This week brings us the return of a name we haven’t heard in some time, until a few earlier rumblings this year. The Power Company: Recharged gives us a new Power Company, a cult classic team created by Kurt Busiek and Tom Grummett over twenty years ago.

Originally, what set the Power Company apart from other super teams was the way they approached superheroism as an actual career. We’ve seen superheroes for hire before, but never with the vision and organization with which Josiah Power pursued those ends. Now, though, as capitalism has nestled into this late stage, the Power Company has returned to stand for something else. So, before we get recharged, here’s everything you need to know about the Power Company.
 

Starting the Power

The Power Company was named and founded by Josiah Power, once a force to be reckoned with in the legal world as an attorney representing a roster of enormously powerful corporate clientele. That all changed after 1988’s Invasion, when the dormant genes of the world’s metahuman population were all triggered in an alien incursion. This was the moment Power learned he was a metahuman himself, transforming into a hulking monster in the middle of a court hearing. This incident functionally ended his legal career.

After spending some time adrift, Power decided to apply everything he knew about running a law firm to starting his own superhero team that would represent the interests of corporations, in exchange for a retainer. To augment their business plan and prove their credentials, his staff would spend their other time doing pro bono work saving the world as needed.
 

The Original Staff

The first incarnation of the Power Company included three junior partners to Josiah Power, and three associate members. The partners were Rebecca Carstairs, better known as “Witchfire,” a world-famous magic-wielding pop star, actress and stuntwoman in addition to her burgeoning superhero career; Manhunter Kirk DePaul, the last living clone of the original Manhunter, Paul Kirk; and Celia Forrestal, ex-Navy lieutenant turned Argo Harness-wearing St. Louis hometown hero, Skyrocket.

The junior partners were Danny Tsang, alias “Striker Z,” another actor and stuntman from Hong Kong who gained energy-based powers after a work accident, which he controls through a specially designed suit; Charlie Bork, a super strong one-time Batman and Flash villain who turned his life around after parole; and the young street urchin Candy Gennaro, who became the new hero Sapphire when she bonded with a living alien shell. (Firestorm was a member of the team for a short time as well, before deciding their profit-motivated mission statement didn’t quite fit him.)
 

Where Are They Now?

The Power Company made an honest go of Josiah’s dream of a functional capitalist superhero team for eighteen issues in 2002, never quite seizing the spotlight again. Sapphire would refer to the team years later as “forgotten, but not gone.” After discovering her own nature as a magical construct, Witchfire still maintains a presence in the DC Universe’s tight-knit magical community. She played a small but significant role in the 2018 Wonder Woman and Justice League Dark crossover event The Witching Hour, as one of the five witchmarked pawns of the magic goddess Hecate.

Kirk DePaul, like a number of former Manhunters, was killed soon after The Power Company’s conclusion by another Manhunter gone rogue, Mark Shaw, in the 2004 Manhunter series. Sapphire hasn’t been seen for some time, last appearing as one of the abducted heroes of the Dark Side Club in the lead-up to Final Crisis. Skyrocket is presumably still active in St. Louis. Oracle has her number in case of a Crisis event.

The last active members of the original team, Striker Z and Bork, had their final documented mission in 2010’s Justice League of America #42, against the Father Box-wielding Doctor Impossible. Striker Z would break his pelvis in the fight, presumably ending his superhero career. Bork went on to join former teammate Witchfire as her personal bodyguard.
 

An Altruistic Pivot

It was fallout from one global disaster that made Josiah Power form the Power Company in the first place. It would be another which would bring him around to see the viewpoint of some of his more altruistic former partners. As we learned recently in DC Power: Rise of the Power Company, Josiah has found new purpose in life with the rediscovery of a long-lost nephew with metahuman abilities of his own—a nephew he would lose just as he began to think of himself as a father to him. Daniel Power was killed by the Sons of Liberty, a group radicalized by Amanda Waller’s anti-metahuman campaign in Absolute Power. Motivated by his loss, Josiah has returned to the world stage again with the message that metahumans can be trusted and with a new hand-picked team of heroes designed to restore the people’s faith in heroes.

The team is comprised of some of DC’s most prominent Black superheroes including Jace Fox, brother of Batwing and the Batman of New York City; Vixen, the world-famous animal-channeling supermodel superhero; Black Lightning, one of the original Black figures in the superhero community; and the Signal, former protege to the original Batman with his own metahuman powers of light and darkness.
 

Prepare for the Power Company

The original Power Company series may be out of print, but you can still follow the new team up to this point. First and foremost, we’d recommend the All-In Black Lightning series, which introduces the Sons of Liberty and brings Jefferson Pierce to Josiah Power’s attention. We saw Power starting to bring this team together soon after, in February’s DC Power: Rise of the Power Company. If you missed last year’s Absolute Power event, that will provide some greater context to the new Power Company’s overall mission statement.

For more on the last team that junior member Duke Thomas served on to get to this new point in his superhero career, read 2019’s Batman and the Outsiders, written by Recharged writer Bryan Edward Hill. The saga of Jace Fox can be found in 2021’s The Next Batman: Second Son and I Am Batman. And for Vixen, well, Vixen’s been everywhere. Some significant recent outings include her turn with the 2017 Justice League of America, her arc in the current Birds of Prey series, and a team-up with Black Manta, Nubia, Superman of Earth-2, Batwing and Amanda Waller’s nephew Deadeye to defeat Doctor Hate in Titans: Beast World: Waller Rising.

Where the Power Company goes from here, you’ll have to see for yourself in The Power Company: Recharged. But this may well be a new beginning.
 

The Power Company: Recharged #1 by Bryan Edward Hill, Khary Randolph, Alitha Martinez, Norm Rapmund, Ray Anthony Height, Studio Skye Tiger, Emilio Lopez and Alex Guimaraes is available this week in print and as a digital comic book.

Alex Jaffe is the author of our monthly "Ask the Question" column and writes about TV, movies, comics and superhero history for DC.com. Follow him on Bluesky at @AlexJaffe and find him in the DC Official Discord server as HubCityQuestion.

NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in this feature are solely those of Alex Jaffe and do not necessarily reflect those of DC or Warner Bros. Discovery, nor should they be read as confirmation or denial of future DC plans.