#11: Do a Power Bomb!

 


Do a Power Bomb!

Daniel Warren Johnson

 

Year Published: 2023

Pages: 176

Genres: Comics, graphic novel, action/adventure, fantasy, sports

Topics: Death of a parent, loss, guilt, ambition, father/daughter relationships, pro wrestling

Recognition

    Eisner Award for Best Publication for Teens, 2024

 Summary

Lona Steelrose dreams of being a pro wrestler. Her mother, Yua Steelrose, was one of the most famous wrestlers in the world. But Yua died in the ring when Lona was young, in an accident with another wrestler called Cobrasun. Now, ten years later, Lona's father forbids her from wrestling, afraid of losing his daughter just like he lost his wife.

Lona does have one fan, though: a wrestling-obsessed sorcerer named Necroton. Trapped on a distant planet, Necroton wants to bring the greatest wrestling tag-teams in the cosmos together to fight in a tournament for a coveted prize: the chance to bring one person back from the dead. Necroton wants Lona to compete; if she wins, she can see her mother again.

But there are two catches: First, the wrestling isn't fake. It's real. And second, Necroton has already decided on Lona's tag-team partner: Cobrasun, the wrestler responsible for her mother's death. To bring Yua back, they have to learn to work together, and in the process, Lona discovers she has more in common with Cobrasun than she ever imagined.

Do a Power Bomb! and Me

I love Daniel Warren Johnson. He has an ability to take completely wild, outrageous, over-the-top premises and infuse them with real emotional weight and humanity. (One of his previous books, Murder Falcon, is a mashup of heavy metal, giant monsters, and kung fu that's all a backdrop for an exploration of a cancer diagnosis.) I had wanted to read Do a Power Bomb! for a while, but I hadn't realized that it won an Eisner Award for Best Publication for Teens in 2024. This felt like the perfect excuse for reading it.

And, just as I expected, I loved it. To use a marketing cliché, Do a Power Bomb! is absolutely action-packed. With its wild premise and incredibly kinetic art, it's almost more reminiscent of manga than of American comics. And even though I'm not usually much of a manga fan, I was completely absorbed by the story's action, humor, campiness, and humanity. There are some fantastic, outrageous twists, but it never loses sight of its emotional core. Of all the books I've read so far for this project, Do a Power Bomb! is the one I would be most likely to recommend to my own 14-year-old self.

Because I enjoyed the book so much, I'm wondering what I've been missing out on in manga. Many of my students really enjoy it, but I've always been daunted by its strange (to me) concepts and multi-volume series. But maybe I'll take this opportunity to see if I can find one or two that I might enjoy.

Teaching Considerations

Young Adult: I can think of some 8th graders whom I know would love Do a Power Bomb!, and I also know adult comic readers that have loved it. I think the sweet spot for teens might be 8th to 10th grades (13-16 years old), but older readers could definitely enjoy it as well.

Independent Read: As much as I would love to teach Do a Power Bomb!, I'm not even sure how I would. But I know at least some students who are already fans of comics or manga would love this book, and I would be glad to recommend it to them.

Graphic Novel Exploration: I'll keep banging this drum because it's something I feel strongly about: Graphic novels should be studied as an artistic medium in themselves, not as simply an "easy alternative" to prose books.

Complicated Relationships with Parents: One of the central themes of Do a Power Bomb! is Lona's relationship with her father. Although the book is a very unique story, it could feasibly be paired with another, more classic novel that centers parent-child relationships, like The Kite Runner.

Sensitive Content: Do a Power Bomb! is a book about fighting, and it contains a lot of action and violence. There is blood, though it's mostly depicted through red shading, so the book isn't actually very gory at all. It also discusses the death of a parent.

Read-Aloud/Viewing Passages

  • Page 47 ("Your payment.")  –  Page 50 ("I will.")
    • Lona confronts Cobrasun, asks him to join her in the tournament, and sees his guilt over the death of her mother. It's a good character-defining moment for Lona and introduces us to the complicated relationship between her and Cobrasun.

  • Page 105 ("Miss Neva?")  –  Page 107 ("Ok. Together.")
    • These three pages give the reader a glimpse into the life of one of the other wrestlers in the tournament and the loss she's suffered. They also reveal some of Cobrasun's character and backstory as he prepares Lona for their next deathmatch.

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