#tpf 2

June 21, 2026

Cover by Caspar Wijngaard, design by Rian Hughes.

The second issue of The Power Fantasy is structurally unusual. The first arc of the series, which concludes with issue five, is built around a series of character spotlights designed to tell us more about our core cast in detail while unveiling the ways that TPF’s world differs from our own. Given that issue one was a character study on Etienne, and issues three, four, and five explore Valentina, Masumi, and Jacky respectively (Eliza remains relatively obscured until later for narrative reasons), it follows that issue two should be a deep dive on Heavy. And to be sure, there are several key scenes in the issue that tell readers more about the self-appointed Atomic savior, but it’s not a comic that is about Heavy the way that the rest of the arc is about the other Superpowers. Gillen has noted that part of this condensation is due to his realizing after he finished issue one that he needed to actually spend some time establishing what’s at stake in the series’s present after Etienne murders the American president. There’s a real danger of killing all the narrative momentum that the first issue’s finale builds up if we immediately go to a spotlight issue full of flashbacks without explaining that people in the present are reacting to the assassination of a head of state even if the perpetrator has functional impunity.

So when the issue opens, our spotlight on Heavy’s history as a political activist is truncated to a single page of archival footage and some exposition via news anchors who immediately pivot to talking about Etienne before Mr. Big Brain himself interrupts them to give a public service announcement explaining he had to do the murder because Heavy would have done worse if left to retaliate on his own. It’s all very unfortunate, but you simply can’t let Heavy be Heavy if you want the world to carry on.

Etienne confesses on live television. Art by Caspar Wijngaard, letters by Clayton Cowles.

Following his confession, Etienne explains his reasoning to the world, and he cautions everyone that it was fear that led the United States to try to kill Heavy, and further fear is only going to make things worse. It’s clear at this point that we’re still playing with tropes common to X-Men comics, as increased resentment of Atomics as a class because of two very prominent Atomics’ actions is a perfect parallel to so many mutant stories. The pivot from Etienne “contextualizing the horror” to him helping Tonya out of a police interrogation that isn’t going well takes this concept and personalizes it by showing readers the immediate knock on effects for non-Superpowered Atomics. It’s an interesting scene that is something of a rarity later in the series simply because there’s no space to focus on regular people who aren’t in the orbit of the Superpowers. I also suspect that this kind of ground level scene is set aside in later issues simply because it’s been done many times elsewhere, and Gillen is trusting his readers to understand the bigotry facet of the world given the shorthand he’s using without having to dwell on it. This story springs from X-Men, but it’s not X-Men.

Etienne’s second conversation with Tonya serves to illustrate more about Etienne himself, particularly his strong commitment to maintaining Superpower kayfabe. Now that Tonya has been flagged as a person of interest, Etienne feels comfortable giving her a more frank assessment of current Superpower relations, particularly since he’s sending her to Haven for refuge. He’s still managing the flow of information (he’s extremely coy about the discussion of cop deaths and Tonya’s suspicion that a Superpower is doing it), but he wants Tonya to be wary of Heavy while she’s staying on Haven.

Time for the sidebar. Art by Caspar Wijngaard, letters by Clayton Cowles.

Briefly, because I’d rather save a more in depth discussion of Masumi for issue four, this scene is the only time Masumi’s Superpower name, Deconstructa, is used on panel. I have complicated thoughts about the name itself and what aspects of Masumi’s identity to which it applies, but here it’s ambiguous how Tonya is using it. I think this use is similar to her mention of “Brother Ray” in issue one, where she’s using the name of a Superpower’s public persona as a journalist discussing a public figure. Masumi’s preferred mode of public interactions is as a celebrity artist, and I maintain that Deconstructa is her nom de plume instead of a reference to the monster she becomes when she disassociates.

Anyway, moving on.

