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Absolute Power (2024) #1-2 Review - RIB15

Absolute Power (2024) #1-2 Review

Disclaimer: I haven’t read any of the lead up to this event, though I have some context from YouTube videos and I don’t feel as if I’m missing critical context. I’ll try not to spoil anything beyond the advertised premise.

TLDR: This event is really intriguing, I knew the premise and yet it has exceeded my expectations. The art is phenomenal and really my only complaint is having to wait to see what happens next.

        Absolute Power is DC’s newest company-wide event. It seems to be the culmination of plots that have been in motion since January of last year, but I’ve only now hopped on. I don’t really regret this, the thing with comics is that there’s always a “before” and after having read the first two issues to this event, I don’t really feel like I’m missing information that would be critical for my enjoyment. If you’ve been following along with DC’s announcements at SDCC this year, you would’ve seen that they’re planning on launching titles under the Absolute banner that follow an alternate universe, and this event is the lead up to that (I could be wrong).

        The two things that struck me with the first issue are the art and the cast. I’ve read a few DC events before but it’s been a long time for anything with such a large cast of characters. I already know that there are going to be a lot of tie-ins which I don’t see myself reading, but I think that it’s cool that fans of all the DC niches can enjoy something together. The second hero you see in the first issue is pretty obscure and one of my favorites. It was a nice surprise and even though they didn’t matter for the rest of the plot, it left a favorable impression on me. The art is really crisp and detailed, in terms of modern comic book art this is really to my tastes and I can’t praise it enough. In addition to the penciller, the colorist did a spectacular job. I really felt like the artists gave it their all and I didn’t think there was a single lazy panel.

        I was biased from the beginning of the first issue at seeing a character I liked but as I was reading it, I still expected to be bored. I couldn’t imagine the premise going in a place I didn’t see coming. I’m not the brightest person so I’m not going to say that the plot went in a direction that couldn’t be anticipated, but it ended in a way where I had my eyebrows raised and I was definitely hooked. The pacing for that whole issue was really engaging, the sort of reading where you don’t want to put it down.

        The second issue was a bit slower, there were characters who were in the spotlight that I had no connection to but this is bound to happen. The action was very nice and it introduced elements to spice things up, it was very smart plotting on the part of the writer. I felt, however, that it was a bit muddled. Not so much that it really detracted from my enjoyment, but there was a lot happening very quickly (I think to show off some new directions and ideas for various characters). I think that a tighter focus during the combat would’ve been a better approach, perhaps more dialogue as well because there’s supposed to be heavy hitting emotion on the part of a key character that doesn’t fall flat but that also doesn’t, in my opinion, meet its potential given what was going on in the scenario.

        Alright now I’m going to contradict myself, one of my biggest gripes is that the second issue ends on a cliffhanger that doesn’t really do anything for me because I am lacking in critical context. I don’t particularly care because I don’t think it’s a big deal, but it’s still a little bit of a bummer. On the bright side I don’t think most people will feel this way, I’m still excited to see what happens next and although I don’t know the specifics of the cliffhanger, some stuff is made very explicit that is very interesting. I suspect this was done for people lacking the same context as me.

        Overall, this event is really enjoyable. I’m walking away wanting to see what happens next, I’m super engaged. Again, I really have to give a shout out to the artist, the art is absolutely cracked, it’s really good.

Nikhil Saxena

Founder, Destrier Studios

https://linktr.ee/destrierstudios

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