Some Words

I read two more collections of Fables since I last posted. Those were great. Maybe the most impressive thing, at least over the course of the first six collections, is that the author manages to reveal the plot without disappointing me. I’m one of those readers who generally prefers the mystery.

In the sixth collection of Fables, the identity of “The Adversary” who drove the fables from their ancestral homes is revealed. Instead of the letdown I thought it would be, my response was “Ah, well, that opens some interesting possibilities.”

Contrast this with Powers, of which four volumes were left at work on a slow night. I read all four while I was there, and was left with a sort of ‘huh’ feeling. It’s not that they were bad, but they were only just interesting enough to keep me going. No more, no less.

Powers is the story of two detectives. In a world where more than a few people have superpowers, these detectives work on super hero homicides. Of course, much like the heroes they work with, they have secrets they would rather not reveal. In the first collection, one of the detectives complains that they’ve got nothing after two days, and I couldn’t help thinking that there was shockingly little procedure in this otherwise standard police procedural. At times I felt like I could hear the writer screaming “PLOT!” as things happened. By volume four, so much has happened I feel like I’ve read six or seven volumes. There’s no real time for the characters to have personalities. They are… impressively broadly drawn.

Which brings up the fact that Powers started as an Image imprint, so for at least the first four volumes suffers from the tradition Image comic “Women With Titanium Spines” syndrome or WITS. At least in powers the women seem to have been drawn to imply that they had implants rather than to pretend that all women with 28 inch waists have DDD sized breasts. Can someone who’s been reading more comics than I do help me out here? Does this problem still persist? I mean, seriously, even as adolescent male fantasy it’s a bit out of control.

It’s an interesting take on the superhero genre, but I’d suggest borrowing it. Of course, if you read comics, you’ve probably come to this conclusion already, as Powers started publication in 2000.