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Powers Vol. 1: Who Killed Retro Girl? Paperback – August 29, 2006

4.5 out of 5 stars 43

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  • Heroes glide through the sky on lightning bolts and fire. Flamboyant villains attempt daring daylight robberies. God-like alien creatures clash in epic battle over the nighttime sky. And on the dirty city streets below, Homicide Detective Christian Walker does his job. Walker has to investigate the shocking murder of one of the most popular super-heroes the world has ever known: Retro Girl. He is teamed up with spunky rookie Detective Deena Pilgrim, and the murder investigation takes them from the seediest underbelly a city has to offer, to the gleaming towers that are home to immortal beings. As shocking, hidden truths about Retro Girl come to light, Walker finds that to solve this crime, he might have to reveal his own dark secret.

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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Image Comics (August 29, 2006)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 207 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1582406693
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1582406695
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 16 years and up
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.05 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.6 x 0.5 x 10.1 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 out of 5 stars 43

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
43 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on March 5, 2019
I'm a sucker for detective stories and superheros, and this has the best of both. My only small complaint is that BMB is always trying to write a novel in the text balloons. Other then that it's great.
Reviewed in the United States on March 15, 2018
I read this before I started watching the Sony Playstation series and I amintersted in how they .adapt it. Look forward to reading more!
Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2022
Bendis is always entertaining! A fun yarn, attractively illustrated. The bonus material is super interesting for the hard-core fan base.
Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2013
The story was interesting but ultimately the art work killed it for me. I just felt like it didn't do much to elevate the story. My girlfriend, who isn't typically into comics, has really enjoyed some other titles I own but immediately put this one down because the artwork turned her off.
Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2011
I am up to Volume 12, and I'm still buying and I'm still reading. I liked this first volume just fine, but it didn't blow me away. However, over the next few volumes, it did. Several times now I've actually exclaimed "wow" aloud. I was stunned by the story, by the direction, and every time I thought "Okay, that's the big shocker, what else can they pull?", it shocked me again.

A little criticism on the art: It's the square clunky style of Mignola, though with less "grain". It's dark and very noir. That's not the criticism. The layout often confuses me. A single comic gives way to an open spread, but in a graphic novel collection, the binding makes me have to peek into the crease to read dialogue. Also, they often go from the traditional layout to a long spread across two pages. I have to pay attention and often miss the linear run of the frames because I didn't catch the fact that the layout had changed. Frequently, frames are repeated. I'm not sure that last one is a complaint, just an observation. The fact is overall the layout is inventive, but in being inventive, it sometimes gets in the way of my flowing through the storyline.

Not much of a criticism though. This is a new look at superheros, and a damned good one. Not since "The Boys" have I had such a good time with the fallibility of the heroes. There are sections here, especially when delving into the past of our main detective hero that truly transcend time and space, and it's highly enjoyable to know something about him that even he doesn't know. How often does that happen in a novel, movie or comic book?

And to quote a minor character in the comic (vol 12, I think), I would like to spend the better part of the evening licking the naval of our female protagonist. Not because she is beautifully drawn. No. I can go to a variety of pin-up comics by Image for that. No. I like her because of her personality, because of her humor. That's not good art: that's good writing.
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Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2015
Police procedural stories all have a lot in common, because police procedures have a lot in common, in Los Angeles in the 2010s, Shanghai in the 1600s, New York City in a terrifyingly overpopulated future where humans try to coexist with robots, or in a parallel universe version of Chicago where costumed superheroes fly overhead out of your reach /smash up the pavement in front of you and block your evening commute.
Our heroes in the Powers division (tasked with crimes involving people who have, you know, powers), battered but determined Detective Christian Walker and his new partner, green but intelligent Deena Pilgrim, will be as familiar to readers of mystery novels as the superpowered characters Retro Girl, Triphammer, Zora and Diamond will be to superhero fans.
It would be easy to produce a story of police in a superhero world which would not be satisfying to readers of either genre, but speaking as a member of both groups, I think this is a successful experiment. Judging by the popularity of the series (including its expansion into other media), I'm not the only one.
Making this story was a challenge, because the Powers in the story really are superheroes, not the half-deranged vigilantes of Watchmen, or the entirely deranged cosplayers of Kick-Ass. They are characters who could not exist in the real world, even if superpowers existed in the real world. Yet the police in the Powers division are real cops, or as real as most fictional cops. It's a good trick to make these two worlds fit together, yet they do.
I usually don't pay as much attention to the artwork on a comic as I do the story -- unless it's conspicuously bad, or conspicuously wrong for the story, or conspicuously right. Oeming's artwork is conspicuously right for Bendis' stories: dynamic in a way that reminds me of Jack Kirby, dramatically lit in a way that reminds me of Alex Toth, and blessedly lacking the ugliness of John Romita Jr.'s art (which was suitable for Kick-Ass, but would not be right for Powers), but also lacking the shining perfection of Alex Ross' artwork on Astro City.
I can definitely recommend this story to anyone who takes pleasure in detective stories, anyone who takes pleasure in superhero stories, or to anyone who likes good stories inhabited by realistic personalities (yes, at least the personalities are realistic).
Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2016
I loved this. It is a unique superhero story in that it focuses mostly on characters without superpowers. I am a fan of Brian Michael Bendis through his work on Ultimate Spider-Man and he scored another win with this first volume. It's a funny, and extremely well-written detective story that pulls you right in. I really liked the simplistic art-style and the panel coordination was really well done (I read it digitally and had to turn off my guided view to look at the full pages after each one, they were so great to look at). I will definitely be continuing this series.

Top reviews from other countries

JDMofo
5.0 out of 5 stars Detective noir with a superhero twist
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 7, 2011
I've just started collecting this series and it's a great read. The premise of an FBI team who investigate crimes involving Superheroes (or Powers as they are called here) is a great idea and seems fresh in a medium which can often feel very repetitive. Oeming's 'noir' style artwork is perfectly suited to tell Bendis' dark detective stories.

This is one of those titles which has obviously been carefully thought out in advance, there are things which happen in this fist volume which don't really seem important till much later in the series and that's a mark of a clever writer IMO.

Another reason I like this book is the text-heavy nature of the pages, some people may find it too much but for me it gives you value for money, with plenty of story in each volume.

Not the best series I've ever read but very, very good.

Edit: I'm up to volume 12 with the series now and it gets better and better. Have upped my original review from 4* to 5*. I'll be reading through this series again many times in the future I'm sure, it really is awesome.
2 people found this helpful
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Mr J Houghton
5.0 out of 5 stars Praise for powers
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 20, 2017
Good stuff can't wait to get vol 2
Martin Gardiner
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 17, 2017
As advertised
B. Wroe
2.0 out of 5 stars Hugely disappointing
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 2, 2010
I have recently been looking for some new comics to experience and the fame of Brian Bendis plus the reviews from other Amazon customers convinced me to give Powers a go.

I was so disappointed.

While Bendis' dialogue is good, it didn't blow me away as it seems to have done for others. I like the art style but at times it seems almost unfinished. Like Oeming ran out of time while drawing.

Neither of these things would be too much of an issue if it wasn't for the actual plot. I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who wants get this book but the plot is so flimsy it beggars belief. The "big reveal" of the killer at the end left me thinking "Yeah, so?"

So many people love this book that I wanted to give it a chance so I bought the second volume to see if things improved. I would say the second one was as much of a disappointment as the first. However, the first set the bar so low, that wouold be a lie.