Written by: Mark Waid
Art by: Dan Mora
Colors by: Alejandro Sanchez
Letters by: Ariana Maher
Cover art by: Dan Mora (cover A)
Cover price: $4.99
Release date: October 2, 2024
Absolute Power #4, by DC Comics on 10/2/24, brings DC's biggest event of the year to a close with an all-out attack on Amanda Waller's base while her army of multiversal metas threatens to invade.
Is Absolute Power #4 Good?
Imagine a very expensive seafood dinner at a high-class restaurant where the house's special dish is a mound of crab legs. You decide to treat yourself to the most expensive entree on the menu, so you order away with a hopeful yet nervous smile on your face.
When the waiter returns with your meal, a steaming pile of uncracked crab legs, you dig in with gusto.
The shell cracker turns from steel cold to toasty warm as your fist clenches and unclenches the tool with the speed of an accelerating steam engine.
Bits of sharp-edged shells fly in every direction, seemingly intent on missing your bib by the invisible hand of Fate.
Beads of sweat materialize as you delicately work the long-necked fork into every nook and cranny of every crab leg to tease out the morsels of delectable meat.
When your intense workout of extraction is finally over, you look down and see the amount of delicious crab that you could reasonably extract isn't enough to fill a small tin cup the size of a thimble. Exhausted and disappointed, you sit back and wonder, "Was it worth it?"
That's what Absolute Power #4, the conclusion to DC's biggest event of the year (maybe the decade), is like. You put in all the effort, get bombarded with tons of mess and noise, and pay way too much money for a story that doesn't have enough meaningful content to fill a small thimble. To answer the question, "No, it wasn't worth it."
When last we left the collection of heroes in one of the umpteen tie-in books, Jon Kent freed himself from Brainiac Queen's influence (and possibly expressed feelings for the late Dreamer), Diana and Damian Wayne successfully staged a prison break of all captured heroes from the Supermax prison on Gamorra Island, and Batman confiscated Waller's secretly hidden Mother Box.
In Absolute Power #4, the hand-waving begins in earnest. The collection of heroes uses the weapons stolen from Gamorra Prison to assault Waller's stronghold. Batman, Blue Beetle, and Time Commander somehow sneak into Failsafe's Electronic Lab undetected and create a counter-gadget to the rewind devices in all the Amazos. Flash and Green Lantern race to the portal Waller built to prevent a multiversal backup from arriving to aid Waller.
After a lot of frenzied action and convenient cameos (Dreamer's death isn't so permanent). The Amazos are destroyed, sending everyone's power (almost) back to where they belong. Waller is in custody with her mind partially wiped to keep her secrets from getting out, and the Earth is cut off from the multiverse (somehow) when Barry destroys the portal.
What's great about Absolute Power #4? To Mark Waid's credit, you get plenty of fast-paced action, twists and turns aplenty, and a conclusion that ties up all the major plot points in one fell swoop.
What's not great about Absolute Power #4? The down points fall into two discreet categories - shortcuts and outcomes.
Yes, several shortcuts were needed to get this story across the finish line. The lethal weapons carried by Waller's stormtroopers all malfunction at exactly the right time with the thinnest of explanations.
Two incursion teams infiltrate the heart of Waller's stronghold without raising an alarm or encountering any resistance.
Dreamer's "resurrection" is just plain lazy. Marvel readers familiar with Iceman's recent "resurrection" will see a lot of disappointing parallels.
The destruction of the Amazos relies on one Time-based hero having just the right tool for the job at the very last minute when there are multiple Time-based heroes who could have worked out the same problem long before now. Time Masters, Anyone?
Then, there are the outcomes. Waller ends up in prison with her dangerous secrets locked in her mind in a place she can't access. You know she's coming back, so why bother with the setup?
Everyone gets their powers back except for a handful who either got nothing or got their powers switched. Isn't this the same outcome from Lazarus Planet? Does anyone believe that change is going to stick?
Destroying Waller's portal cuts off the Earth from the Multiverse. How? There are dozens of ways DC characters have traveled the Multiverse, so why would destroying the portal be a dealbreaker?
Ugh. The list goes on, but the thing to take away from this issue is just how little there is to take away. Nobody died, almost all the heroes and villains are back to the way they were, and the Justice League is ready to reform.
In effect, all the toys went right back into their toy box. If you peel away all the tie-ins, interruptions to ongoing titles, and supplementary material, the main plot could have started and finished in three issues.
No, it wasn't worth it.
