DC Power: A Celebration #1

DC Cultural Anthologies

by Evan Narcisse, Darryl Banks (Artist), Lamont Magee

First there was DC Pride and DC Festival of Heroes; now it’s time to celebrate Black History Month! Cyborg, John Stewart, Aqualad, Kid Flash, Batwing, Vixen, Amazing-Man, and more take center stage to highlight the power of Black excellence across the DC Universe, in stories from a variety of comics’ finest Black artists and writers!

Genres: Comics, Dc Comics, Graphic Novels, Black Author, Superheroes, Fantasy, Graphic Novels Comics

104 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 31, 2023

Reviews

[Andre]

Like any anthology, some stories are better than others, but the overall effect is fantastic. It comes across as a bit of a Black History month money grab, but I wish DC would focus on the more marginalized heroes more, so everyone should support this. I have to say, I wish there was a Catwoman story though.

[Gordon]

An enjoyable collection of short comics. I think my favorite was Kid Flash’s story, but I also quite enjoyed Green Lantern, Nubia & Bumblebee, and Vixen & Batwing. It was also great to get a preview of Far Sector — I’d heard about Jo Mullein and seen her absolutely to-die-for costume, and I’ll definitely be checking out her series now.

[Chad]

A pretty good anthology featuring a lot of DC's black characters. I would liked to have seen new stories from Jace Fox and Jo Mullein instead of reprints from other books. I feel like DC could have sprung for new stories there. Still there's plenty of good new content from the likes of Kid Flash, Aquaman (Jackson Hyde), Nubia, Bumblebee, Green Lantern John Stewart, Vixen, Batwing, Amazing Man and Black Lightning.

[PMoslice]

A Celebration indeed. As anthologies go some stories hold your attention better than others. This one was a fun trip engaging with some of your favorite DC Hero's of color. Great action, heartfelt story telling and beautiful art come together to make a wonderful book.

[Jerry Daniels]

DC Comics Gives Its Black Superheroes a Voice in New Anthology

DC Comics packages a nice collection of short stories featuring its Black superheroes to highlight their contributions to the DC universe as well as to recognize their struggles with being in the minority within that universe. My favorite story featured Amazing Man, a stock character and associate of the Justice Society barely written about. So it was good to get to some background on the character. While not all of DC Comics' characters received attention in this collection, it was good to see them referenced after the last story. Perhaps they will appear in a second issue a year from now. In the meantime, this collection has indicated we will be reading about some of these characters soon.

[Steven Shinder]

I think some of these didn’t quite stick with me because they were too short, though I do appreciate the effort. The last two stories were my favorites: the Luke Fox Batman story was gorgeously illustrated in black and white and pointed to the naysayers who don’t think an iconic hero can be black, and then the final story called attention to how one can come under fire at work due to association with a BLM post.

[Ya Boi Be Reading]

So turns out this isn't DC Power 2024. Which is odd considering that DC is releasing this on Hoopla now... when DC Power 2024 is coming out. This is instead DC Power 2023 but also with Cyborg #1 from Dawn of DC. Overall most of the mini-comics are good with some of them being exceptionally strong. But two of these are reprinted which I dislike. The inclusion of Cyborg #1 didn't wow me either and felt more like marketing.
Reviews for every mini-comic below.
Amazing Man - Amazingly strong start with a shirt story detailing the struggles of African Americans during the Detroit Revival with the rise of white extremism in a cape setting. Goes a bit further too with in between WW1 and WW2 with Miracle Man facing a KKK cross burning. Fighting in the face of constant challenges at times from the very government you helped. 4.5/5
Black Lightning - Using heroes as a way to explore segregation and separate but equal. But mostly has action instead of exploring that idea. I think the idea is good as it allows us to see that idea without having to take place in that time but it felt like all the fighting and stuff was to meet the page space. The beginning and end were the big planned bits and were good but the action was awkward and hard to read. 2.75/5
Nubia and Bumblebee - It’s cute but nothing amazingly standout. I’m partial to Nubia so seeing her do some less intense stuff was nice. That fight scene was hard to read though with the small panels and crumbly layout. 3/5
John Stewart - Massive GL fan so of course I thought this rocked. It’s a character I adored so of course I enjoyed seeing John Stewart. The use of his past was neat and seeing how it interacts with his drive was nice. It’s cool to see he was always that stoic defender-esque guy even when he wasn’t strong enough and got his butt beat as a kid. 4.5/5
Aquaman and Kid Flash - Sweet dynamic and nice exploration for the nature if legacy characters like Flash and Aquaman and the importance and validity of African American heroes in that legacy. Very enjoyable and nice message with a fun dynamic and banter between the two. 4
Vixen and Batwing - Fun little fight scene mini-comic showing off a neat dynamic. Never heard of Batwing (but I’m not a Batman reader) but his deal seems cool and Vixen has always interested me as a reader. 3.5/5
Batman - Again, as a person who doesn’t read Batman stuff I never knew who Jace’s Batman is. The real standout here is the art but the establishment of Jace’s views on his Batman situation are neat too. But again… this is just a pre-existing anthology mini-comic from Batman: Black and White #3 from 2021. I’m less upset than the Far Sector one since I haven’t read this one. And it was always meant to be this short than the weird cropped story for Far Sector. 3.5/5
Far Sector - So… I’m a big GL fan. And Twitter and sources were going crazy about the new Far Sector continuation in this. There were even pre-release pictures. No joke picked up half because of wanting to learn more of DC’s Black superheroes and half for the hyped up continuation of Far Sector. And then come to find out this is DC Power 2023 (which is called DC Power: A Celebration which sounds like it could be the name for the trade collection of DC Power 2024 especially if this adds onto DC Power with a #1 issue at it’s end but I digress). Instead we just get a portion of issue 5 of Far Sector cut by itself to fit as a part of the anthology’s size. Far Sector’s art is good and the chunk they took out works as a stand-alone but… really? Taking a pre-existing issue for an anthology full of new stories? 1/5
Cyborg - Serves as a nice intro to Cyborg and the focus on his relationship with his Mother and how his Cyborg elements (seemingly a stand-in for disabilities in this short little story) doesn’t change who he is. Love the line about how the Victor I knew wasn’t how he was affected but what how he responded instead. But the art is pretty iffy. 2.25/5

