It’s the final issue of the Absolute Power tie-in series and the moody cover by Pete Woods lets us know that this one one is a bit different. The previous numbers have involved world dictator Amanda Waller’s Amazo assault squad chasing down Justice Leaguers who escaped being flung into her metahuman prison. But look at this lot – Freedom Beast, Ghost Maker, New Super-Man, Mirror Master…? Three international heroes and a Scottish super-villain? Amazo, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.
We begin in space at the base of new superhero organisation Intercorps, where Russian superhero Red Star puts out a call to heroes worldwide.
Despite some efforts, the differences Red Star mentions do rather get in the way of a formidable group of superheroes being able to escape, never mind stop, the Amazo. Their initial efforts, led by Freedom Beast, Jack O’Lantern and Tasmanian Devil, look promising.
Presently, it seems like they’ve seen the power-absorbing android off.
It’s not long, though, before the talking has to stop – the Amazo returns from a brief sojourn in Berlin river the Spree, determined to fulfil its mission…
I enjoyed this chapter of the Absolute Power event hugely. Writer Dan Watters throws together pretty much every international hero you could think of, and does the reader the courtesy of introducing every one on the page. Relationships are sketched in where they help the story and the sudden bursts of action are well done – the basic power set of an Amazo is that of the classic Justice League, so it’s darned formidable even before it steals the gimmicks of the global good guys. So many potentially world-ending events act as if there are no super-people outside the USA that it’s great to have the spotlight on rarely seen heroes, and see that they, too, feel they’re not getting their due.
Being a Brit, Watters is a lot better than most Jack O’Lantern writers in conjuring up convincingly ‘Irish’ dialogue – there’s not a ‘begorrah’ in the book! The other heroes don’t sound as distinctive as Jack, but they’ve never had to contend with the cliched way the hero has been treated down the years, whoever is under the creepy mask at the time.
Amanda Waller pops up briefly, and I must commend letterer Dave Sharpe for a treatment I’ve never seen previously when dealing with her dialogue.
The Wall indeed.
The Official Global Guardians. The New Global Guardians. Eurocorps. Intercorps. International groups of heroes with the same desire to do good, but unable to build on their common ground. Watters’ metaphor isn’t subtle, but I don’t think he’s trying to hide it; the hero groups are like real-life international organisations, getting in one another’s way as they engage in pissing contests. I hope Watters has a proposal with DC for at least a mini-series continuing the conflicts seen here – I’ve loved DC’s international heroes since the Global Guardians debuted in Seventies Super Friends, and he obviously has ideas for them.
Appropriately, Watters is partnered with another European (Brexit never happened, nothing to see here!), Spanish artist Fran Galán, and there’s definite chemistry. Galán’s four-colour art serves the story well, the storytelling is clear as a bell, the characters full of life. And the Amazo – who Waller cheekily christens the Global Guardian – has creepy charisma.
The action continues in the upcoming final issue of Absolute Power, and I hope it answers the question this issue leaves me with – where the heck is Mirror Master? After that cover appearance, some New Global Guardians do travel by mirror, but we never see Evan McCulloch… unless I’m missing him?
(New Super-Man isn’t inside either, but I’m used to him being on covers without ever getting anything to do.)
Ah well, I don’t mind a little mystery. This comic gave me plenty to enjoy as it was – how about you?
Too Dangerous For a Girl 2 
I liked this story too, even if I didn’t know all the characters and had to look them up. It helped that it looked great.
I don’t know one Mirror Master vs. another, but apparently Evan McCulloch just died in Flash – but also was apparently only recently restored to existence. And now actually erased?
https://screenrant.com/flash-rogues-mirror-master-death-arc-angles/
Would Watters be up-to-date with what Spurrier is writing?
As for new Superman, he appeared in one panel in Absolute Power #1 where he was being zapped by an Amazo. Don’t know where he’s been since. The coordination of the main series with the Task Force VII mini and the various tie-ins has been imperfect.
T.N.
P.S. I don’t understand how this commenting system works, so this comment may appear 0, 1 or 2 times.
