Like Meeting Up With An Old Friend

Powers Bureau 6
Marvel Icon
Brian Michael Bendis, writer
Michael Avon Oeming, artist
********** Mature Content Warning ************

I don't know that Powers is a book for everyone, but I enjoy it.

I didn't start out with the book from the beginning. This is another title where I came late to the party. I was curious about it for a long time before I decided to just buy the first trade and try it. That would be Who Killed Retro Girl, the story arc that launched this series in 2000. In that story, readers are introduced to two police detectives, Christian Walker and Deena Pilgrim. The pair work in a special division of the police force assigned specifically to cases involving people with superpowers. Some such people are good guys. Others are bad guys. Like in most fictional universes where some people have superpowers, there are a lot more bad guys than there are good guys, but even some of the good guys tend to forget there are other non-powered people around.

I liked that first trade so much, I bought the next couple and so on. I continued to enjoy Powers in trade format through the rest of its Image run, and then switched to buying single issues when Bendis and Oeming moved the title to Marvel's creator-owned Icon imprint in 2004. Like any series, some story arcs are better than others, but I've enjoyed reading about the characters through all of the changes in their lives and their world.

In mid-2012, a major catastrophe struck the Powers world and its characters, changing them even more. The title went away for a bit and then relaunched earlier this year under the new name Powers Bureau. The name change reflects the series' new reality after the world-altering event that ended the previous series. In this new world, all powered individuals are outlawed and any case involving superpowers is literally a federal case, handled by the FBI. Pilgrim had joined the FBI before the previous series ended in 2012. This first story arc shows Walker joining the FBI, too, so a casual reader might think little has changed with this series. Rather, the renewed focus of the characters and of the creators is obvious in every page of Powers Bureau.

I've always enjoyed reading Powers; that's why I continued to buy the title despite its erratic publishing schedule. But there's an excitement in the book now that I hadn't really noticed was missing until I felt it come back again. Bendis knows these characters and writes their dialogue in a kind of shorthand that feels like two friends talking to each other. And while Oeming's art still has the same cartoony Powers style, it also seems to have matured some as these characters have aged in the series.

Powers Bureau is definitely good comics!