This combines my love of procedural crime things with sci-fi things and also amusing and cute small cartoon children. Basically, it is great and I really want to read more! ( )

Great story, and amazing art. The art is simplistic, and yet manages to convey great emotion. The only thing that stops me from rating this five stars is the character of Deena Pilgrim. I assume Bendis was going for "spunky", but she came off as annoying and I spent a lot of the time wishing she would just shut up. Other than that, this was a great read that I highly recommend. ( )

Started out fantastic. Superheroes meet crime comics; character art is a little bit Samurai Jack. Dialog is Mamet knock-off (which is really fun here.) But man, does it just fizzle out by the end. Great set up, sucky sucky plot resolution. ( )

I started reading this book a loooooooong time ago, right after I read that there was a tv show in development based on it. I got sidetracked. Started over at least twice. Time passed, the tv show came out, then the second season. I really like the show. It's a great comic book show, and while I wasn't really familiar with the characters, at least they weren't melodramatic like the CW shows (which, full disclosure, I like).
Finally, I came to a resting point in my other comics reading, er, graphic novels. Whatever. Powers seemed like it would be a good palette cleanser to start off the new year.
Good choice.
This book is really a film noir-ish detective story in the super hero world, as opposed to super hero stories in the super hero world. The main characters are not super heroes. And that works quite nicely.
The book is not the tv show. So, if you are a fan of the show and come to this book to get more of the same, you may be disappointed. Many of the same names are used, and the two mains use the same names in both. It is true that they are cops in both, one a veteran at dealing with "Powers" and the other is new to the division. A bit of the backstory of Walker is the same. A bit. So, I guess that is kind of a spoiler...but if you've watched the show first, you should expect to already know some stuff, and if you haven't seen the show, well not a spoiler at all.
Did I already mention film noir? This book is dark and sparse in its artistic style. Lots of dark and washed out colors, so that when there is a solid red, for example, it really pops out and is quite effective.
A nice bonus is all of the extras added at the end, including a who's who of the many minor and cameo characters. In fact, I would say that there is more extra material than in any 15 books from DC or Marvel. You get a sketch book to show you the original ideas of how the characters looked as they were being developed. They have also included the complete script. It was very cool to get to look behind the curtain.
( )

The title gives away the plot for the most part. It's a graphic novel mystery. Who has killed Retro Girl, a Power, and why?

There are two Detectives t;hat get assigned to the case. Detective Walker, a man who has his own very big secret, and Detective Pilgrim, a transfer to Homicide and Walker's new partner.

It was a great TPB and a spellbinding mystery as well, with quite a few twists and turns I didn't see coming.

Definitely a series I'm going to keep reading, but it's by Brian Michael Bendis, so that shouldn't have surprised me. ( )