Power & Glory
I appreciate Howard Chaykin as a creator. He could be terrific or terrible, but I don't think there was anyone else as audacious as is he in the field. No one else did deconstruction of already established properties like him. The Shadow, Blackhawk, Twilight, his Elseworlds stories, and now Power & Glory.
Here ol' Howard pisses on the superhero concept, pop culture, politics, and political correctness, through sharp-edged satire and self-referential meta humour.
As it goes, NIA director Malcolm LeStrange determined that "Japs make stereos, while Krauts make hot cars," leaving the US to develop something already done too well. The answer is obvious - a superhero. And Power & Glory offers a slightly different spin on the theme. Enter Alan Powell, ideal candidate; narcissistic, cowardly NIA operative, pervert who is afraid of being touched. The latter comes into full expression when he masturbates while watching two hookers frolicking, then declining the offer to join them with "no, who knows where you've been." It cracked me up so much, it still holds inside me.
That's where Michael Gorski steps in, Powell's total opposite. Gorski is a proto-1950s cynical, world-weary, but very efficient NIA agent and, albeit reluctantly, agrees to help Uncle Sam to keep the superhero product flowing. Plus, Gorski is also Jewish, and this is referenced throughout the whole book (which I can't help but consider this was self-insert on the Chaykin's behalf). And like the title says, one has all the power; the other has all the glory. The only problem is - they hate each other's guts.
What keeps this four-issue series from being stellar are the narrative choices. Chaykin often sacrifices narrative in favour of ideas. As a result, the plot itself largely makes no sense. The comic devotes considerable time to side characters who only relate to the infamous duo in very superficial ways. The main antagonist (whose part plays more like a tertiary) is a joke. A supposedly notorious drug lord, a dictator of a third-world country, and a wannabe Hollywood producer, yet so elusive for NIA to bring him down. A character named Belladonna (thinly veiled Madonna reference), a superficial celebrity that shags the drug lord first, later Powell, whose role serves for nothing more than to illustrate the shallowness of celebs we see every day.
The story ends with the one-shot Christmas special. Leaning more straightforward than the previous 4-issue series, this time Gorski and Powell severe ties with the US government. But are forced to renew their love-hate (mostly hate) partnership to battle an overly pious woman, aptly named Epiphany St.McMiracle, who is bent on destroying the whole globe (just because of her philandering husband, who gave her AIDS). It's a solid wrap-up, though I've found the religious humour a bit off-colour to me.
And there is the art. I have to say there is something sympathetic about Chaykin's art style. I like how he draws faces, but more often than not, due to troubled framing, intricate grid, and pages crowded with balloons, I had issues in working out what picture I should follow.
