Powers: Who Killed Retro Girl? - Brian Michael Bendis et al
I picked this one up at a used book sale. I'd heard of Brian Michael Bendis (he wrote Fortune & Glory) but hadn't read any of his graphic novels before this one. Powers is apparently a series that's somewhat similar to "Astro City" in that there are a lot of superheroes about, but the stories are not all about them. This particular volume is about the murder of Retro Girl, one of these All-American Girl type of superheroes, who's discovered dead at an elementary school. Homicide detective Christian Walker is on the case, along with his new partner Deena Pilgrim. I like the style of the art (by Mike Oeming), which is more graphic and angular than your traditional Marvel-style comic, but the one thing that really irks me is that he re-uses panels so often, sometimes with very minor modifications, and sometimes with no modifications but the dialogue bubbles. I mean, if a picture is supposed to be worth a thousand words, then this book is several thousand words short.
Overall, the writing was okay but not spectacular, and the images were good when not too repetitive. Not the best I've read—Astro City is a better recommendation.
Fed to jonathan's brain | December 02, 2005 | Comments (0)