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Oh believe me, being up to date with Spurrier’s Flash doesn’t help, you know I’m pretty much always confused. I thought the Mirror Master who’d died there was Sam Scudder, but whoever it was I bet captured reflection can take the place of a dead original.
I actually thought Owlwomam was dead, too.
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Overall, I think Waid and everyone else involved in this ‘event’ mostly pulled it off. Outside of the Waller issues that supposedly explained her reasoning, I have really enjoyed this, much to my suprise.
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hey there anonymous T,
I’d agree that the Amanda Waller mini-series was not what I was hoping for. But that could be down to my own expectations. The current version of the character acts nothing like I’ve come to expect from the character. I was hoping that we’d get some kind of switcheroo explanation (evil twin, magical possession, some kind of comic book explanation for the change in approach) and instead we got some rewriting of Amanda’s history and motivations to help us understand why she does what she does. If it was any other character (or a new character), I might go with it, but this seems like enough of a departure from what had been established that none of it rang true for me.
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And we get the conclusion tomorrow, hurrah!
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Well looks like my comment is lost in WordPress jail so I’ll try once more. (I liked the old commenting system here so much more – this one thwarts and confuses me.)
Maybe the problem is I included a url, so I will break it up this time.
I liked this story too, even if I didn’t know all the characters and had to look them up. It helped that it looked great.
I don’t know one Mirror Master vs. another, but apparently Evan McCulloch just died in Flash – but also was apparently only recently restored to existence. And now actually erased?
https: //screenrant . com/flash-rogues-mirror-master-death-arc-angles/
Would Watters be up-to-date with what Spurrier is writing?
As for new Superman, he appeared in one panel in Absolute Power #1 where he was being zapped by an Amazo. Don’t know where he’s been since. The coordination of the main series with the Task Force VII mini and the various tie-ins has been imperfect.
T.N.
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Thanks for the link… you remind me I still haven’t read last week’s Flash, it’s just sitting there. Brrrrrr.
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I enjoyed this issue. This is kinda what I want from an event. I like checking in on some of the rarely seen corners of the DCU.
I’d certainly be up for seeing some of these characters again. Probably not in their own series, but I’d certainly be happy enough to see them pop up in a story arc or two somewhere. Maybe even in a mini-series. It certainly seems like there’s plenty of character interaction to explore.
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Let’s hope that now they’ve been in a recent comic other DC writers will be keen to pick them up. Maybe Mark Waid will drop one or several into JLU.
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I hope so. There are lots of comics where one or two of them could pop in for a storyline.
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I realize this is a minor point, but I think it was bad form for DC to put Kenan on the cover without including him or anybody else from the Justice League of China in this story. I’m not much of a fan of the JLC and I’m ok with a cover not being an exact match for what’s on offer in the book, but it’s still feels like a cheat when the cover prominently features a person or group who isn’t featured or even mentioned in the issue at all (incidentally, this is also an issue with this month’s issue of Power Girl, which prominently features her and her date Axel even though she’s only in the last three pages of that book and he’s completely absent from it; for shame DC).
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It’s a very fair complaint, that cover tells you that not only is Kenan in there, he’ll be a main character. I get that covers are usually done before the stories, but it could’ve been tweaked.
Sssssh, we try not to mention the current run of Power Girl!
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Since the reviews here have stated that Snidely Whiplash in drag doesn’t appear much, I’ve read most of the time ins now. This one was just meh to me. The inter team conflicts weren’t given a lot of depth and I came away unsure of who was in what team and who they were against. All of my Global Guardians knowledge dates back to JLE and Belfast or whatever that psychic’s name is I never heard of her or why she has or pretends to have a beef with fellow heroes.
The art also seemed hollow to me. I don’t have a better word to describe it. Similar to how some artists’ work looks when printed straight from pencils instead inking by them or someone else.
I should state though my meh is a good meh, not a bad meh. I did overall enjoy reading the book even if it didn’t give me a reason to care about the characters, what they were doing and had come from, and I don’t foresee any rereading of it in my future.
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I don’t know Belphegor either but it seems she goes back to the Eighties and Teen Titans Spotlight #11, the Brotherhood of Evil meets Tintin (sort of) issue.
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