While she appeared briefly in the first issue, we properly meet Morishita Masumi here, where we learn that she’s kind of self-centered, probably oblivious to her girlfriend’s unexpressed misery, and relies tremendously on Etienne for counsel. She’s anxious that Etienne will need to go into hiding and miss her upcoming show, but he makes it clear that attending is a priority for him regardless of the logistical difficulties that arise from publicly assassinating a head of state. It’s a small tease of just how bad things could get if Masumi isn’t properly managed, since Etienne appears to spend a huge portion of his time just keeping the Superpowers in a place of relative stability.

Finally, after all of the table setting is done and readers understand what Etienne’s next move needs to be, the issue pivots to Heavy so that we can get to know him in a non-fightey context. He begins with a charm offensive, but Tonya cuts through that to ask him directly about his half-baked plan to toss Texas off the planet. While bluster is his first move, it doesn’t take long for Heavy to demonstrate his most endearing trait: a willingness to admit when he’s wrong. We’ll see this cycle a few times over the course of the series, but this is the first clear demonstration. Heavy feels self-righteous anger over an offense and responds rashly with minimal foresight, and then once things are defused, he’s clearheaded enough to assess how he messed up.

What’s interesting about this interview scene is how it functions as a thematic mirror to Tonya’s interrogation earlier at the police station. Heavy is one of the most powerful people in the world, but when talking with Tonya he allows her to take control of the conversation. This is at least in part because Heavy espouses an ideology of Atomic liberation, and it naturally follows that he’d want to empower someone he knows was just victimized by anti-Atomic bigotry. There’s also Tonya’s status as a journalist; she just interviewed Etienne, and as the end of the issue reveals, Heavy has his own massive story that he’d like to tell if he can get the right framing on it. More deeply though, the move from powerless to powerful for Tonya is a way to distance TPF from its X-Men roots.

Heavy and Tonya discuss the implications of yeeting Texas into space. Art by Caspar Wijngaard, letters by Clayton Cowles.

X-Men stories are always about systemic prejudice and bigotry. The mutant metaphor is designed to be flexible enough that it can stand in for a variety of marginalized identities, but as many capable readers note, it fails as a perfect analog for any one axis of identity. Setting aside the Krakoa era of X-Men stories, which are more about the kinds of resistance that emerge when marginalized people assert their right to build spaces intended for themselves, the X-Men franchise is primarily concerned with people trying to survive in a hostile social environment that they can’t really control. The Power Fantasy is interested in a different kind of story altogether. Tonya’s Atomic status is mostly incidental to her place in the story, but her job as a journalist gives her a huge amount of influence as she enters Heavy’s orbit. Heavy talks a big game about Atomic liberation, and it’s easy to infer that he allowed Tonya access to him because she’s an Atomic, but Tonya’s observations about who he would have hurt underline the fact that the biggest part of Heavy’s identity isn’t that he’s an Atomic—it’s that he’s a Superpower.

I think the main reason that scenes like Tonya’s interrogation ultimately fall away as the series progresses is because the fact of Atomics in the setting is thematically moot. Atomic status is just another axis of identity in the setting, and Gillen seems to be aware that he doesn’t have much to say about that beyond acknowledging that its significance as a marginalization is going to vary widely because of intersectional factors. The police imply they arrested Tonya because she’s an Atomic, but readers shouldn’t ignore the fact that she’s also a Black woman who was in proximity to a Black man who committed a crime. In a real world context, that feels like a much bigger reason for the arrest than Tonya’s light show fingers.

Ultimately, what we begin to see taking shape in this issue is a greater development of the unifying factor among our cast. Yes, half of the Superpowers are Atomics, and the general public likely doesn’t know or care enough to split hairs over Valentina and Eliza’s extradimensional natures, but Atomic solidarity is not what drives any of their decision making. Superpower status is conferred based on an individual’s ability to destroy the world, or at least catastrophically damage it. The real world analog for that kind of power isn’t a marginalized identity: it’s a billionaire.

Imagine Mark Zuckerberg doing this. Art by Caspar Wijngaard, letters by Clayton Cowles.

I mean, Heavy even has his own unqualified failson waiting in the wings.