Meet the Power Company! Sapphire and Josiah Power Edition.
And here the last two introduction issues of Kurt Busiek's Power Company series. Started this quite some time ago but boy does school complicate real life so here I am and hopefully no one's angry I'm so slow. :D
Our story begins with a runaway teen on her lonesome having run from her home for some to my knowledge, unspecified reason.
The JLA is in the area investigating the rumour of Kobra operating nearby and dear old Candace "Candy" Jean Gennaro uses this as a nice way of grabbing some food from a distracted salesman.
During the skuffle between JLA and Kobra Candy in her attempts to evade the cops stows away on the ship led by the King Kobra. There she sees Kobra was in the area to obtain the Serpent Egg, a mystical gem. Candy realizing she'd need it to escape Kobra's ship alive decides to make a grab for it.
Sigh, supervillains just don't appreciate obedient minions like they used to.
Candy then decides to just try to use the Egg/armor to escape making herself like a bullet and shooting out of the submarine.
But of course the JLA is fine.
And so we're left with parting thoughts on Candy. She's no Superman but I do like how believable the character is. She's a very modern teenager but not all flashy and edgy. She does make bad decisions but she does realize it quickly after. She's also by far my favorite of the team aside from being believable like I said I love the idea of a morphing armor that responds to your thoughts, in fact in some ways it's rather similar to Jaime Reyes' scarab.
She was also sadly the most under utilized in Mr. Busiek's run though I think that's likely because of the title's cancellation. He did leave quite a few things open about her that weren't answered like why she ran from home or what'd happen if Kobra actually found her to get the Egg or the very last bit in Power Company of her becoming emancipated from her parents.
And here's a bonus page from the issue from Mr. Busiek explaining the process to making Sapphire.
Now onto the final member of the Power Company the financial backer and creator itself, Josiah Power.
The story begins smack dab in a retelling of Invasion where the secret behind superpowers in humans was revealed, the Meta gene that many but not all humans have in the DCU.
Josiah then tlks about the events of Invasion including the Dominators dropping a Gene bomb that 'd kill lots of people but give powers to the few that had metagenes, the same way Snapper Carr got his powers. Josiah was affected but didn't realize what that meant and after recovering and feeling normal went back to his work as a lawyer.
Oh yeah, and Josiah's gay which was of course mentioned and shown with his partner Rupe a bit but it was a fairly minor part of him and his story even in the regular Power Company series.
Hoping to gain a sense of normalcy Josiah goes to a shady looking group who offers those who survived the gene bomb help. Turns out it's a group trying to collect metas to use as weapons/soldiers making them work under threat of death.
With the evil scientists trying hard to find out how to make Josiah activate his powers again since they think his powers when fully working would be off the charts.
Some time later and just as the JLA was coming to break the people out Josiah finally gets a hang of his transformations and frees himself.
And Mr. Powers character file.
Josiah was a fun character who filled the authoritative grand leader with great power who looks just full of strength and of course he is.