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DC Power returns to celebrate yet another compilation of black led stories. Last year, creatives like Brandon Thomas, Khary Randolph, and N.K Jimisin brought their unique voices to the underrepresented pantheon of black characters. Directly following Absolute Power, this year’s edition sets up the return of The Power Company. Outside of functioning as a backdoor pilot, this book serves as a platform for fearless representations of black culture. Whether that means the representation was all that good is something we can discuss below!
The Return
Brandon Thomas pens the central story in the anthology, “Company Man,” which follows Josiah Power. Way back in the early 2000’s, Kurt Busiek and Scott Grummet created DC’s answer to Heroes For Hire, with Josiah Power and The Power Company. In a nutshell, Josiah started a paid firm for metahumans in the DCU during a huge boom in metahuman activity. Although Josiah has popped up here and there, the Power Company aims to return in a big way after the big power switch-a-roo seen in Absolute Power, JLU, and The Atom Project. At the start of the story, Waller’s actions have led to the death of Josiah’s nephew. As a result, Josiah increases his political presence, becoming an advocate for metahumans and black and brown communities. At the same time, he curiously prepares for the inevitable loss of control of his own abilities.
Charles Stewart III’s visuals are simple and feature mostly rigid gestures and basic backgrounds. None of it really holds up in quality under scrutiny. Throughout the story, the panels flit from scene to scene, giving the impression of speeding through the day. Luckily, this sequencing plays into the plot, as Josiah must expel energy about every eight hours. Consequently, his detonation is one of the more colorful spreads in the book. Although the Justice League helps Power with his unexpected detonations, this situation worries him enough to restart the team. Incidentally, in the second half of the story, Josiah meets with Black Lightning with this in mind. Unfortunately, even with professional advice, Josiah is unable to convince him to join.
Score: 6.5/10
Ring Of Power
Zipporah Smith’s “Ring Of Power” catches readers up with Malik “Bolt” White on the heels of the 2022 Black Adam solo series. Basically, after Malik’s “refusal of the call,” an encounter with Vixen convinces him to reattempt heroism. The main conflict follows a xenophobic human rights group called the Humanity First Movement who reject metahumans after the events of Beast World and Absolute Power. Weirdly, the group are virtually one to one parallels with Marvel’s Friends Of Humanity made popular in X-Men: The Animated Series (1997). Still, beyond the hollow antagonists, the story is really about heroic nature.
The artwork in this story is sketchy with a lot of the base drawing being visible in the characters and backgrounds. Leniently, I want to attribute this to style, but the lack of an inker credited says that perhaps it’s unfinished. Considering she got control of the Kingdom’s database of black heroes in DC Power 2024, Vixen recruiting Malik makes sense. Where the story falls apart is in the structure. Malik goes aimlessly through his work shift, Vixen shows up, threats not far behind, they have one panel fight scenes, and it’s over! It doesn’t help that there’s a time travel element implying that Vixen needed the timeline reset to beat angry people. In any case, the inclusion of authentic voices are a highlight, though the flirty undertones between the leads feel forced.
Score: 4.5/10
Unfinished Business
“Unfinished Business” features the unlikely team up of two Justice League members who were standing around in the Watchtower. Almost as if to say, “stop socializing on the job,” Red Tornado sends the duo to handle a space station S.O.S. Naturally, Cyborg and Green Lantern Sojourner “Jo” Mullein travel to the station to investigate, only to find a mustache twirling villain. This story doesn’t have very much depth. Initially, the conflict surrounds Jo missing her family after a long time abroad in Far Sector and other stories. While this may be an interesting thread to pull, she enters and leaves the story drawing the same conclusion. Nonetheless, John Jennings uses it as a way to temporarily torture Jo with her unexplored guilt.
The best part of this segment is the crisp artwork by Caanan White and Atagun Il-Han. The use of warped perspective and creative paneling makes this fun to flip through. On a negative note, the entire inclusion of Despero is a low point. In this story, the cosmic titan Despero seems more excited to see the Justice League back than the league itself. Jennings portrays Despero as nothing more than a troublemaker these two heroes can beat up until he cries uncle. Tonally, it feels more Saturday morning cartoonish than anything. Alternatively, the space station setting is effectively eerie, but even that opens up a lot of questions about how they are fighting in space in general. Despite his plan having no value, it makes for a cool looking comic book, with an admittedly redundant closing point.
Score: 6/10
Batman & The Signal
Vita Ayala teams the two of the few African American members of the Bat-Family together for a night of crimefighting. While taking down a street gang in New York City, Jace Fox finds unexpected help from The Signal! Surprisingly, Jace rejects the usual team-up dynamic outright, and spends much of the issue bemoaning Duke’s interference. Firstly, Jace’s disgust is off-putting and hypocritical. Not only has the character shown up to assist in other books in the same fashion, but he has his own “Robin” as well. This may just be an oversight, but it isolates his “I work alone” attitude solely to this interpretation. Secondly, cursing Duke out made me uncomfortable. Not just because the two of them are black and should have each other’s backs, but the overuse of grawlix is excessive.
Honestly, I’m not a big fan of John Ridley’s version of Batman; mostly because I prefer Luke Fox, but I always like seeing more Duke. Here, Ayala portrays Duke as a plucky sidekick type, eager to connect with someone like Jace. This bromance is fun but weird. One moment they’re butting heads, then the next this toxic father figure is schooling him in a game of Spades. Which is something I never knew I would read in a comic book someday. The artwork is the best in the anthology and makes for a very exciting read. Although Ayala attempts natural colloquial dialogue, there are several awkward lines such as, “you gotta ask first before you hit a man from the back,” or “the only hard thing is your head!”
Score: 6.5/10
Recommended If…
Excited to read stories led by African American characters.
You’re a fan of The Power Company.
You aren’t averse to representation.
Overall
Apparently, the Power Company will return in DC’s Black Lightning ahead of the powerhouse team of Khary Randolph and Bryan Edward Hill reviving the group in The Power Company: Recharged. In light of that, this may have been a decent tease, but it wasn’t that great of a comic book by itself. Many of the stories in the anthology tell simple stories, but mostly aren’t effective one-shots. What this edition does well is unapologetically explore black mannerisms and voices in the DC Universe. The kinds of characters that play Spades don’t pop up very often, but I don’t ever need Batman saying he has to “carry the culture” again. Similarly, I don’t see why Josiah Power needs advice on how to talk to other black people. Overall, these stories were mediocre, and likely won’t appeal to anyone outside of the black community, but I’m happy it exists at all.
Score: 6/10
“}]] DC Power returns to celebrate yet another compilation of black led stories. Last year, creatives like Brandon Thomas, Khary Randolph, and N.K Jimisin brought… Read More