A lot of background and a lot of action.
Creative Staff:
Story: Aaron Lopresti
Art: Aaron Lopresti
Colors: Hi-Fi Design
What They Say:
If, on your birthday, you could make a wish, any wish, before you blew out your candles, what would it be? On his eighteenth birthday, Kenny got something better than one wish. He was given alien technology that lets him create literally anything he can wish for! How about a flying robot or a life-sized T. rex? To keep it, and also stay, you know, alive, he’ll have to outwit the persistent government agent Claire Covert and a Nazi mad scientist. On top of that, when Kenny’s father is abducted by some old friends, Kenny will have to use every ounce of imagination to save him!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The opening installment of Power Cubed was a kind of odd duck with how it played out. I liked it with what it did and its overall energy, but it just felt off in some ways with the way it had to cover so much so quickly while having a lot going on with the action and silliness. Part of what you have to do with this book (and admittedly a lot of books in general) is to really just try to not and logic out what’s going on here with the whole matter transformation aspect of it. It’s meant to be fun and old school comic book-y in a way where you don’t try to get into the science of it. It’s just something that happens with advanced technology that’s like magic. What the book needs to do to balance that though is to have some solid characters, and they didn’t get a chance to really run with that the last time, especially with Kenny and his desire to leave that just didn’t feel like it was explained properly.
Kenny gets a lot more time this time around, but it’s mostly him trying to cope with what he learns while also fending off opponents. His use of the power along with Click on his shoulder makes for some good action sequences, especially when he’s facing the agent early on and he comes up with some creative attacks – including a giant robot that has a whole lot of personality that you might not imagine would be a part of it. The agent is done in a kind of comical aspect as well as Covert is practically doing a wink and a nod at the reader at times while trying to deal with securing Kenny and the technology and having to cope with being on hold with headquarters. It’s not a great gag but it certainly tells you what it wants to do here from time to time in order to draw things out in the direction it wants to go.
Where this book manages to get me over to its side more though is that we get some good exposition and background material here. Because of the surreal nature of the technology, we do get an explanation as to why Ralph has it and why Kenny is going to be hunted more. I like the alien background that’s brought into it that also touches on the whole abduction side while also reversing the whole human falls in love with an alien girl bit that we see so often. Ralph isn’t exactly compelling here, but I’ll admit I found him a lot more endearing in his alien form than his human one. It’s a good heart to heart with his son, but yeah, how do you really have that conversation in a normal sense when you don’t have proof to back it up?
In Summary:
Power Cubed brings us more of the why of events and that definitely helps to open it up while also personalizing it in a good way. Kenny doesn’t get a lot of actual good dialogue time here, but he plays well against Covert, who does her best to steal scenes but doesn’t quite manage it, while Ralph and his background story is the solid meaty material to like here. Lopresti manages the whole thing rather well overall though and as a whole I definitely enjoyed the book on its own and more than the first installment. It’s fun and light with just enough serious moments to give it what it needs without being too much. Because you can’t have too much when your apparent main villain is named Dr. Cruel.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: October 21st, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
