POWERS: WHO KILLED RETRO GIRL?

Created & Produced by: Brian Michael Bendis & Michael Avon Oeming

Published by Image

           This is the trade collection of the first six issues of Powers, which was one of the dozens of series I'd heard repeatedly hyped but had ignored. While I'd known Bendis was the writer of the lamentable-to-me but otherwise generally lauded Ultimate Spider-Man, I found that this creator-owned series is nicely and tightly written.

           Following the actions of a detective (Christian Walker) in a city with a superhero population maybe just a hair lower than Marvel's New York, it's largely written with the clipped, packed-term scripting of a police show. Even the simplified, almost Warner animation-style artwork by Michael Avon Oeming (with all the use of full middle names I wonder if they're fated to become assassins of note) proved more interesting as I got into it. This trade introduces us to the main cast as they investigate the death of an iconic, female superhero, which isn't much of a surprise since the subtitle for this volume is "Who Killed Retro Girl?" Yeah, the name's less than inspiring, and the logic behind it is... thin, it's nonetheless a minor point in a generally more interesting tale.

             I know that this is a short set of comments for a six-issue arc, but I think I've covered it as well as I can without spoiling anything. I'd be happy to trade more specific comments via email or the messageboard (see below), though.

             As a result of this trade edition I added Powers to my next comics order.

                                               MJN

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