It’s not hyperbole to say that The Power Fantasy #3, out today from Image Comics, changes the game of the book entirely. While co-creators Kieron Gillen and Caspar Wjingaard have been slowly teasing out the alternate history of a world where six superpowered “Atomics” try to never interact, so as to not accidentally destroy the world… Issue #3 shows just how much things have changed, and why. And then it goes beyond that with a jaw-dropping timeline that lays out part of the plan for the next nine issues.
Spoilers past this point, but we discover in the closing page of the book that Europe is gone, wiped off the map in an incident with a superpowered being called The Queen during 1989’s Second Summer of Love.
“We wanted to show, this is what happens when it goes wrong,” Gillen told Comic Book Club during an extended chat about the issue at this year’s New York Comic Con. “We’ve seen what Etienne did an issue one to prevent Heavy doing what he was going to do, because it’s already happened. It’s not like we’re flirting, this has already happened to this world… The stakes [are] on the table. We’re not messing around. This is a really big diversion point.”
To find out a whole lot more about what went into the issue, as well Gillen and Wjingaard locking themselves in — or not — with a timeline for the first 12 issues, read on. Plus we discuss Gillen’s upcoming collaborations with Stephanie Hans on We Called Them Giants and the return of DIE, as well as what might be next for Wjingaard and Dan Watters’s Home Sick Pilots. Plus, Gillen reveals a secret you might not have known about the X-Men’s Krakoa era.
You can listen to the podcast version below, or read an edited version of the conversation, also below.
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Comic Book Club: At the end of the issue, you reveal that Europe has been destroyed. And I will say, reading the whole issue… You present it as an alternate reality, there’s deviation because there are people with superpowers here. But history seems to be progressing in the rather linear fashion that we’re used to up until this event. So what led to this? Why was this the shot across the bow to be like, “No, this is actually wildly different from our earth”?
Kieron Gillen: This is one of the ones where yes, we’ve mirrored history, we started in ’99, you can see some things are different. And if you reread the first two issues, you’ll see, oh, there’s a lot of weird, gothy punks and the idea so pop culture has changed, all the bands from the ’90s in the UK [are gone].
Oh no! Oasis!
Gillen: That’s kind of an upside. Joking aside, we wanted the Earth to be kind of similar to begin with, but we wanted these people… How to phrase this. We wanted to show, this is what happens when it goes wrong, instead of just being tension over– obviously, the whole thing’s really tense. And we’ve seen what Etienne did an issue one to prevent Heavy doing what he was going to do, because it’s already happened. It’s not like we’re flirting, this has already happened to this world. It’s almost like the stakes [are] on the table. We’re not messing around. This is a really big diversion point, and it’s big enough to explain why Majus and Eliza, how the way they are. You get more of that in future issues, but things went really, very badly wrong in 1989 and, of course, the media all wants to know, what happened in 1989? We’re still teasing it. So basically, stakes, scale and making it an alternate history.
And how does that affect you as the artist, the alternate world aspect. Have you been bringing in elements throughout?
Caspar Wjingaard: It’s fun because there’s tiny little things that you can add in a world like this. With Majus and his tech, the government have things. There’s an understanding that technology might be slightly more advanced than what we’ve got because of the Superpowers on the planet. I remember what technology was like ’99 and it’s very limited, but also, I want to make sure that it looks the same, but just a little bit different it’s the tiny, small things that we’ve added.
Gillen: Like graffiti. In issue one, you had the graffiti of Valentina being a savior of the Earth, but that’s because of what happened in Cuba. So that’s the irony. The Cuban mission in issue three mirrors what actually happened in real world. All Valentina did was bring it forward by a week, which becomes the question of, okay, what good was she actually? What good did she do, anyway? But then the big stuff is stuff like, remember 1989, you’ve got all these bits of graffiti about how people view the pyramid… We’ve been playing it quiet. But of course, now we’ve done the bit. We’ve done this reveal. It’s much more overt.
