What I Read - