In Power Man: Timeless #1, the empowered Luke Cage of another world is thrust into some cosmic, vaguely psychedelic sci-fi shenanigans.
A spinoff of the Timeless annuals, each previewing the next year of Marvel stories within a framed narrative, Power Man: Timeless continues the saga of a Luke Cage variant introduced in the 2023 edition. Imbued with the powers of —deep breath— the Hulk, Iron Fist, and The Sentry on top of his regular kit, he more than lives up to the Power Man name, which unfortunately means he’s got a whole lot of baggage to deal with. Mo’ powers, mo’ problems.
Power Man: Timeless #1 picks up where the character left off, drifting in space after being forced to kill his world’s Khonshu-possessed Danny Rand and getting flung into the Earth-616 timestream. Plagued by guilt as well as the parasitic Void inside his head, Power Man quickly encounters a pair of cosmic entities with their own respective agendas towards him, and one of them isn’t exactly a friend…
On paper, Power Man: Timeless sounds exactly like the sort of “Marvel has no ideas anymore” premise that you see discussed on social media nowadays (i.e. Character X mashed up with Character Y) but to the credit of writers Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly, this book is weird. Borderline inaccessible, even. I’m only vaguely familiar with this iteration of Luke Cage, and I did have to do a lot of research before reading to make sure I had even a halfway suitable grasp of the material. But that being said, I didn’t hate it.
For lack of a better term, their approach to worldbuilding here is Al Ewingian. Big ideas with not much explanation, but you somehow don’t mind that aspect to it and even enjoy it. A big part of this is Bernard Chang’s art, which is so grand and almost psychedelic that it really lives up to the space opera vibe Lanzing & Kelly are creating with their story. It’s also very manga-esque, calling to mind One-Punch Man particularly. This package shouldn’t work, but it kinda does? I can see this Power Man becoming fairly popular if Marvel pushes him as a character worth following, but that’ll depend on if the audience shows up for it. Until then, if you like your Marvel weird and cosmic, then you could do worse than Power Man: Timeless #1.
Power Man: Timeless #1
4.99
Credits
- Writers: Jackson Lanzing & Collin Kelly
- Artist: Bernard Chang
- Color Artist: Marcelo Maiolo
- Letterer: VC's Travis Lanham
- Cover Artists: Andrei Bressan & Rachelle Rosenberg
Credits (cont)
- Editor: Darren Shan
- Publisher: Marvel Entertainment