We’ve got the timeline, which, I haven’t seen that aggressive a tease in a comic book before… You are getting this timeline that lays out like the history, and says, “See Issue Five, See Issue Twelve.”
Gillen: We wanted to show we have a plan.
Wjingaard: And that’s only up until the point of where we are.
Gillen: Originally I wrote a more detailed timeline, actually, just said more details about what happened, and we thought about maybe doing what the Krakoan books [did], and censoring it. And then we’re like, no. They did it… Sometimes in the Krakoan books, this is a big reveal. We didn’t know what was beneath the black. We left it open, we had ideas, I’m sure. Sometimes they really did, but we always liked to future proof it, to keep the options open. All right, no, let’s go the other way. Let’s choose a complete swagger. Oh, no. Issue 12, this happens. If you want to know this, tune in to issue seven. And it’s funny. We’re nervous, because we can mess up.
Obviously, Kieron, you’re a very meticulous writer. You do your research, you build your bibles, etc. But for both of you, this is locking you into certain things. So how much did you have to do in advance in terms of the writing to make sure this timeline works? And in terms of the art, Caspar, how much do you have to be like, Okay, I’ve got to be thinking about this event visually that happens in issue 12.
Wjingaard: There were key moments in the plot, which we’re going to get to eventually, key moments in the history… They were the starting points of the conversation. So when I was doing a lot of the design, I was basing it around those key events, because they are people that we’ve not met that are involved with those events, and there’s people in future events that we’ve not met. So we built the bigger pillars first, and then spread out from it.
Gillen: So much of the plotting was actually about, I’ve got this whole timeline, the details, all the history, and then, okay, when do I reveal… We’ve got this present-day plot, initiated by America, trying to kill Heavy. So we’ve got an ongoing plot there. We’ve also got the back story. So when do we choose to fill in? Because you need to fill in enough to make everything meaningful. But also if you do too much… Originally, I was going to do issue three as issue two, but I realized, no, we need to have more forward momentum on the plot before we can go back in time. So all the stuff, we already know. The question, when do we choose to show it? And that is the trick, as in life, I had to basically sit down and do the tight plotting for the first 16 issues. We’ve got more stuff to reveal as well. [Laughs] I know that will be revealed in the first 16 issues. Okay, when do we reveal this? What’s the best way to do that? I did the synopsis. Okay, this looks good. This looks like it could work. Do it. So basically, I just did the work.
So you started with a timeline, and then glommed on plot. When did the characters come in?
Gillen: The characters came first, and then it’s like, how would they change the timeline we had? We started with iconic names. Etienne was the mind. Masumi was the artistic monster. Heavy was the free radical. We started with iconic ideas. And we had more. We mentioned the Queen a few times, in the second Summer of Love. We’ve mentioned the Signal. We’ve mentioned the Signal a bunch.
Wjingaard: Those were the first two designs I made, The Signal [and The Queen]… They’re a big deal in the book.
Gillen: They’re just not around.
Let’s talk about Valentina and Etienne, because at least in the first three issues, they seem to be the most important characters. I’m sure we’re going to move around and jump around a bit. But what is important to the looks there, particularly with Valentina, a character who is potentially an angel?
Wjingaard: She’s very grounded. One of the first things I did with her, one of the first parts of her design, I wanted her to look physically strong, but she’s also very soft, isn’t she? She’s a soft character. And I really like the idea that she’s so powerful… She doesn’t even need to wear clothes. She doesn’t wear shoes, ever, in the entire book.
Gillen: It’s also that she’s a big dirty hippie as well.
Wjingaard: It doesn’t even come into the frame of whatever she’s doing. She’s on a totally different plane of existence from everyone else. Shoes are ridiculous. And Heavy looked totally different.
Gillen: He was like Grant Morrison to start with.
Wjingaard: He had a missing arm, a missing eye, and that was where the scarring came from.
Gillen: Your design, it was such a good idea. The point of Heavy is people have tried [to kill him] before. Because he’s the one who’s trying to change the world the most, therefore [he’s] gonna get the most pushback.
