Absolute Power: Origins #2 – John Ridley, Writer; Alitha Martinez, Penciller; Norm Rapmund, Inker; Andrew Dalhouse, Colorist
Ray – 9/10
Ray: John Ridley is retelling the origin of Amanda Waller, and it seems he’s doing it anthology-style – with each issue taking place at a different key moment in Waller’s life. Last issue chronicled Waller’s rise to power as she went from being a grieving wife and mother to a political volunteer, only to reveal her true face when she discovered the politician she admired was a fraud like all the others. This issue takes us forward in time, to Waller as a powerful government liaison – as she assembles Task Force X for the first time. This is very much a rudimentary version of the organization, without the powerful explosive stick of the Suicide Squad – until she meets Cyclotron, a young criminal who had a bomb implanted in him by a shady tech company. This impressionable petty crook wastes no time signing on with her – but she may be more interested in what’s inside him.
There are a lot of differences about this version of Task Force X. For one thing, it has a lot of high-powered, hard-to-control villains that may be wild cards. Lobo? Johnny Sorrow? Neither of them could be coerced by Waller, and Lobo in particular is likely only here because it gives him a convenient opportunity to go a-killing. The mission is big-scale as well, heading into what looks a lot like North Korea to take on an artificially generated superhero team. A betrayal leads to a shocking and explosive climax, and Waller turns her greatest failure into an opportunity. Ridley’s biggest strength here is how deftly he characterizes Waller, turning her from a murderous operative to a scheming wheeler-dealer and then to a loving mother in only a few pages. The characterization here is so good that it just makes me want to see this level of nuance in the character in other books.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