There is also Cyborg #1 here which was ok. It seems to be focused on the relationship of Cyborg and his Dad. It’s a neat relationship rife with enough stuff to explore but the execution and art weren’t the best imo. Still interested enough to pick up from my local library when it’s traded though. But a bit of a weak pick up.

[Arch Joseph]

Not going to do a super crazy deep dive on this one, but speaking from a person reading these out of order, this was a stronger compilation than Rise of the Power Company.

The artwork in all of the comics and the alternate art in the back of the book/comic was amazing. Wish I was able to see these on the front of the racks in book stores. Black Batman was amazing, Vixen and Batwing was an amazing black love/Mr. & Mrs. Smith type vibe, and Amazing-Man is exactly what I expect in a compilation like this. Honestly, African American superheroes beating the hell out of Nazis and racists is EXACTLY what I needed to see during BHM. These are the heroes I needed to see as a kid. Will definitely dive in deeper.

Def recommend as a quick read to introduce you to some amazing black heroes in the multiverse. 4.6/5 stars. There were some typos in my edition. Can’t lie some of it was jarring to decipher.

[Megan]

Overall I liked this anthology! There were some stories I liked more than others, but they were all enjoyable and I liked that they were all different. I would have to say that Jo Mullein's excerpt from Far Sector #5, Cyborg "Booyah!", and Black Lightning "Separate but Equal" were my favorites of the book. For the other stories, some felt a little too short or too surface-level for the message they were getting across. I do wish we had gotten an original story for Jo Mullein's part. She is also the only woman in this anthology to get her own solo story, as Nubia & Bumblebee are paired together and Vixen is paired with Batwing. Batman and Green Lantern did feature female characters, but they weren't titular characters for the short story. I did like that Thunder and Lightning made in appearance in Black Lightning's story, which reflected suggesting separate but equal schooling being applied to metahuman teens, something both Thunder and Lightning would relate to.

[Jesse Will]

Great book to celebrate the month with! my only gripe was that it ended on a cliff hanger and now I need to know more. Loved seeing such a great array of characters, a lot of which don't have massive followings yet. I was sad to learn that Amazing Man didn't have his own run of comics but I'll more than likely track down some of The All-Star Squadron to learn more at some point. I'll almost certainly visit this book again. 🔥🔥🔥

[Aaron White]

A series of shorter stories focused on Black superheroes in the DC universe, from Black authors. Amazing Man, Batwing, John Stewart, Nubia, Black Lightning, and his daughters Thunder and Lightning, newer iterations of Aquaman and Kid Flash, Vixen, Batman, Sojourner Green Lantern, and Cyborg all grace the pages of this celebration of Black History Month. My favourite was the NK Jemisin authored Green Lantern.

[Gordon]

it's a decent little selection of stories, some new, some reprints from previous titles, but they're all fun little reads. I'd say as a whole it hovers around 3½ or 4 out of 5 stars. I just wish there were more new stories, rather than reprinting random pieces from older books.

* I skipped the Nubia story as I just don't care about the character.

[Maisie Dickson]

I liked the artwork and the blurbs for various characters that I didn't know about and the stories were excellent. Still, I disliked the fact that the story I looked forward to ( Jo, my fave green lantern) reading the most was just taken from a comic I had already read and that was disappointing.

[Jasmine Johnson]

I really enjoyed this issue. It brought back my love of comics, it's a great celebration of Black History month and it has me wanting to know more about the heroes I did not even know existed in the DC Universe. Thanks for igniting my love for comics again.