Wjingaard: So I drew him as a hippie, and then later on, the missing arm, totally scarred face. And I was like, I quite like this. So when you came back to me, like “I kind of see him like Jeff Bridges in Big Lebowski.” And I said, “Okay, I get that.” I don’t want to go too hippie. He’s a strong guy. So I was like, he’s more like a boxer… He’s happy, but he could knock you out. And then as I was drawing him, he’s holding a spliff. And I was like, I’m just gonna draw that floating. We’re getting him. He’s coming to life. And then I drew the scars. I was like, I’m gonna scar him up as well. He’s gonna have scars all over his body so he looks like he’s been through a lot, and he just came together on the page. It was really fun. He was one of those characters that just fell into place.
I was really interested to see the back matter, your note at the end, talking about letting Casper go and try things, and you letting go of the script.
Gillen: Everything else is so detailed, but we built the characters, then I’m like, no timeline is complete. It’s fractal, you can always zoom closer. We know roughly what they were doing. But if we zoom close to 1972 we know more about it, because that’s the way it works. So I have so much work to do outside of what I would normally be doing anyway. I’ve done a completely machine-engineered comic in the case of [The Wicked + Divine]. I’ve done that before, right? So this idea is a bit more prompt-based, and seeing where Caspar goes with it. But we respond to it, and all the scripts are building from there. Because also it’s not a literal– superhero, super-powered comics in the realist mode often use very realistic art. And this ain’t that. This is, impressionistic This is about mood. So, Caspar changes the art styles to fit the period. So that is so much the game. And it’s also about how Caspar feels. Like, Cas [says], this is 1977 we’re going to do it like a punk scene. I want to leave space for those options.
Wjingaard: Kieran is very, very… Some of the cleanest scripts I’ve ever seen come in.
Gillen: Thank you.
Wjingaard: There’s a point that you’re trying to make in every issue. And I feel that. We discuss it, and you’re like, as long as we hit these bits and this bit is clear and we get that part across, you’re free to do everything around the side and just have fun.
Gillen: All I care [about] is the story.
Wjingaard: You’re telling the story, and I get to build that world. There’s so much room around this incredible script where I get to have fun and build stuff off the side. And I show Kieran, I email him, I’ll be like, “Am I cool to do this right now? Is this going to spoil anything?” “No, go for it. Go for it. This is good. This is good.” When I was working on three before one came out, and we’re building the world out more, I was like, “Hey, I should go back and add these bits into one,” and fluff out that area a bit. So we know that this is something that’s coming in later.
Gillen: Caspar discovers on the page. I mean, that’s what writers do as well… If you plan too much, it’s just dead… We know exactly what happens in, say, the Summer of Love, but we don’t know exactly where certain things happen. Ddid it happen in London or did it happen in Manchester? I haven’t decided that.
Wjingaard: And I can just gage a reaction from you. In issue three, with Valentina above the vinyl, with the world on the inside. That wasn’t in the script. I just thought, Kieran’ll get a kick out of this. You know, the message came back and you’re like, “f**king hell.”
Gillen: In issue three, you’ve got all the dead pyramid members photos. I didn’t ask for that. He just did 50 portraits for no reason. And of course, what he did when they see him do stuff like that… Issue four was written more to give him prompts as the Masumi issue. And there’s a tension clock, and I gave him a variety of ways we could impressionistically do this, as well as telling the story. And he chose one and worked his way through it. It’s really beautiful stuff.
This may be jumping ahead to the end of the series, but it’s obviously very specifically set between 1945, the beginning of the Atomic Age, leading up to 1999, and dealing with atomic fear, nuclear fear, etc. The best sci-fi has always referred to what we’re feeling now. Do you still feel we feel that nuclear fear today?
Gillen: When I did a book called Uber, at least part of my idea was I think people are less afraid of fascists. I need a book that tries to remind people why fascists are f**king evil. And of course, we know that now. The world is caught up. Part of me thinks we are not as worried about nuclear war as we should be, because it’s still there. Those Tigers have not disappeared. We could all be dead before this interview ends.
