By: “DragonKingKarl” Karl Stern (Patreon / Facebook / Email)

Webmaster & Writer - When It Was Cool

Podcast Host - Wrestling Observer, When It Was Cool

DC’s Absolutely Power: Ground Zero is an Absolute Mess and Other Comic Book Issues

Or… Old Man Rages at New Things

Look… I hate writing articles or doing podcasts like this. I am told they can be funny or interesting, but I legitimately want to like stuff… not hate it. I don’t “hate watch” stuff, I don’t sit around looking for ways to be offended or disappointed. There is too much of that in this world. Sometimes, however, you discover that things really have changed and changed in a way that is not always the best.

It’s been probably at least a year since I’ve read any new comic books from DC. The last several years of horrendous Superman stories and convoluted “Batman is broke (and boring)” just left me disinterested. When was the last time anyone even cared about the Justice League, DC’s greatest super team? Five years ago? Ten? I legitimately can’t remember.

It’s been well known within the comic book fan community that DC Comics has been a dumpster fire for years. This week I saw a new “event” book had come out and I thought I might give it a try and, perhaps, catch up with what my old friends Batman, Superman, and company are up to. The event is Absolute Power and the issue I grabbed is Absolute Power: Ground Zero Issue 1. The tag line on the front cover proclaims, “Waller wants the world… and she’s about to get it.”

I am not in love with the cover, but it did get my attention. The trio of Wonder Woman, Superman, and Batman tells me this should be a big story (though the ratio seems a bit weird). I am predisposed to like Superman, he’s historically been one of my favorite heroes, and I am literally doing a Batman in Order Podcast and article series. I remember Amanda Waller most favorably from the old Justice League and Justice League Unlimited cartoon series. I remember her less favorably from the Suicide Squad movies, but I know she is a big government type power player and can be a solid antagonist, so far, I am on board. Let’s do this…

After some dialog by Amanda Waller and a masked female who I am not familiar with I am dropped into a Suicide Squad type scene and scenario. I immediately realize that this “new event” is not new reader friendly. It becomes obvious to me within the first few pages that I do not know most of these people and I am not really introduced to them. Again, I admit I have not read new issues of DC Comics very often over the last several years, but I am trying to give you a chance here, but serious, I don’t know these people and I feel like I’ve been dropped into the middle of a story, not a beginning.

I am not going to give you a blow-by-blow account of the story, honestly, I don’t understand most of it. This is not the comic book world I grew up with where you can grab a floppy off the spinner rack and, regardless of whether it was issue 1 or issue 150, you could read and understand the story. I start the issue in the middle of a story I don’t understand, and it ends no clearer.

I finally get a glimpse of Batman sixteen pages in but, like everything else in this issue, I am dropped into the middle of something with little context or set up. I do glean several pages later that Amanda Waller is creating some-sort of “Metal Murder Monster” robot that looks similar to Batman but, honestly, that’s about the best I can do with the story thus far.

Superman finally shows up on page 29, but he doesn’t look like the friendly Superman I want to know. He looks, honestly, evil and frightening. Maybe this is how Superman is these days; I haven’t been able to read Superman stories in years. I finally gave up on Superman when he spent about a year or so just walking around and being boring. At least he’s wearing red shorts again. All I know is Superman does not look like the good guy here.

I do discern in the following pages that this was some sort of flashback, or simulation, or… I’m not sure really, but 20 years later the child that Superman looks ready to kill here has been raised by Amanda Waller and is some sort of Braniac something or other… why am I even trying to explain this? It’s so non-new reader friendly and I honestly do not care about any of these people.

SPOILER ALERT… I am about to give away the ending so if you don’t want to know how issue one ends don’t read any further…

In the last scene, Superman is shot by a bad guy with a gun. Yeah, I know, Superman has been shot thousands of times before and bullets don’t hurt him, except, in a shocker this time it does. We see an apparently mortally wounded Superman falling to his (apparent) death in the streets below. At least someone put him out of his misery. Maybe I’ll try DC again in a few years…

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