“Absolute Power #3” Speaks Truth to Power (original) (raw)
Editorial
“Absolute Power #3” Speaks Truth to Power
BY: Jules Chin Greene
Monday, September 9th, 2024
Long in the making, Mark Waid and Dan Mora’s Absolute Power promises to shake up everything you thought you knew about the DC Universe. In this series of features, Jules Chin Greene unpacks each new chapter of the core comic book event and helps us come to grips about just what it might mean.
How do we define power? What do our answers to this question reveal about us? Forgive me if I sound like I’m addressing an empty lecture hall right now, but these are the questions at the heart of the Absolute Power event. Even though we’re all reading this game-changing miniseries on our own time, in our own corners of the world, I think Mark Waid and Dan Mora’s story is inviting us to think together as a superhero fan community. Absolute Power is massive, and there’s a hero for just about everyone here (though I’m still waiting on those New Gods). With such a diverse cast assembled, this question of what power is can be answered in any number of ways.
For Amanda Waller, power comes from information and misinformation. As Absolute Power shows, she carefully uses disinformation tactics to sway public opinion about superheroes. Information is a means to an end. While she doesn’t have any special abilities, she gets her leg up from using information to influence. She’s a sledgehammer behind a screen.
That said, I want to push back on the idea that power is just influence over others, and instead want to approach it in terms of a philosophy held by Bruce Lee. For Bruce Lee, his physical prowess as a martial artist didn’t matter as much as using his body to “honestly express” himself. To practice martial arts is to find self-expression and truth.
While Bruce Lee isn’t part of the DC Universe (though Richard Dragon in the excellent Batman: Soul of the Dragon movie looks just like Lee in Enter the Dragon, down to his mannerisms), Absolute Power #3 celebrates this idea. It was such a relief to see Jon Kent finally yank control over himself from the Brainiac Queen and take the moment to reveal to her how Waller had fed her lies. It proves how warped Waller’s conception of power actually is. True power never lies in deception.
It’s not every day that you see a robot experience cognitive dissonance. Seeing the Brainiac Queen try to make sense of the “new data” that “conflicts” with her original programming was, dare I say, fun? I hope the Brainiac Queen can sort herself out and take the time she needs to wrestle with how she was deceived by Waller. I would be interested to see if she can be reformed for the greater good, and if we’ll be seeing more of her after Absolute Power. Her character design is so arresting with the porcelain mask-like face and the pink Edward Scissorhands hands. It would be a shame for it to go to waste, but I trust in whatever choices Mark Waid and Dan Mora have in store for us.
Also, I got a good laugh from Blue Beetle roasting Red Tornado for wearing the Helmet of Aztek as they raced to rescue Time Commander. I love Ted Kord through and through, but him talking about “fashion crimes” is hilarious considering that the dude hasn’t changed the look of his costume since he debuted in 1966, save for the shape of his goggles. Not that he needs to! His costume is perfect. But let’s be real, do we think Ted knows who Law Roach is and is an ardent follower of Derek Guy? Who knows, Ted contains multitudes I suppose.
Truth certainly is having a thematic moment in the DC Universe right now. If you’re reading Tom King and Daniel Sampere’s Wonder Woman, which you absolutely should be, you’ll remember that Diana’s new villain, the Sovereign, wields a weapon called the Lasso of Lies. It does the exact opposite of her Lasso of Truth, in that it infects its victims with false ideas. Meanwhile, Jon Kent’s boyfriend, Jay Nakamura, is a journalist who runs his own site called The Truth. Absolute Power is the latest book to contribute to this ongoing exploration across the DC Universe.
While I certainly try to live in the moment as much as I can, as someone who likes to view comics as expressions of the time period they were created in, I often have one eye looking towards the future. I think in many years, we’re going to remember Absolute Power as a reflection of how truth became a battleground in today’s world. I’ll leave you to form your own thoughts on how, where and why that came to be. We still got one more issue of Absolute Power left in the tank, and I’m steeling myself for what’s to come.
Absolute Power #3 by Mark Waid, Dan Mora and Alejandro Sánchez is now available in print and as a digital comic book.
Jules Chin Greene writes about comics, TV, games and film for DC.com, and his work can also be found at Nerdist, Popverse and Multiverse of Color. You can follow him on Twitter and Bluesky at @JulesChinGreene.
NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in this feature are solely those of Jules Chin Greene and do not necessarily reflect those of DC or Warner Bros. Discovery, nor should they be read as confirmation or denial of future DC plans.