron Gillen and Caspar Wijngaard is published today, when distributed by Lunar and next week through Diamond. Welcome to the way things are now. I think Forbidden Planet in London got some direct in time for today's London signing though, kicking off right about now. An alternate history of a handful superpowered beings straddling the twentieth century and changing its history. I suggested it might be The Wicked + The Divine meets Uber, and really, that's pretty much what it is. With superpowers playing politics with super powers. And individuals of different world views playing off each other. Jupiter's Legacy Done Right, that might be another one. Maybe "what if The Boys wasn't quite so lazy" if I wanted to be slightly controversial. Because The Power Fantasy definitely wants to be. Even if it didn;t mean to be quite as controversial as it has turned out to be.

The USA comes for one of the more hot-headed figures that this new history revolved around at the very end of the twentieth century, necessitating some last-minute and frantic negotiation between the superpowers to keep the world from imploding in on itself in the aftermath.

Do you remember that scene in the book/film Fail Safe? That saw an American nuke accidentally hitting Moscow, which led the USA to launch its own nuclear missile at New York to even the score and prevent all-out nuclear war. Killing millions but saving hundreds of millions?

That's kind of what we have here. Except it's not America deciding its own self-sacrifice.

It's the real superpowers of this world.

And merely weeks since a former President and current candidate was a victim of a very close assassination attempt, the Power Fantasy depicts a successful one. Committed by the main protagonist (it seems) of this comic book, at the behest of another.

How will this go down? I get the feeling there must have been some conversations between the creators and Image Comics when real life and this power fantasy came oh so close.

Writer Kieron Gillen has form. Do you remember what he did to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Once And Future with Dan Mora?

We all do…. as well as what Siegmund got up to in Uber. Is there a theme coming?

POWER FANTASY #1 CVR A WIJNGAARD
IMAGE COMICS
JUN240461
(W) Kieron Gillen (A/CA) Caspar Wijngaard
Series Premiere. "Superpowered." You have certain preconceptions. They're incorrect. Here, that word has a specific technical definition. Namely, "any individual with the destructive capacity of the nuclear arsenal of the USA." There are six such people on Earth. The planet's survival relies on them never coming into conflict. Come dance to the ticking of the doomsday clock with Kieron Gillen (The Wicked + the Divine, Die) and Caspar Wijngaard (Home Sick Pilots, All Against All). The eternal fight against fighting starts now.
In Shops: Aug 14, 2024 SRP: $3.99

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