Absolute Power: Task Force VII #3 // Review
Amanda Waller has dispatched an uncomfortably large number of Amazo units to engage and capture every single superhero on Earth. It’s a hell of a rollout, but it’s been largely successful for the most part. Inevitably, however, there are going to be a few issues that crop-up in and around the edges of any plan as she is about to find out in Absolute Power: Task Force VII #3. Writer Jeremy Adams and artist Marco Santucci continue the crossover event, taking it in a new direction as things progress into the end of July for the huge, sprawling story. Color comes to the page courtesy of Arif Printo.
The Amazo unit in question is known as Jadestone. It’s been sent out to capture the Justice Society of America. It’s more than adequate to be able to handle some of the older heroes in the DC universe, so why does it falter? There it is casually crushing the neck of Alan Scott--the original Green Lantern. Suddenly it freezes-up. And it’s just...motionless. Alan is able to get out of the grasp of the Jadestone unit. And it’s just...still. Naturally it’s going to need to reboot. When it DOES it just might find itself a bit unmoored by the reboot. It’s going to have...free will...
Adams handles one of the oldest tropes in science fiction with a clever sense of action that moves across the page quite efficiently. The Absolute Power event has had a lot of issues. Not everything has been put to the page quite well. This particular chapter, however, manages to feel a lot more cohesive than most of the rest of it. Begins to show in Waller plan that to turn the tide in the direction of the heroes for the first time. It is exactly a triumph, though. And that's actually kind of a appealing way of delivering the beginning of the turn in fate that everyone knew was going to come around eventually.
Santucci frames the action of the story quite well. The drama hits the page a little stiffly. Pastors don't seem quite natural enough. Expressions seem ever so slightly exaggerated. That being said, there is quite a bit of nuance in the artist work. And it is brought to life all the more things to the color work of Prianto. The visuals have a very kinetic delivery of action that provides a respectable radiance around the edges of the energy.
It is remarkably difficult to keep things moving on a weekly series without having the whole thing feel rushed. There's quite a lot that has to happen in a very short span of time if everything's going to wrap up at the beginning of October for Absolute Power to usher-in the “All-In Initiative” and the coming Absolute Universe that DC rolled-out around the San Diego Comic Con. It's a hell of a lot to coordinate and they're actually doing a pretty good job of it. It's nice to know that, in and amidst all of the confusion and chaos every now and again there's going to be a chapter like this that's actually written pretty well.
