When it comes to superhero storytelling, Kieron Gillen knows a thing or two…or three, but what if he wasn’t hampered by editorial and corporate oversight? The answer may be The Power Fantasy, a new series from Gillen, Caspar Wijngaard, Rian Hughes, and Clayton Cowles this August. Today, AIPT can exclusively reveal details surrounding one of its main characters, if not the main character, named Etienne Lux.
With the reins taken off, the new series explores a world with only six super-powered people, but fighting is the last thing the world wants. It could just go boom.
Gillen and Wijngaard have already introduced two characters from issue #1 elsewhere, with Santa Valentina and Eliza Hellbound getting their due. Now it’s Etienne’s turn.
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“The logical person to reveal next is the person who very nearly was the cover star to issue 1,” Gillen told me via email. “We actually had a cover with him on, but decided to change the design completely so the art no-longer fit. He was the cover star for a simple reason: as far as issue 1 goes, I think he’s the lead. And if not lead, at least the prime mover.”
“Etienne Lux has been a brilliant character to shape; he’s incredibly cultured with an unconventional eye for fashion somewhat ahead of its time,” Wijngaard said via email.
Gillen continued, “Etienne Lux is our telepath. Or, omnipath, as others have occasionally put it – he’ll roll his eyes at that. Such ego would be the death of us all,” Gillen added. “The Telepath and superpowered fiction has an interesting relationship, right? Telepaths are the nearly-man of the genre. Siegel and Shuster’s first Superman wasn’t Clark Kent. It was a Bill Dunn, a vagrant man gifted telepathic powers by a scientist. He existed for one short story and came to a poor end, and they re-used the name a year later to make the guy we all know. I think it says a lot when Siegel and Shuster first thought of “Superman”, they went to telepaths.”
“He was bald as well. And a jerk. What is it about bald telepaths who are jerks?”
Wijngaard added, “I drew inspiration from various people both real and fictional that while designing his looks over the 40 year period we spend with him, this isn’t a spandex and capes book, making sure Lux feels unique fell more into the little eccentricities. He exudes cool.”
Courtesy Image
Gillen hasn’t been shy about pointing out this series’ connections to his recent series Immortal X-Men. A big reason why he chose AIPT for insights on the character.
“At least one reason I mailed you guys asking if you wanted to introduce Etienne is that you’re a site that has an obvious real relationship with the X-Men” Gillen continued, “And this did all emerge from my X-work. In the same way that the Wicked + the Divine came to me due to seeing the limitations of what I could do with Young Avengers, The Power Fantasy came from writing Immortal X-Men, and seeing stories in the vague space that would never work in the Marvel Universe. I think that may be truest with Etienne. Of all the cast, I think Etienne is going to be the one who gets comparisons. He’s a telepath and public intellectual who views himself as something of a spokesperson of his “people” – we call them the Atomics, or the Nuclear Family. It will be easy to make comparisons, and folk probably should.”
“The differences will become swiftly apparent.”
“It’s not just because he has hair.”
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