Reviewer: James Hatton
Story Title: Powers #14
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Michael Avon Oeming
Coloring: Peter Pantazis
Lettering: Ken Bruzenak
Editing: James Lucas Jones & KC McCrory
Design: Keith Wood
Publisher: MOB Publishing (A Marvel Imprint)
Ever since GI JOE #21, where the mainstream comic audience was given a comic that held not a single word of text, people have tried to duplicate it. It is a testament to the form we know and love that you can tell an entire story without a word spoken.
Marvel even tried to show us the difficulties of it a few years ago with books that held little to no text. Some of those books were damn good, others not so much. This month in Powers, Bendis does his own little homage where for the first half of the issue the only text we get is a one page ‘sarcasm’ spot. The rest of that first half is Deena.
Deena crossing the line. (dramatic fanfare)
STORY!
A few months ago, Deena was given superpowers that she has no understanding what to do with. Ever since then, she’s hid them from the world, the police, even her arguable best friend, former superhero himself, Walker.
Today she is being attacked by an ex-boyfriend. Now, arguably, her ex-boyfriend is at fault, as he corners her as she is coming home – and stabs her. That’s the problem though, Deena is one of the good guys, a cop no less, and what she does in response goes past that line.
With her new electric power, she takes her ex-boyfriend, electrocutes him until he is just another puddle of goo, then discards the body. She makes sure that nobody saw her do it. She makes sure that all her bases (as far as we see so far) have been covered. In the end, she is a guilty murderer and I guarantee the next year of stories will have something to do with this mistake she’s made.
What is intriguing about this issue is that in the world of good and bad superheroes, we are supposed to understand what is right and what is wrong. The boyfriend stabbing her is wrong, yes, and even her turning around and killing him might be argued as self-defense. It is the rest of the book that chills you. Deena collects herself, goes to work, tells nobody what she’s done, then sits down and outright lies. She, who has been the sarcastic moral compass of this book, is now no better than the villains that run around in it. She responded to an attempted murderer, but by saying nothing more of it, she is just another bad guy.
Who am I, honestly, to tell Bendis what his characters would or would not do. I’m just a reviewer, but I’m not a fan of this angle. She is a woman pushed just a little too far, but in the end – until she admits guilt of her actions – she will never be the good guy again. She can’t be, and we’re left with Walker to hold the reins as the good guy forever more.
Again, Powers is a book that surpasses it’s own archetypes of a superhero book and a cop book time and time again, but with one of the best now sitting closer to the line than ever before – what morality is left?
ART!
When you have a book that rides solely on pictures, you have to have an artist that can pull it off. Oeming owns the characters of Powers. He has been the only man to draw them consistently, and the world they live in has been created by his hands. Needless to say, he does it well. The attack from the boyfriend, the response from Deena, and all that transpires afterwards are done with the same hand that has made Powers the book that it has. With the colors vibrant, thanks to the hand of Peter Pantazis, Oeming’s vision of Bendis’ script is perfect.
OVERALL!
Deena has hit the bottom of the barrel. She has taken her secrets, and compounded them with sins. That, is in fact, why this book does so well. Deena is written as real as any person – and real people make mistakes. I’m not a fan of where it’s going, but I know I will reach with fast hands to find out what Bendis does next.
What I also find interesting is that even though I don’t agree with the story, it doesn’t change that this is a well executed comic. In discussions with other people who read comics, they asked if this was going to be ’10’ worthy because of how much they loved it. No, it’s not 10 worthy – since I’d argue the motivations of the character, but it is a damn good book. It will be everything after this book that tells you whether this was the shark jumper moment (which it arguably could have been), or the moment that Powers turned into something that much more amazing.
