(10) KIERON GILLEN –

THE POWER FANTASY (Image 2024)

 

“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.”

 

Okay – I’ll admit that this entry is aspirational, in turn reflecting that it is my usual wildcard tenth place entry for the best of the present or previous year.

And by aspirational, I mean it is this year’s comic that I want to read but haven’t read yet.

In fairness to myself, the first issue was only just released in August 2024 – with issues to follow each month after that. So it will be some time before the first collected edition comes out – generally it take six issues or so before they are released together in a collected edition.

Also in fairness to myself, I have enjoyed previous series written by Kieran Gillon for Image Comics, so have high expectations for this one.

 

“You are of the Pantheon. You will be loved. You will be hated. You will be brilliant. Within two years, you will be dead.”

 

The first was The Wicked + The Divine from 2014 to 2019, a series I previously ranked in my top ten and still one of the best from Gillen or Image Comics. It featured the Pantheon, a shifting rotation of gods in the Recurrence – when twelve gods (and goddesses) return (or incarnate) as young people for a bright, shining two years before burning out, as they have every ninety years for millennia. Except, you know, God, because that would just be boring. We’re talking beautiful, sexy, pop-star pagan gods and goddesses here, although they change with each Recurrence. Or something like that because the rules are not entirely clear and keep changing.

 

The second was Die from 2018 to 2021, a series I would previously have ranked as my wildcard tenth place entry in my top ten. It featured “a pitch-black fantasy where a group of forty-something adults have to deal with the returning unearthly horror they barely survived as teenage role-players” – a concept the writer pitched as “Goth Jumanji” but was more using Dungeons and Dragons as an intriguing exploration of fantasy as a genre.

That extends to the character classes of the game in the story as an intriguing exploration of character classes in Dungeons and Dragons – Dictator (like a bard with mind control mojo), Neo (a cyberpunk mage powered by fairy gold), Godbinder (like a cleric cutting deals with gods), Grief Knight (paladin literally powered by emotion), and Fool (combination of rogue and bard powered by luck). Indeed, the classes and game mechanics were so intriguing that Gillen spun off an actual role-playing game for them.

 

“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…”

 

So I’m looking forward to the collected edition of Power Fantasy…although I also want to read We Called Them Giants released in collected edition in October 2024 – which also qualifies it for my wildcard tenth place entry.

 

RATING: 4 STARS**** (based on my ratings for his previous series)

X-TIER (WILD TIER)

 

COMICS: TOP 10

 

Exactly what it says on the tin – my Top 10 Comics, including webcomics (as three of my top ten entries, indeed three of the top five).

You don’t need me to explain what comics are, but I might need to explain some things.

First, comics are my guilty reading pleasure I have retained from childhood, much like animation in TV or film. And much like animation, whatever the comic, I’ll usually enjoy checking it or its characters out.

Second, perhaps surprisingly after the first, I don’t read that many comics, let alone actively follow them. For most comics, I don’t go beyond checking them or their characters out in brief overview or review to reading them in depth. Usually, my interest is satisfied by the idea of a comic – or ideas in a comic – rather than the comic itself.

In particular, I don’t follow or read any comics from the ruling duopoly of DC and Marvel, with the exception of the former’s, ah, former label of Vertigo, although I have an enduring interest in and familiarity with many of their characters – but more in their film or television adaptations (or in their art and cosplay) than their original comics.

Anyway, these are my Top 10 Comics.