I hope not! Just to put it out there.
Gillen: What a waste of this weekend it would be. But those things are still there. So at least part of it is that, but the other part is it’s a period piece. Let’s talk about what it felt to live for that period. For me, it’s more than my lifetime, as well. So it’s me imagining what my parents were living through. That’s the other side. It’s also a historical piece. Any period piece is about the time it’s set, but also what we take from the time and we make relevant to ourselves.
Did you know a book that is a high philosophy, geopolitical period piece was going to be such a banger, comic book success?
Wjingaard: It is stressful. I message him in the morning and be like, “Are we f**ked?” Because we deal with some pretty on-the-nose things in those first two issues. It’s a very tense time, at the moment.
Gillen: A president dying in the first issue from assassination, that’s loaded right now. For me, it’s like, give or die. I think they’re commercial ideas. Yeah, they’re slightly left-field. But more generic ideas aren’t appealing, because we know what they’re like. It’s like The Bear, or any other really good TV show. It goes for the throat, and it is itself. And the other flip is, I’m like, would I be into it? That’s my job. Would I buy this book? What would I like? And the idea of a book about superpowered stuff, but not about fighting, it’s such a wicked idea. The core of the genre is punching. Let’s remove that and see what happens. And if someone punches someone, the world ends. To me that’s quite an accessible and interesting idea. But also, it is weird. [Laughs]
Wjingaard: It’s tense but, you’ll see in four as well, a lot of people have told us that four is their favorite issue… It’s like an episode of The Bear. It’s incredibly tense.
Gillen: Intimate as well.
Wjingaard: There’s a lot of them together at once, and you get to see what they’re like all together, as a family.
Gillen: What we love about three is, three is so big, it shows the full time scale. We jump through time. Four is one evening. It’s really intense. It’s about a love affair between two women, and Masumi trying to do an art show. And that’s the book.
Wjingaard: She’s the baby of the group. The rest of them turn up because they want to support her, but it’s tense.
Gillen: They’re petrified that she might get upset.
Wjingaard: They don’t want to upset her, and you don’t want to know why.
Gillen: That was the key issue, too, for me. Etienne has to go to this show. So we need to know that everyone’s petrified of upsetting Masumi. That wonderful page Caspar did of the two of them on the telepathic conversation, between Masumi, increasingly haunted, and Etienne sitting in the shadows in New York, thinking.
Wjingaard: I didn’t move him once in that panel… This is the only moment where we show him absolutely scared, where he does not move, absolutely focused on just talking to her. That’s one of my favorite parts.
Gillen: This is comics, [this] minimal… That is as good as the fight scene for me. This moment is like, Okay, what’s gonna happen? Because you can turn the page, and the world ends, and that’s all the way through this book.
When you’re drawing something with a telepathic character who basically sits there and thinks at people… How do you make that dynamic? I mean, obviously the words are there, but how do you tackle it as an artist?
Wjingaard: That was actually really tricky. We spoke about that a lot, didn’t we, because I remember in the script it was, there’s a wavy thing, it looks like something’s happening and people are affected by it. So even in the first issue, I don’t feel like a lot of people noticed that he was tweaking people as they’re walking past and not noticing. I was always worried is, am I making this obvious enough that he’s hiding them, or that they don’t notice him. But as the book goes on, you start to notice it more. Everywhere he goes, people are blanking out a little bit. And it’s constantly happening with him.
Gillen: In the case of that particular page, it’s almost the opposite. You don’t make it dynamic, and that’s why it’s dynamic. You repeat panels. You hold it still, and it’s classic, old school decompression. You make the moment last longer because you’re not expecting the moment to last longer, and that’s why it’s tense. And also, the actual real dynamism is the art as he’s in bright, lighter shade. [He’s] very bright in the morning, everyone [else is] very dark. You’re getting a visual element. So it’s beautiful, but it’s not classically dynamic.