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 #4 technically wraps up DC's biggest event of the year by putting almost everyone and everything back the way it was, confirming the mountain of tie-ins and interruptions was completely pointless. Absolute Power isn't a multi-month, epic crossover to shake the pillars of the DC Universe. Absolute Power is a three-part miniseries that got blown way out of proportion and cost with little to show for it.5.5/10
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Part 1 :Disappointing doesn't even begin to describe what this issue was.( as always criticism is only intended for the writing quality and not a personal attack on the writers)
ReplyDeleteAfter being cautiously optimistic(having too much trust in hindsight) because of who the writer is despite all the many plot holes and questionable mechanics that were there from the start, just so maybe just maybe we would get something meaningful or impactful out of this mini series (forget even it being an event, let's not even discuss that) to then be rewarded with...this. wow just wow.
Hand waving is exactly what this whole series was.
They have failed to justify Waller's role in the story. After a lot of passionate explanations and reasonings from people about why she could do all she could and how this was all set up, she was just an after thought in her own event. And was defeated in the lamest way possible. I don't think I even need to explain why that last conversation wih Nightwing or better yet, her whole approach with green arrow and this event was lame. I wasn't a fan of how she was set up as the big villain of the event mainly because of the insane amount of hand waving needed to get her to basically control the whole world without major political reprecussions and pushback but after all this hassle, I was frustrated on her behalf for how she was defeated. She was barely an afterthought in her own story.
What was the point of Failsafe? It seemed like Brainiac Queen was and should have been from the start the main villain of this event cause it seems she was the only thing keeping the operation going. Failsafe was basically useless despite being hyped as this ultimate Batman robot that knew how to counteract Batman and his allies and etc. Well guess not cause he got thwarted in almost every tactic the heroes pulled except for that one story in Task Force VII which had no bearing on the main story at this point.
Part 2: What was with the whole Amazos talking like victorian era people? Not that it was really that evident in their speech, the characters kept saying it so the reader had no choice but to accept it but what was the point then? Was that Starr 's influence and how it clued Batman in who created them? Was that Ollie messing with them? Failsafe? Hello??? Did I miss something? Even if it was explained, it should have definitely been brought up in the main event! What is going on???
DeleteAlso The Amzos did not and still have not made sense in regards to how they steal and here return powers. The whole concept wasn't something to care much about, there I said it, yes not every idea from the past no matter how much it has been featured is a good idea and Amazos being these robots/androids that can just absorb and take away powers is one of those ideas.( At most I would maybe give them the ability to nullify and replicate meta genes, but magic and mystic arts? People accessing time via science? Microverse? Ghost powers???? Nopeeee. Also did I miss it or was Swamp Thing overlooked in this event?? Convenient if he was but if not him being nullified doesn't make sense. Forgive me if he wasn't nullified though cause so much is crammed in just these 4 issues which obviously needed more space that it has made the story difficult to keep track of but I did pay attention closely and checked more than once) It doesn't make sense and so much of this event and its stakes and storytelling beats rests on them. Do they realise they have just cracked the formula on how to give basically any power in the DC universe to any character (cue the Oprah meme) ??? You just have an Amazo absorb a power then reverse engineer it to anyone you choose and there you go! You have your own laser vision and flight and speed etc etc. It has casually destroyed so much of the world building with poor explanation as its setup or at the very least changed the landscape completely. But I predict this will not be mentioned or considered in future. Humankind has basically created the means to genetically super themselves with the ability to specifically choose the power set desired and almost no setbacks and probably will not use it again. ( on a subjective note, I hate the idea of powers just being switched like they are pokemons or something. Hopefully this will be resolved off screen and not mentioned again)
Apart from all of this, where was the story? Only issue 1 attempted something of a plot with characters and atmosphere and interesting cliff hangers, the rest was just action without much meaning behind it except what artificially was tried to pass as one (example the whole Jon cyborg plot and the Aquaman speech.). All that nonsensical plot holes to not at least get some decent character based story out of this. ( I laughed at the part with Superman putting Kandor on the pedestal, if you have read my comment for issue 2 of this event then you know why)
Also am I missing something or the preview description for this issue was weird? Where did Superman and Batman find themselves at bitter odds?? Did they forgot to write that part into the story? And that Multiverse army was just a waste of 7 issues of Steve Trevor setting up this much tension of what could Waller possibly be attempting to then barely be featured.
I would have just ignored this series and wouldn't have gotten this frustrated with how bad it is if it wasn't hyped so much as the event of the summer. Apart from the promises in issue 1 this event only had incredible art. The story was less than paper thin and the equivalent of just playing with some action figures and having them battle each other. I wouldn't give credit for that. A fight scene without character or good foundation or stakes isn't a story. I could just google some cool fight scenes and look at it and that's it.