I knew it had been a while since I last read anything in the Powers series, which is why I scanned my last couple of reviews. I thought (while I was reading this volume) that I still had a good grasp on what has happened lately, but one likes to make sure. What I would not have been able to guess is that it’s been significantly over a year. I guess if you do something for nine months, eventually the stuff you were doing before is more than a year ago, but still. Shocking!

But also prescient. Actually, scratch that. Terrible segue. I was prescient during those year-old reviews, is what I meant to convey. Because, see, well, let me quote myself: “Powers [are] basically outlawed altogether. (Which only makes a limited kind of sense in a world with supervillains, but roll with it.)” And sure enough, Bendis was able to spot that flaw just as quickly as I was, which is where Legends picks up some significant period of time after the events leading to that outlawing I mentioned. Cops such as our protagonists Christian Walker and Deena Pilgrim are facing super-powered mobsters, and with a toolset to deal with them that is limited at best. And that’s fair enough, I like it when bad choices have consequences.

Of course, I like it less when bad choices made by other people have consequences to the common wash of humanity (and not incidentally characters I’m invested in) instead of to themselves. But it’s cool, the book is also about that, at least a little. No, you know, it’s about that a lot. The common folk see the consequences their politicians have forced upon them, the exiled Powers see the consequences, certainly the powered villains have seen the opportunities long since, and the only remaining question is how each group will react to their new-found knowledge.

All this, plus: three characters have shocking secrets!, and one character meets a shocking end! Yeah, okay, look, it’s not a perfect series by any means, but I like it alright.

If I remember correctly, the previous volume of Powers marked a major shift in the way things work, with said Powers being basically outlawed altogether. (Which only makes a limited kind of sense in a world with supervillains, but roll with it.) Naturally, therefore, Forever picks up… at the beginning of time. What?!

No, actually, it’s pretty cool. If you’ve ever wondered about the origins of superheroism in the world, or also about the secret history of now-police detective Christian Walker, and if you haven’t wondered about that last bit by now we aren’t reading the same books, then this is a can’t miss entry in the series.[1] Except to warn you that it’s a historical interlude with no apparent bearing on the future, there’s almost nothing else I can say. No, not true, I can say that it’s good. And that it has really unexpected monkey vagina. (Is there another kind? …if you’re not a monkey?)

[1] Someday, I will probably still not understand people being able to skip a book in a series.

In a way, Sellouts is the exact same book that Supergroup was, they just changed Marvel to DC before writing it. In another way, it’s the biggest book in the Powers series since the first one, because this is where everything changes. Obviously I cannot talk about the second part of that claim, so I’ll have to explain the first part. Imagine if the Justice League of America was full of people who hate each other and are no longer concerned with fighting the supervillains much at all, instead renting out their Hall of Justice for tours and merchandising. Imagine further if Batman were to be embroiled in a sex scandal in which an underaged girl was dressed up in the Robin outfit, seducing him, on film. This is like that, except these statements are not spoilers, they are the premise of the book. Things start getting bad after all that is established. (The names have, of course, been changed to protect the guilty.)

Really, that’s what makes it work for me, is that a lot of such stories would be rolling for shock value. And while that is a little bit true here, don’t get me wrong, it is still primarily a springboard to examine dire consequences, and I like how they laid it out. This established, I have a bit of a gripe about Deena Pilgrim. Well, not about her, but… this is a buddy cop noir drama thing, right? The thing about buddy cops is, they are both the main character, billing split right down the middle. So why is it that Deena has been shown naked not only more often than her partner, but in fact more often than any other character in the series? I will never oppose nudity in my art, full stop. That is a known quantity in any disinterested observer’s evaluation of me. But that doesn’t mean some characters aren’t being exploited, and I do object to that. ‘Cause, seriously, what gives? How are you supposed to be a credible main character if the author or director or whoever is exploiting you?

It occurs to me belatedly that the title may have had more relevance than I thought. In any case, I hope something is done to adjust the balance. This be uncool, as it stands.

The thing that is sad about my review of Anarchy is that it will sound like I didn’t like it, when the worst I have to say about it is that I didn’t love it. The characters are still top-notch, or I should probably pass that through my filter of liking things too strongly and say instead that I continue to find them compelling. But the plot of this particular issue was really just forgettable. It was tasty forgettable, don’t get me wrong, but like when you eat light popcorn and then later you suddenly want actual food? It’s like that. I know that there were some superhero murders that tied back into the comic’s earlier days and that may well become very important later for that matter, but in the moment, it was just a glimpse of places we’d been before with people I’m happy to accompany, sure; and restoring the status quo (which had been really strongly upset by the end of the last book) was probably a good idea, but I could wish it had been more exciting to get there.

On the bright side, the book isn’t a thousand pages long and I didn’t have to wait two or more years to read it, so the standard complaints really don’t apply.