The Power Fantasy #4 // Review
One of the most totally dangerous men on the planet enters an art gallery. He sees a friend of his there. She’s really concerned about the opinion of a critic. The most totally dangerous man on the face of the planet isn’t impressed. He’s not exactly a people-pleaser. He’s just killed thousands of a people with a thought. So he's not exactly concerned with what other people think of him as he begins The Power Fantasy #4. Writer Kieron Gillen continues one of the most refreshing series to debut in the last few months. The story comes to the page under the power of artist Caspar Wijngaard.
Masumi is a bit nervous. She doesn’t know how the people are going to react to her art. And then there’s this critic. And there’s this critic’s opinion. Might not necessarily mean a hell of a lot to the public at large, but it DOES mean a tremendous amount to Masumi. So maybe the critic wrote the review in advance of having seen the opening. And maybe there’s going to be real danger in this when Masumi finds out. And maybe the critic is going to have to be honest about what she sees when she’s looking to be honest about her opinions of the artist’s work.
Gillen explores a fascinating and provocative angle on the god-as-artist concept. Jerome Bixby’s 1953 short story “It’s a Good Life” was the basis of a very compelling episode of the original Twilight Zone series. A boy with godlike powers can twist reality. Everyone needs to keep him happy or the whole world might be destroyed. Gillen extends that concept into the world of expression and art in a more complicated and textured world of superheroes and the villains that they might become. It’s interesting stuff even if it doesn’t feel quite as novel or compelling as the first couple of issues in the series thus far.
Wijngaard’s challenges with this particular issue are considerable. Throughout the series, there’s always been the issue with powerful psychic Etienne. He’s such a lofty personality with so much tucked away in his psyche that it’s almost totally impossible to deliver anything to his expressions an emotions without totally exaggerating it all. So
Etiienne--one of the single most important characters in the whole series--has to look kind of inscrutable. With the fourth issue, though, there are a number of characters who have to totally maintain their cool in order for the world to continue...and so the entire issue has to have very tense drama delivered with a very cool and detached sense. Wijngaard does a sharp and clever job of framing pages and panels in a way that makes it all seem so very intense without overburdening the page with unnecessarily over displays of emotion.
It’s clever stuff. The problem is that the story at the heart of the fourth issue isn’t exactly compelling in the new and novel way that the first three issues had been. The overall essence of the statement being made by the fourth issue, though...IS powerful. And it’s interesting. And it’ll be interesting to see where Gillen and company take things next.
