I can’t believe that I’ve never reviewed any of the Powers comcis by Brian Micheal Bendis and Michael Oeming. The series is set in a super hero city where the main characters are non-super hero police officers who are involved with investigating super hero related homicides. The basic concept (cops in a super hero universe) sounds similar to Alan Moore and Gene Ha’s Top Ten, but in execution it’s much different. The first storyline, which introduces the series, is the amazing Who Killed Retro Girl? Bendis was mainly known for his gritty urban crime series prior to Powers, and he transitioned that style into a super hero story without losing a beat. So, let’s see what happens.

The series starts off by introducing us to the two main characters, Christian Walker, a veteran homicide detective who has a long, secret past, and Deena Pilgrim, an up and coming detective who has just been assigned to be Walker’s partner. Walker is stuck with a 7 year old girl from a previous case that he doesn’t know what to do with until she can get into Family Services. The girl, Calista, becomes more important later in the series. So eventually Pilgrim and Walker go out on a call where they find out that the super heroine Retro Girl is dead. There’s pretty much no evidence and it’s impossible for the medical examiner to do much examination on a super hero who has unbreakable skin.

Sidenote: One of the litte things that’s mentioned throughout the series is the Powers scale. It’s a 1-10 scale with 10 being the theoretical highest. Power Girl was a solid 8 on the scale, which would put her just shy of Superman. So, something killing someone that powerful was a huge shock.

The detectives banter and investigate talking to everyone and anyone including a couple other heroes, Zara and Triphammer who play bigger parts in the story later on. They have no leads, no clues and no idea how she died, until Calista makes a side comment about a voice she heard in her head saying “Kaotic Chic”. Walker looks over the crime scene photos again and sees that spray painted on a building in the background. This leads them to close the case with Triphammer’s unwanted help.

Overall it’s a great book. Oeming does a wonderful job with the look and mood of the book. Here’s the view when Walker and Pilgrim find the dead Retro Girl:

You can see that there are shadows and grit and it’s not a clean, crisp world. The art plays right into the strengths of Bendis as a writer. The story itself does a great job not only setting up the characters, the city and the themes of the series, but it also does a great job telling the story. It’s an amazing start to the series that gets even better over time. Highly recommended.