• Story: Robert Kirkman
• Art: Chris Samnee
• Colour: Matt Wilson

It’s very difficult to express just how much I love this book. It’s very rare these days that you come across a book with overall standards this high. It’s warm, fun, engaging, interesting, the character work can’t really be touched, Chris Samnee’s art is at least as good as Darwyn Cooke’s now, and coloured by Matt Wilson it has a vibrancy that lifts this book above almost all of its competition. Starting the ongoing series fifteen years after the graphic novel is also a clever move, giving us a continuity gap filled with mysteries, which Kirkman and Samnee seem gleefully ready to tease us with. Present day Owen is great, his family is great, we even get to meet his family and neighbours – Kirkman makes world building and character development look effortless, and just like that I’m invested in Owen’s past and present.

Some may say the premise is unoriginal, which is probably true, but reinventing the wheel really isn’t necessary. John Byrne’s Fantastic Four and Kurt Busiek’s Astro City are great examples of books which renovated classic ideas and set new standards for the next generation, and Kirkman and Samnee’s Fire Power is no different. Allegiance to mentor, temple and family will no doubt pull Owen in multiple directions and with art this masterful, I’m looking forward to see what happens when his worlds collide.