The Power Fantasy #7 // Review
Manchester. Maybe it’s 1989. It’s a big public demonstration. The authorities are spooked, so they’ve sent-in the riot police. Things are starting to get ugly. A shotgun is raised. There are...flowers the come out of it. There’s a woman there. Looks radiant. Like a fairy. She wants to bring heaven to Earth. For everyone. It’s not going to work that way in The Power Fantasy #7. Writer Kieron Gillen continues a deep exploration of godlike superpowers and alternate history with artist Caspar Wijngaard. The strange history of a world with all-to-human gods continues to captivate in its latest issue.
Etienne suggests killing her if they get a chance. She’s a wild card. No telling what her true intentions are. Anyone with that kind of power is going to be unstable. She’s extremely powerful. The wrong mood swing or chance in temperament could be devastating from someone of her power. And they still don’t know anything about her. (Not really.) She IS turning all of Manchester into a big, happy rave. The entire metropolitan area has turned into one, big festival and the new godling just wants everyone to enjoy it all. What could possibly be wrong with that?
And in the seventh issue, Gillen carefully tears apart reality. And as long as he’s going to do so, he might as well be doing so in Manchester. Nice place for it. Very casual. The exploration into the nature of godlike attempted utopia sprawls its way across the page in a staggeringly brilliant sort of an exchange between gods and mortals and more. So much of what Gillen is exploring is the nature of power itself in al its many forms. So what happens when the abstract form of total beauty decides to make the world unendingly beautiful? Of course it’s going to be tragic. Gillen makes the obvious trajectory of that tragedy feel absolutely breathtaking.
Wijngaard splashes the draa across the page with a grans sense of perspective and proportion. The world is a very, very big and unforgiving place...even for those who weld great power within it. Wijngaard does some beautiful things with perspectives and relative sizes of things that makes for precisely one hell of an impressive impact upon the page. The color is particularly impressive as well. The seventh issue in the series is a big issue for contrasting moods. Wijngaard does some impressively vertiginous mood shfts and swings with the color alone. Very impressive.
And once again...this is a HUGE amount of fun to follow GIllan and Wijngaard hav already made it to the seventh issue of a series that continues to feel fresh and new...like it’s only just now gettin off the ground well over half a year into its run. And as it is the case that every issue of the series thus far has been as good as it’s been...that’s actually a really, really good thing. Gillen has clearly done a tremendous amount of rendering the full reality of this series behind the scenes. Thankfully...he’s giving the plots, premises and themes plenty of room to reveal themselves in time.
