Kieron Gillen's brand new "power fantasy"

The Hollywood Reporter interviewed the writer responsible for dumbing down Iron Man a decade ago about a new comic he's launching at Image called The Power Fantasy:

In the world of comic books, the term “superpowered” individual can mean a lot of things — from the ability to fly to invisibility. But in the wrold of The Power Fantasy, it has a more specific meaning: anyone who has as much destructive power as the United States’ nuclear arsenal.

That’s the pitch for a new book from writer Kieron Gillen and artist Caspar Wijngaard, who revealed their book Friday at Emerald City Comic Con, a convention held in Seattle. In this world, six people are considered superpowered, and the world depends on them never coming into conflict.

“The Power Fantasy emerged in a similar way to The Wicked + The Divine,” said Gillen in a statement. “I was doing a book at Marvel, and became aware of exactly the sort of things I could do with the reins taken off. “As The Wicked + the Divine was to Young Avengers, this is to Immortal X-men. It’s a comic informed by superheroes, but one where a fight is the absolute lose state, for everyone. It’s set from 1945-1999, and so is a chance to really have fun with an alternate cultural history too. I think you can see it as an extension of my best work: WicDivian alternate-pop culture, a cold-war take on Uber’s realpolitik, Die’s social group drama hyper-charged by genre.”

It sounds more like yet another exploration of the opposite of wish fulfilment and adventure fantasy, and here, power is turned into an even bigger obstacle than Inhumans leader Black Bolt's power of sonic noise in the Marvel universe. And, lest we forget, this tale reeks of liberal anti-war propaganda. The Popverse also quoted what Gillen had to say at the convention:

"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?" [...]

"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."

Oh, I'm sure they do. The way only a leftist ideologue could want them to. All this does is make clear Alan Moore's 1987 miniseries had a ruinous effect on the mind of the medium, and it's head-shaking how such a bleak vision could have such heavy influence going forward to where we are now. Even more bewildering is why DC sought to retain the copyright on Watchmen till this day; what's so special about a tale built on being so downbeat? Why don't they just let Moore have back the rights to the miniseries now? Their greed is downright bizarre.

And the audience Gillen spoke too at the Emerald City comicon is okay with the premise of his new comic? I'd like to think maybe Gillen was speaking to a sparse crowd, but I've got a bad feeling that's not the case, and the audience, worst of all, actually applauded what they were told about his new Image comic. This is not power fantasy material at all, but just a leftist's defeatist idea, and tells what he really thinks of superhero fare he should never have bothered writing, if this is his actual position.