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This article contains spoilers for Jenny Sparks #7.Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my father. But go to my brethren and say unto them, I ascend unto my father, and your father, and to my God and to your God.The devout among us might recognize that statement as the words of Jesus, as recorded in the King James Version of the Gospel of John. They also appear on the first page of Jenny Sparks #7, accompanied by a splash page of the titular character, standing tall and smirking, a cigarette in her hand.Such injections of lofty ideas into superhero comics are nothing new for writer Tom King, whose Jenny Sparks series is the latest bold (and, crucially, non-canonical) miniseries of an established superhero. Like Vision, Mr. Miracle, and The Human Target before it, Jenny Sparks breaks the central character down to her fundamental qualities, offering a unique and philosophical approach to someone we thought we knew. In the case of Jenny Sparks, that means reinventing her as a godlike being even more powerful than any other DC hero.Born in the StormJenny Sparks is no stranger to philosophical musings. In 1996s Stormwatch #37, written by Warren Ellis and penciled by Tom Raney, an energy-emitting villain quotes Friedrich Nietzsches faux-Bible Thus Spoke Zarathushtra, telling a corpse, Behold I teach you the superman. Man is something to be overcome.Nietzsche citations are nothing new among supervillains either, but the line serves as more than a ploy to impress college freshmen. It symbolizes the struggle at the heart of Stormwatch in its later incarnation, after Henry Bendix, aka the Weatherman, puts the organizations massive resources to creating a better world. He recruits a number of heroes to aid his new mission, including Jenny Sparks.Born at the stroke of midnight on Jan. 1, 1900, Jenny is one of a small handful of Century Babies, human-like constructs imbued with special gifts to help guide the next 100 years. In Jennys case, those powers include control of electrical bursts and aging that stops at 19 years old. After a few failed attempts at super-heroing throughout the years, Jenny had planned to spend the rest of her days drinking when Bendix recruited her to Stormwatch with the promise of a proactive approach, one that would attack the causes of problems, not the effects.That approach lead her to the Authority, the Justice League-style team that comes out of Stormwatch. It also leads to her death, as she sacrifices herself while fighting God at the end of the 20th Century, giving way to her successor Jenny Quantum and her DC Comics version Jenny Crisis, both new types of century babies.A Crisis of Infinite FaithJenny Sparks #1, written by Tom King and penciled by Jeff Spokes, opens with a less famous quotation, one no less philosophical: Save the world. They deserve it. Be better. Or Ill come to kick your heads in.Those, of course, were the last words that Jenny spoke to her Authority teammates before her death. The echo suggests that Jenny has returned because her friends did not save the world, and she needs to deal with a reality-warping threat. Which she does. Sort of.The miniseries follows Jennys clash with Captain Atom, who has gone mad with power. As the Captain easily takes down the Justice League, its up to Jenny to prevent Captain Atom from becoming a mad god who reshapes the world into his image.Join our mailing listGet the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox!That might sound like the setup for a massive Crisis-level event, but this is Tom King were talking about. So what really happens is a conversation between Jenny and Captain Atom, filled with philosophical asides. The grandiose Captain has kidnapped various people to be representations of humanity and the benefactors of his beneficence. Jenny has to talk him through it, in between drinks and with lots of British snark, of course.King takes advantage of the looser restrictions offered by the Black Label branding on Jenny Sparks, as DCs out-of-continuity Mature Readers imprint allows him to show Captain Atom casually killing the Leaguers. Even Superman and Green Lantern die easily at his hand, while Jenny sits in a corner and plays tic-tac-toe. And then, at the end of issue #6, Captain Atom wipes out everything. All of existence ceases to exist, except him, the bar, seven humans, and Jenny Sparks. As soon as the humans start to stand up against him, he wipes them out too.Heres where it gets interesting.Building a Better BeliefThroughout the miniseries, Captain Atom has been trying to convince Jenny, the sole unbeliever, that he is God. And as God, he can do better than anyone else who laid claim to the title, fixing the problems that other Gods never did. He can build a better world.That phrasing, of course, is the mantra of the Authority, the proactive superhero team that embodied Jennys belief. And so, when Jenny rejects Captain Atoms godhood she also experiences a crisis of faith. If she cant believe in a better world, then what can she believe in?It appears that the question remains unanswered toward the middle of Jenny Sparks #7, when she finally submits to Captain Atom and lets him burn her out of existence.But in the very next panel, we see Jenny sitting between Batman and Superman, smoking a cigarette and hardly acknowledging the Worlds Finest. In her best Miss Marple or Velma Dinkley, Jenny explains her gambit. She dealt with Captain Atoms play to godhood by giving him what he wanted, letting him become God, letting him destroy everything that displeased him, and then letting him sit in the disappointment. Eventually, just as she predicted, he recreated the world as it was to focus on the real problem: himself.In the end, Jenny defeated Captain Atom by teaching a fellow all-powerful being the lesson she learned throughout her 100+ years of existence: You dont fight life. You live it.Beyond SuperpowersDC Comics had to know what it was doing when it slated a Jenny Sparks series to end in February 2025, just a few months before James Gunns Superman flies into theaters. Although we dont know the full details yet, we do know that Superman will feature at least one member of the Authority, the Engineer (Mara Gabriela de Fara), as a primary villain.As always, the Authority stands as a counterpoint to Superman and his hopeful ideology, as well as his massive power. But Jenny Sparks turns that thought process on its head, reframing power.Could Jenny beat up Captain Atom, a guy who can bend reality to his will? Maybe. She certainly thinks so, leaving warning to Captain Atom that if he tries something like that again, shell do horrible things to very intimate parts of his body. And the worried look on his face suggests that he believes her.But thats not the point that Jenny Sparks wants to make. The true power isnt the ability to punch or fire quantum rays. Its the ability to live ones life instead of fighting it, to learn from ones mistakes instead of constantly battling them. Thats a power Jenny Sparks possesses more than any other DC hero.That and the power to toast people with lightning, but that doesnt mesh well with scripture or philosophy.Jenny Sparks is now available from DC Comics.
