ABSOLUTE POWER #1

 

    DC's big summer event this year is Absolute Power. The basic premise is that Amanda Waller, the head of the Suicide Squad, decides to de-power all of Earth's superheroes. She's working with Failsafe, who I'm pretty sure was killed off in the last issue of Batman, and Queen Braniac, a new villainess. Why is Amanda Waller doing this? Who knows? She hates superheroes, I guess. Marvel did pretty much the same thing in the House of M event years ago. The Marvel superheroes all lost their powers. I never read that, so I'm not entirely sure how similar it is. DC did a good thing with putting the World's Finest team on Absolute Power. Writer Mark Wait and artist Dan Mora are definitely two of the better creative teams working at DC. All the critics and fans seem to always say that World's Finest is DC's best superhero book. World's Finest is basically Batman and Superman together. World's Finest is good, but nothing spectacular or anything. And I guess it won't be coming out anytime soon. That, or maybe they're putting a different writer and artist on it. Absolute Power is only 4 issues, which is good. They don't even have a checklist in the book showing all of the tie-ins. That probably means there are like a thousand. In this first issue, Superman attempts to stop a bank robbery and is shot because he doesn't realize he's lost his powers. The way they de-powered all the heroes is by using some villain robot guy named Amazo. Must be a retro villain or something, because I've never heard of him. They also mention in the book that all of the superheroes' powers are never coming back. Yeah, sure. Like in a year, Superman won't have powers. Good luck getting anyone to read that book. While the art is really good and the colors by Alejandro Sanchez are dynamic, the story is actually kind of dull. I don't usually enjoy these big event books and reading this #1 issue just reinforces that. There's always just too much going on and you know nothing is actually going to change in the long term, so what's the point? Be entertained? I think the plot is actually too dark and depressing for entertainment purposes, actually. Eh, maybe #2 will be better. *1/2