TPF Reread #1: Heavy is the worst, and he's my favorite
@jkjones21 is doing an issue-by-issue reread commentary of The Power Fantasy, and I told him I'd join in... his issue #1 post was over a month ago now, and he's done through #5, but like, better to start late than never, right? Rather than trying to do a comprehensive overviews, I'm going to focus on one character per issue and write about how my understanding of them changed, with a bit of visual analysis to go along with it.
So. Let's talk about how I started reading The Power Fantasy expecting to like Heavy, and came out of issue one both loving and hating him. I'd already seen some of the preview images before I started TPF, and so I understood Heavy to be an attractive man with a pastel aesthetic and a slightly sleazy kind of charisma. I figured he was going to be my favorite, and I wasn't wrong, but I didn't see it coming that he nearly ends the world, and indirectly mass-murders a bunch of people, in the very first issue. I wanted him to be nice; I didn't realize I needed him to be awful.
The horror of Heavy is that he doesn't really see people as people, or see his feelings as anything but facts. This is made very obvious with the red-tinged panels where he's telling Etienne who to kill, literally showing how his anger colors his perspective. But it's also in panel compositions earlier on, where he's swaggering all around Haven. There's subtle Dutch angles (tilted horizon lines) all throughout that scene, as if the world he lives in is lurching back and forth. He's talking big, but he's in denial about his skewed perspective and unstable situation.
...and like, these are all the reasons why Heavy is one of the fandom's less popular characters. And after issue one, I was a lot less willing to be like "he's hot and charming and obviously my favorite." But even in #1, where he's clearly the one causing problems and hurting people, some of the reasons he stayed my favorite show through.
Getting torn in half is awful! This page's lighting and texture do a great job of showing it! If Heavy isn't capable of clear reasoning or empathy through the rest of this scene, well, it's kind of hard to do those things when you nearly died just minutes before, and you're actively struggling to ignore incredible pain and keep yourself alive. And the scars on his body are already implying that he's survived this kind of thing countless times before.
I can't look back on #1 without the perspective I picked up from later issues, but this issue does introduce a lot of my initial inner conflicts about Heavy. He's got the over-the-top utopian ego, and the brutal vindictive side, but the important thing to me is how easily he toggles between them. And I felt at first like that should scare me. It took me a while to realize that even if my life isn't epic geopolitics like Heavy's... I kind of relate to the way he switches personae abruptly based on however he feels at the time.
I've never survived an assassination attempt even once. But I've been stuck in my own cycles, where someone tried to hurt me to stop me being too loud and too extreme. It only made me louder and more extreme... up to a certain point when they managed to shut down my anger for good. They can knock Heavy down, but they can't keep him down long enough to teach him his lesson.
"The Power Fantasy" is meant as an ironic title, but Heavy truly was the power fantasy I needed at the time I picked up the comic. I needed to remember what it was like to let myself have feelings, even when those feelings led me deeper into trouble. But it took me a long time to be able to look directly at why I cared so much about him, so I spent at least a month going in circles in my head: He's so hot! But he's so bad! But he's so hot! What's going on with me, when I've never gone in for the dangerous ones before?
The middle panel here is my favorite from the whole issue. It's not the fanciest or most eye-catching, but it's the perfect expression of "I like Heavy because he's hot, and hate him because he's bad, and love him because he's both and also more." He doesn't just look angry at Etienne; he also looks hurt, like he really think he's the victim here because Etienne won't just kill innocent people because he asked. There's horror in how he can look at his own feelings and make everything else disappear, but... I used to be someone who trusted my anger and pain and nothing else, and it made things bad. And then I became someone who trusted my anger and pain so little I forgot they existed, and it made things worse. And then, just as the absolute worst appeared on the horizon, I discovered The Power Fantasy.
Also, he's really hot there. Even without the pastel outfits.
The Power Fantasy Reread #2: Heavy's kid is surprisingly chill, for a dude who's on fire
My TPF reread continues! I guess I'm doing these however often I feel like it, not to any particular schedule. And as before, rather than trying to do a comprehensive overviews, I'm going to focus on one character per issue and write about how my understanding of them changed, with a bit of visual analysis to go along with it.
In some ways, Heavy's as-yet-unnamed son is an easy choice for who I see differently after issue #2 than before, because until the last scene, we had no idea he existed. In other ways, he's a hard character to talk about, because so little is actually revealed. On a plot level, he's implied (not shown) to be a serious threat to the Superpowers' fragile status quo. But on a more personal character level, he's shown to have special status on Haven, and within Heavy's schemes ... and a confident, reckless attitude towards his unique role.
I've written before about how (a)symmetry in this scene represents the balance of power The Pyramid sections of the scene are mostly symmetrical, representing the status quo Magus claims he's trying to preserve. The Haven sections get less and less symmetrical, ending up with a tilted "camera" so that Heavy's son looks as if he's leaning sideways, visually off-balance. Cutting between the two conversations visually implies that Kid should be taken seriously as a danger to Magus's goals of balance.
But beyond the out-of-universe panel composition, Heavy's composed a scene of his own- a ritualistic circle, everyone focused on him and Haven's mysterious central sphere. Haven is a cult, with its own dogmas and idols, and Heavy's leaning into that rather than trying to downplay it. Interesting how his son, living in that bubble except during "Family time", is acting like the pressure of his importance doesn't weigh on him- he's just eager for what's coming next.
Revealing Heavy's kid also adds one more twist to an issue that shows a lot of sides to Heavy's persona. They seem to get along pretty well, for a father who keeps his son locked up in a tiny bedroom- but when you spend your time locked up in a tiny bedroom, how would you know any different?
Overall, Heavy's Family situation is presented as a live grenade in a number of different ways. It's not clear how powerful this teenager actually is, but it does seem apparent that his family dynamic with Heavy is a messy situation, even if they're grinning about it now.
