In preface, I’ll say Dawn of DC is probably the best 12–18 months that DC has had in years in terms of line-wide storytelling. There have certainly been periods where what was happening in monthly titles led in to the culminating event, but rarely have the month-to-month and final event dovetailed so seamlessly. “Not since Infinite Crisis” is an easy thing to say, but I truly believe that not since Infinite Crisis has DC landed a year like they have with Dawn of DC to Absolute Power.

Also, I have only read Absolute Power proper so far and not the Absolute Power: Task Force VII miniseries or any of the regular series tie-ins. I sense there is a lot going on in those books, for which Absolute Power proper is only a frame, and so what I may describe as lacking in Absolute Power might be bolstered by those other stories. Indeed the eventual Absolute Power omnibus collecting all the various parts in publication order might emerge a knockout.

But for a book that is meant to be a culmination of a year of stories, the real climax after Lazarus Planet and Knight Terrors and Titans: Beast World and Superman: House of Brainiac, Absolute Power itself feels surprisingly small. At four main issues, it is over almost before it’s begun, and what pain our heroes are meant to feel is mitigated by its brevity. Too, I questioned writer Mark Waid’s depictions of some of the characters, and up until the end Absolute Power still struggles to make sense of the premises that have underlay Dawn of DC from the start.

That DC couldn’t stick the landing with Absolute Power doesn’t harm all the good of Dawn of DC leading up to it, but it’s a good thing Absolute Power has the rest of Dawn of DC, else its standing might be that much worse.

[Review contains spoilers]

As discussed before, Dawn of DC has very much been a year of experimenting in crossovers for DC Comics. Lazarus Planet was mainly just two issues (though part of the four-issue Batman vs. Robin series), with loosely connected anthology titles in between; Knight Terrors was six main issues with almost two dozen tertiary (generally skippable) miniseries; and Beast World was six issues with anthologies. Though DC had dallied with anthology tie-ins before, the Dawn of DC era seemed to formalize it; and whereas we’ve seen event miniseries tie-ins before (with Blackest Night, for one), the Knight Terrors tie-ins were a perhaps unprecedented example of “read what you want” that affected the main book hardly at all.

Absolute Power, in contrast, put me in mind of Underworld Unleashed and crossovers of that era, and not I don’t think just because of Waid’s presence then and now. Rather it feels Absolute Power’s most interesting storylines are happening in side quests — Batman recovering a Mother Box, Wonder Woman and Robin Damian Wayne freeing imprisoned heroes, Flash Barry Allen and Green Lantern Hal Jordan teaming up — some of which is in Absolute Power: Task Force VII, but a large part of which is in regular series tie-ins. Line-wide events interrupting a monthly title is mostly passé — even Dark Crisis mainly only affected Flash — but here Absolute Power goes old-school, with Absolute Power itself’s issue-to-issue reading experience being perhaps the lesser for it.

Consider for instance that as Absolute Power is four issues long and the entirety of the second issue involves a pitched battle within the Fortress of Solitude, that’s essentially a fourth of the book that takes place in just one “scene.” And poor Jon Kent, increasingly the DC Universe’s punching bag, but his traumatic transformation under the Brainiac Queen’s thrall (and Superman’s worry over the plight of his son) only starts in the second issue and is over by the end of the third. In his introduction to the book, Waid mentions that the suspense of Absolute Power is not so much whether powerless heroes will get their powers back but instead how they’ll handle the dire odds; but it seemed to me the story never sat with the tough straits long enough for the audience to really feel them.

Antithetical to the general Dawn of DC vibe, no sooner do the heroes get together than they begin bickering, much in a way we haven’t seen for a while. Arguing over who’s in charge, Waid’s Aquaman claims it’s a king’s duty (except Arthur’s of late a reluctant king, and also Mera’s the regent), then Mr. Terrific says he should lead because he leads the JSA (except he was totally absent from Geoff Johns' recent Justice Society of America Vol. 1), before Nightwing, of course, takes charge. One of Absolute Power’s implicit stipulations is to demonstrate by the end why the Justice League should re-form, but Waid still writes such that no one here is more capable than Nightwing, certainly not the ex-Leaguers.

Throughout, too, Waid has the very same heroes who made the decision to break up the League lambast their own decision as stupid. Maybe this is a function of writing by committee, whether the League was split up to meet the needs of Tom Taylor’s (enjoyable) Titans or such that it could be relaunched by Waid with aplomb in DC’s All In era. Either way, Waid struggles to make this a convincing arc rather that just the fruition of an inevitability. And when we finally reach that climactic moment, the two-page “let’s get back together” beat in the end is a pale shadow of a similar, much more effective scene at the end of Dark Nights: Metal.

Other “off” moments: that Aquaman calls people “landwalkers” (he grew up a human kid, you recall); that Mr. Terrific (again, supposed head of the JSA) doesn’t know Air Wave, one of the JSA’s recently returned “lost children”; the presence of “old blind man” Dr. Mid-Nite, what appears to be Charles McNider (who I thought was dead?); that Waid’s Black Alice here bears little resemblance to the hero he featured prominently in Lazarus Planet. As well, antagonist Amanda Waller has a multiversal gate through which she’s bringing in reinforcements, that Barry suddenly determines that if he destroys it “we’ll be cut off from the multiverse permanently”. That’s a bizarre bit of comic book nonsense given that surely Waller doesn’t have the only entryway to the multiverse, up to and including the Flash’s own ability to vibrate between worlds.

It’s in all of these ways that Absolute Power doesn’t stick together panel to panel. It’s certainly exciting, it’s got lots of big explosions and your favorite heroes in one comic together, and Dan Mora renders everything pleasantly for the most part. Waid is timely in his first issue as the DC heroes are brought down essentially by deepfakes, perhaps the first volley of the real-world AI revolution coming for the four-color heroes. Schmaltzy as it may be, Amanda Waller’s discovery that “goodness is a … super-power” is a fun moment, precisely the kind of thing that the DC heroes embody that Waller wouldn’t understand. Waid’s got the vibe in aggregate, even if again not panel to panel.

Still, in keeping with the themes of the year, Absolute Power is nicely not one of those grand multiversal continuity-changing events (for the most part), but a classic-type story of heroes versus villains. The inclusion of Amanda Waller in all the lead-up events this year was handled perfectly; if at this point Waller’s villainy is repetitive, it only reflects how beautifully she made things go wrong in Titans: Beast World. And I say “villainy,” but ultimately this book is better for Waller having no devious motive beyond truly believing the heroes are dangerous.

It seems Dawn of DC is ending right when it needed to. Any longer would clearly have been too long, and it’s too bad Mark Waid’s Absolute Power isn’t the best of the year. But, it's still a fine year overall that hopefully DC will be able to repeat.

[Includes original and variant covers, variant cover gallery, introduction by Mark Waid]