Wjingaard: I remember you saying afterwards she’s excited to see it. But I wanted her expression when [Masumi] finds out he’s coming, is so over the top and cute. I wanted it to be like, “I have no idea what’s going to happen if she gets really sad,” but the next one is, “Oh, my God, you’re coming to my art gallery!” She’s so happy again. That’s scary. Because she just flipped straight back again from just being like, the void is about to take me.
Gillen: Masumi is interesting because most of the people want to do something in the world. And Masumi doesn’t want to destroy the world by accident. She’s not like, Heavy, she’s not like, Etienne.
Wjingaard: She’s just a kid.
Gillen: She’s an art school, I just want to do my art. Please let me just leave me alone and let me do my art. But sadly…
I want to take a little bit of a swerve and talk about something else that you’re working on, Kieron. We Called Them Giants with Stephanie Hans, that’s coming out on October 30 in comic bookstores, November in bookstores. This is not a series. Why that approach? Obviously, you were very successful with DIE, the two of you. So why a graphic novel?
Gillen: If you asked me 20 years ago when I started thinking about getting into comics, I presumed I would have done loads of graphic novels. It’s a wonderful format. So when the idea came after doing DIE, we want to do something else, maybe as a smaller project, as a break, [we decided] let’s try an OGN. Because we’re in a place where we can, we’ve got a reader ship, and that Stephanie’s never done it before. So the idea of Stephanie drawing all 96 pages, and doing all and publishing it all together in a single statement, it’s fun.
You know, we’ve never done it before is it good enough reason. But also, I love doing single issues, but single issues change the structure of the story. And I’ve written for that story a lot, so the idea of just having the amount… If you go through Giants, you’ll see the acts, like, okay, this would be issue one. This would be issue two. This would be issue three. But issue one is 28 pages. Issue two is 16 pages. As opposed to padding one or reducing the other, I let the story — The unit is the 96 pages of the whole thing. You get to pace the story according to that. We got this heartwarming, weird fable. The mood is, I don’t know, Pixar does The Walking Dead with The Iron Giant, with a real sense of urban fantasy weirdness.
That structure you’re talking about is so interesting… You’ve written a slew of single-issue comics. Did you have to break your habit at all?
Gillen: A little bit. In some way, the fact you have to be so structured to do a single issue comic, the structure is just bigger. I worked out the acts. I worked out the space required. I actually figured it out, because I’m a novelistic writer, I’m always thinking about the bigger scale anyway. In some ways, I’ve just removed one problem.
And you and Stephanie are also doing more DIE.
Gillen: Yes, we sort of hinted that was coming out. We’ll do a proper announcement eventually. But, 2025 we’re back. It’s very different. I don’t want to talk about too much about it yet. What I will say it’s very different.
Is it like Tron: Legacy to the first one’s Tron?
Gillen: No.
Wjingaard: It’s Welcome to the Jungle: Jumanji 2.
Gillen: It picks up a year on, and it starts basically at Chuck’s memorial ceremony that’s all I’ll say for now.
But it is a comic book, right? Because you did the RPG as well.
Gillen: We will be doing some RPG stuff alongside it. There’ll be an expansion pack for the DIE RPG coming out at the same time. So basically all the cool new stuff we’re introducing in the comic, you play in the game, too.
And Caspar, are we ever going to see you come back to Home Sick Pilots?
Wjingaard: [Me and writer Dan Watters] have spoken about it a lot. It’s always been the plan that we have. We have an idea, and we have a title, and we have characters. There’s stuff there that we can work with, that we’ve been speaking about since it ended. Since it ended it, Dan messaged me, “I think I’ve got a really good idea for a follow up too.” So we’re chatting. It would still be the same world. That’s about as much as I’ll say. What happened to the world since they came alive? Basically what happened to America and the rest of the world… What happens when all the ghosts wake up, and everything starts to move? That’s where we carry on the story from that point.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
The Power Fantasy #3 is out now in comic book stores from Image Comics.
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