In a way, that collaborative approach hearkens back to 52, which Waid wrote with Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, and Geoff Johns, with designs by the late, great artist Keith Giffen. But there are two big differences between 52 and Absolute Power.
“One of them is we didn’t have Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman to play with, which is kind of the point of the series. The other big difference is [in 52] we were telling myriad stories that tied into each other. In Absolute Power, I’ve got 120 pages over four issues to really focus on one strong story with some side beats and personality beats and a little bit of subplot stuff here and there.”
As disappointing as that might be to readers who would love for Waid “to drift off and spend five pages with Adam Strange,” the focus also helped Waid distinguish Absolute Power from other comic book crossovers.
“We’ve all read crossovers where the main story is the main story, and then all the tie-in books are the C-list books, and it’s really just a cash grab to slap a logo on their cover. And I really resisted that,” Waid explains. “One of the first things I asked of the various DC writers is to devote three issues of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman to this story.”
He admits that the request “is a big ask, but at the same time, that makes it feel bigger, that gives it weight. Right off the bat, we have Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman all going off on specific missions that feed into the climax that takes them off the board for issue three and gives the opportunity for a lot of other lesser characters to shine.”
If anyone is suited to writing B- and C-list characters, it’s Waid, with his encyclopedic knowledge of the universe. At the same time, Waid wanted to avoid the main pitfall of writing crossover events that reference decades of DC lore.