Written by Jason Aaron
Art by Erica D’Urso, Ed McGuinness
Published by Marvel Comics
I’ve greatly enjoyed the way the Heroes Reborn crossover event is structured.
Each week, the main issue has focused on one member of this alt-reality’s super team, the Squadron Supreme of America.
Marvel isn’t really Marvel without the Avengers and those characters.
So in a reality where the Avengers never formed, Marvel’s DC-style characters step into the spotlight in an upside-down world of immorality as virtue.
And so now we’ve gotten to Power Princess, Marvel’s Wonder Woman.
But unlike Princess Diana of Themyscira, Princess Zarda of Utopia Isle comes from a culture upholding bloody war and plunder. Instead of lifting man’s world, she’s here to cull the herd. She’ll fight the worst of the worst out of sheer glory, not to defend the innocent or serve justice.
Power Princess is a bruiser.
Which means get ready for a rollicking, action-heavy romp into a gleeful fantasy immorality along the lines of Star Trek’s mirror universe.
Does this warrior princess turn her vanquished enemies to stone – at least those she doesn’t behead?
Does she spend the nights in her lair drinking wine plundered from Earth and various dimensions?
If she’s not drinkin’ and fightin’, is she booty-calling Hyperion or Nighthawk?
She sure is!
This comic is entirely too much, in a good way, and this issue the most fun read yet.
And that’s all before the recently awakened and sober Thor shows up.
As with the other issues, Power Princess meets someone who remembers the actual reality, who remembers the Avengers. But she’s the first member of Squadron Supreme to bring this up to the others in the team.
We’ve been watching The Avengers gather their forces for a while now: Blade, Captain America, Phoenix, Black Panther, the child powered by the cosmic Starbrand (who I am sure is a young Peter Quill), and now Thor.
But we haven’t seen the defenders of this alt-reality, the Squadron Supreme of America who lives by short-sighted might as right, get hip to this struggle yet. That appears to be changing.
Furthermore, I wonder how long Mephisto will stay hidden. He’s worshiped here as a god and may be behind it all.
But that’s yet to be revealed.
