The seventy-ninth comic: #540 Zenith

It's a bit hard to talk about this comic, in part because I'm not always convinced they entirely knew what it was meant to be.

Zenith is a slightly vacuous 80s popstar who's also a pop star - I'm not sure how often that's used during his performances, but it explains his way of travelling without much concern about the world of his powers. He's the son of two other superheroes, who disappearing in the 60s, together with all the others that exist. The first volume explores this odd world, bringing back some past superheroes to stop the ancient evil and exploring some of the things that would have changed and the generational conflict involved.

Later issues bring in an anti-Thatcher and (for a special) anti-Blair element, with a former/current superhero with mind control as part of the Tory government, which it hints at but doesn't address enough to really work. There's a story of fighting evil in there which works well in the original issues, and a "are we right to destroy some things after they're overrun by evil" section that sadly gets undercut later. The fourth issue breaks down and the story doesn't stick as well.

It's a decent read, but the story fails to engage near the end - which stays unfortunate.