Absolute Power: Task Force VII #1 Comic Review

Written by: Leah Williams

Art by: Caitlin Yarsky
Colors by: Alex Guimarães
Letters by: Dave Sharpe
Cover art by: Pete Woods
Cover price: $3.99
Release date: July 9, 2024

Absolute Power: Task Force VII #1, by DC Comics on 7/9/24, sets Last Son and his captive, Parasite, on a hunt for the Captain and Mary Marvel, but is this tie-in worth the cover price?

Is Absolute Power: Task Force VII #1 Good?

Let's not mince words. No, this tie-in isn't worth the cover price, nor does it contribute anything meaningful to the Absolute Power event. Does that mean Absolute Power: Task Force VII #1 is the worst comic ever? No, it's not the worst comic ever created, but it's rare to find such an obvious example of mediocre output on every creative level. Truly, this comic feels like it was made by middle schoolers for middle schoolers. Leah Williams's disappointing tale begins with Amanda Waller inspecting depowered, captured heroes and villains in her government-sanctioned prison. We learn through the conversation between Waller and Last Son, the Superman-styled Amazo robot, that the Captain and Mary Marvel barely escaped capture, thanks to Wonder Woman's heroic sacrifice. [Side note: The issue where this battle takes place is in Wonder Woman #11, which doesn't come out until next week. Good going, DC!] Waller deduces Last Son needs help tracking the Marvels down because even a small amount of magical power is enough for them to pose a threat. Parasite is selected to act as a type of power-sniffing bloodhound because Waller starved him for days or weeks, and he'll do anything to have his hunger suppressed. Right off, something seems off with Williams's script. The Amazo robots were designed and built to hunt down and depower all the heroes of the planet, so it's unclear why Last Son isn't capable of finding the Marvels. Further, we know from Absolute Power #1 that the Amazo robots can take away powers permanently to power themselves, so why wouldn't Last Son simply absorb Parasite's power fully and become his own bloodhound? Cut to the Rock of Eternity where we find Mr. Dinosaur finishing a month-long effort to properly organize everything in the Chamber of Souvenirs. Suddenly, he hears a loud crash, and he finds Mary Bromfield and Billy Batson making a mess as they search for weapons to defend themselves against more Amazo robots. Whatever tension is established in the main Absolute Power event is completely dispelled in this sequence of scenes. Billy bungles a sword, which creates a Rube Goldberg-like domino effect of crashes, ripped from a slapstick serial of the 1940s. Billy and Mary lament Billy's clumsiness with eye rolls and bad puns, which puts a kibosh on any hope for dramatic tension. Mr. Dinosaur listens to the adoptive siblings' trouble story, and he shows them where they can get the weapons designed to help if they ever get depowered. However, they have to fill out a mountain of paperwork first. Before they can complete page one, Last Son explodes through the door, thanks to the rabid tracking of Parasite, and blasts Mr. Dinosaur. We're halfway through the issue, and it reads like you're getting the shortcut version of the story. How was Parasite able to track Billy and Mary to the Rock of Eternity as it floats in space? Why is the alien Dinosaur, who's a stickler for mountains of paperwork, still a running gag with the Marvels? Who requires the paperwork since Mr. Dinosaur is now an "employee" of the Rock of Eternity? Last Son searches for Billy and Mary among the shelves and filing cabinets when he's attacked by Black Adam. The two fight with equal gusto, but Black Adam appears to get the upper hand when Last Son shows signs of verbal glitches. Just before Black Adam delivers the killing blow, Last Son latches onto his leg and drains him of power. Generally, the fight between Black Adam and Last Son is okay as long as you don't linger too long. If you look closely, the fight choreography is a disjointed hodgepodge of fast-paced movements and character positioning that works in the individual panels but doesn't flow logically in the panel progression. In short, Yarksy prioritized snapshot moments that look good without thinking the fight through. Billy and Mary use the fight as a distraction to escape. Before they bolt through the exit, Mary stops them to help Black Adam before he's killed. After some awkward banter about what to do, Billy calls Last Son "Ugly, " and is immediately captured. Billy and Mary's capture scene is just plain silly. Billy seems okay with letting Black Adam die until Mary gives him a disapproving lecture, which is a bit out of character for Billy. And again, Yarsky didn't think the choreography of the capture through because Mary kicked over a row of filing cabinets from several yards away when she was standing immediately next to Billy in the previous panel. For no apparent reason whatsoever, we cut to Steve Trevor as he exits a helicopter after landing on Gamorra where Amanda Waller set up her prison for supers. Last Son greets Trevor and escorts him past numerous cells, some of which contain Billy and Mary. The issue concludes with Trevor being led to a room for a meeting with his new boss, Sarge Steel with both hands intact(?). Talk about a jarring shift out of nowhere and a pointless conclusion. Steve Trevor is regularly assigned to work with, for, and near Sarge Steel, so the final scene isn't a big shock, except that Yarsky missed giving Steel a metallic left hand. What's great about Waller Absolute Power: Task Force VII #1? Not much is great about this issue. If you're a completionist and collect everything about Absolute Power, it's not the worst comic in the world. To be fair, Alex Guimarães's coloring looks fantastic. What's not great about Absolute Power: Task Force VII #1? Williams's plot is a clunky mess. The plot is disjointed and pointless, the character voices are off, and Yarsky's admittedly decent figure work is offset by frightfully poor choreography in every action scene.

As a small but annoying nitpick, the scene pictured on the cover never happens in this issue. Be warned! Again, if you need to have everything about Absolute Power in your collection, pick up this comic. That said, if you're financially responsible enough to only buy comics that weren't written and drawn at an amateur level, please avoid this issue.

About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.

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Final Thoughts

Absolute Power: Task Force VII #1 takes all the urgency, dramatic tension, and seriousness of the Absolute Power event and tosses it out the window in favor of a silly, disjointed, poorly constructed mess of a comic. Williams's script has all the weight of a deflated balloon, and Yarsky's confused action choreography is shockingly unskilled.

3.5/10

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