posted 01-18-2001 03:16 AM               

The story opens with homicide Detective Christian Walker being called into a hostage negotiation - the guy holding the hostage has powers, and he asked for Walker specifically. The pacing and dialogue in this opening scene are excellent. The build-up of tension is great, Walker really shines as a tough cop who can nonetheless empathize with a guy who's so at the end of his rope that he's ready to do something desperate and foolish, and the little asides between the cops have a world-weary wit about them. From there we meet Detective Deena Pilgrim, as she arrives for her first day as Walker's partner. Their first case: the murder of extremely-popular heroine Retro Girl.

It's not an easy case to solve. The medical examiner can't tell the detectives anything, since he has no context in which to place anything he learns from the autopsy. (I love the M.E., by the way - he's a great character, and his exchanges with Walker and Pilgrim are some of the most powerful in the book.) The rest of the powered community has little to offer, either, and the cops' best clue comes mysteriously from the little girl Walker rescued from the hostage scene. Bendis has a reputation for great crime comics, and I can see why here. The investigation proceeds in a manner that advances the plot while introducing and developing characters, with each inch of progress painfully fought for and dead ends aplenty. The tensions and rivalries between the cops are handled as well as I've ever seen the subject depicted in any medium. When the solution finally does come, it does so with some satisfying twists that may hint at stories down the road or that may always remain mysteries, and that in either case deliver an additional emotional punch that shows there's more to Powers than snappy dialogue and a clever premise - there's plenty of heart as well.

I would be remiss if I didn't offer up more praise for Michael Avon Oeming's art. A book like this couldn't work if Oeming couldn't handle the minor changes in expression that make the pauses and beats in the story tell so much about the characters, or if he couldn't use shadow and lighting so effectively to set the tone of the city and make it come alive. There's a rough, unfinished feel to the art that makes it perfect for this type of story, but it's also clear and attractive enough not to turn anyone off. And his character designs are top-notch. I especially liked Retro Girl, who evoked the era of clean-cut do-gooders so well that you can understand why she was so loved and why her loss was felt so strongly by the people of the city and the powered community.

The collected version of Who Killed Retro Girl? also contains character sketches by Oeming, a cover gallery, the full script to issue 1 so that you can see what Bendis gave Oeming to work with, and a collection of strips that ran in Comic Shop News to promote the series. It's a nice package, and well worth checking out at your local comics store or directly from Bendis' website, Jinxworld. (Amazon still has it on "special order.")

posted 11-03-2001 01:50 AM               

And here's the simple reason why: BMB doesn't seem to create any action for the characters so the storytelling just bogs. The first issue particularly, is the poor artist desperately trying to promote some vitality and energy to what seems to be an interminably long series of clever dialogue writing. Oh, BMB does write well and does good dialogue, but maaaann-- this ain't the stuff from which good comics emanates.

I personally feel that folks are either blinded by the high quality of the written conversations so much they fail to note that the storytelling is painful to read through or... many folks nowadays have no idea what makes for a successful comic book vis a vis storytelling.