Powers: Bureau vol. 2 — Icons
(For those of you who have noticed a trend with my Monday evening posts, the reason for this one is that I’m actually all caught up on the manga I’ve been reading. Instead, have some Bendis!)
Credit where credit is due, Bendis and Oeming managed to get the final issue of this volume (and series) out before the show launched on the Playstation Network. In fact, there’s a brand new #1 issue on sale right now that promises to be an accessible “back to basics” jumping-on-point for anyone who wants to see what the source material is like after the show kicks off in March. Getting to that point involves a lot of necessary evil over the course of this particular volume. While the core values of “Powers” are still quite entertaining, the long-form storytelling here takes a sizeable hit.
Christian Walker and Deena Pilgrim used to be cops investigating powers-related crimes, but now they’re doing the same as agents of the federal government. This time out, they wind up with the plumb assignment of finding out whether or not Cable murdered X-Force the grizzled hero known as Extreme killed the teen heroes of the Circle that he was offering guidance to. The investigation takes our protagonists out to the West Coast, where they find that the feds out there run themselves a little differently than they’re accustomed to. They also have Walker and Pilgrim in their sights for this particular case. Complicating matters even further is that the Millenium Guard has finally decided that Walker’s unsanctioned use of the powers he was given has warranted expulsion from their organization and a punishment of the harshest kind.
There are several key elements to the longstanding (if occasionally uneven) success of “Powers” over the years and they all turn up in fine form here. We get a clever powers-related crime to kick off the volume as Walker and Pilgrim investigate a murder where it looks like one woman killed herself. Then, another identical victim pops up. The explanation and the reasoning behind the murders are sad and fairly disturbing — the killer claims that these deaths can’t even be called murder and there’s actually some logic to that train of thought once everything is revealed.
As the strikethrough indicates, we also get another thinly-veiled take on some famous corporate-owned superheroes. Bendis’ riff on Cable and X-Force is significantly more brutal than anything we ever saw from the team’s Liefeld-led heyday (and that is the touchstone for this take on the team, as the double-page flashback with Extreme and Diamond lets us know) and also a lot more relatable. Extreme is portrayed as a washed up never-was who is resigned to his fate, and that makes his rambling easier to take in. Along with the fact that it sets up the second half of the volume.
Then you’ve got the writing and art from Bendis and Oeming. They’re still one of the best teams in comics and the way the art and the dialogue work together to build character and convey suspense is still impressive to behold here. Seeing the easy rapport Walker and Pilgrim have when investigating the files on the multiple girl in a two-page spread where the panel borders also work as the edge of their building is a cool sight to take in. Even better is the interrogation of our protagonists by the West Coast feds as the scene keeps ping-ponging between them without losing an ounce of momentum. Also fantastic in that section is Walker’s slow-burn turning-of-the-tables on Agent Rudy during his interrogation.
Really, there are a lot of individual parts here that show that Bendis and Oeming haven’t lost a step with their signature series over the years. It’s only when everything starts coming together for the main plot threads in this volume that things start to fall apart. You see, there’s a conspiracy behind the Extreme/Circle murders. A really big one. So big, that I wound up wondering how exposing it would actually make things better for anyone involved with it. It makes what should be a triumphant moment for Pilgrim at the end of the volume ring hollow since it feels like she just signed her death warrant with that particular action. It’s not that this story couldn’t have been done, just that the way it’s handled here leaves it feeling like the obvious reset button to get Walker and Pilgrim back to being cops that it is.
Same goes for the wrap up to Walker’s tenure as a member of the Millenium Guard. That doesn’t feel as forced since things have been building to this point for quite a while. Callista/Retro Girl’s role in it also gives the event a real feeling of tragedy and puts the character at a crossroads that should make for some interesting future stories. However, we’re told that Walker’s powers can only be removed in death, and… yeah that doesn’t happen. He’s left in a vegetative state at the end of the volume, and I don’t feel one bit of guilt about spoiling that because I’m sure he’s back on his feet in the latest issue. So there’s a lot of false tension here which is generally unsatisfying. The stuff with Callista/Retro Girl at least balances it out.
I don’t know how long or far Bendis and Oeming wanted to pursue this “Bureau” setup. There was certainly potential here for more stories than the ones in the two volumes we got. Who knows what we would’ve seen if they had kept putting this title out on a monthly basis during the time the twelve issues of “Bureau” were serialized. In the end, we get an awkward reset button that makes Walker and Pilgrim detectives again, just as we’ll see them on the PSN show. I like seeing how they interact with each other and their world enough to keep coming back again and again. It’s just frustrating to see a couple of creators like Bendis and Oeming unable to decide exactly what to do with this world and characters they’ve created and fail to serialize it on anything resembling a regular basis. Come on guys, get it together!