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HBO meets the X-Men in Marvel mutant writer Kieron Gillen's new series The Power Fantasy with Caspar Wijngaard

'What if Watchmen had six Doctor Manhattans?' asks The Power Fantasy writer Kieron Gillen

The Power Fantasy
Image credit: Caspar Wijngaard (Image Comics)

What comes after conquering time and space with the X-Men? The answer was revealed at Emerald City Comic Con Friday morning, with the announcement of The Power Fantasy by Immortal X-Men and The Wicked + The Divine writer Kieron Gillen and artist Caspar Wijngaard (All Against All, Home Sick Pilots), with letters from Gillen’s longterm collaborator Clayton Cowles.

The Power Fantasy ad
Image credit: Caspar Wijngaard/Clayton Cowles (Image Comics)

"I've been trying to think about something to do with Casper [for years]," Gillen told the crowd. "When I was doing Young Avengers, [The Wicked + The Divine] came from Young Avengers. 'What would HBO Young Avengers be?' The Power Fantasy is that for Immortal X-Men. You can stop reading Immortal X-Men and jump over to read this and see what happens next. It's as if, what if Watchmen had six Doctor Manhattans?"

Teaser text from the slides presented at the show read, “The first extranormal individuals appeared in 1945. Some describes them as having ‘superpowers.’ It’s easy to laugh at the naivety. We now know the term has a specific technical meaning. To be a ‘superpower’ means you possess the destructive capacity of the nuclear arsenal of the United States of America. There are six beings with superpowers on Earth. The world’s continued existence relies on them never coming into conflict.”

The images shown in the slides feature the core cast of the series by series artist Caspar Wijngaard, as well as the opening pages to the first issue. Wijngaard joined Gillen on the panel for the announcements.

"We really didn't want to do capes, we wanted to feel more grounded with these characters," says the artist. "I wanted to visualize their powers in a weird way. They've all got their own separate skillset, they're all uniquely powered. It's fun to do that in a human element instead of just relying on a suit to do that."

"It's not really a superhero book," said Gillen. "None of these people save the world," before joking, "Well, they save the world by not using their powers."

The Power Fantasy launches August 2024 from Image Comics.


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About Emerald City Comic Con

The Pacific Northwest's four-day pop culture extravaganza.

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Seattle Convention Center Summit Building
United States

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Graeme McMillan

Graeme McMillan: Popverse Editor Graeme McMillan (he/him) has been writing about comics, culture, and comics culture on the internet for close to two decades at this point, which is terrifying to admit. He completely understands if you have problems understanding his accent.

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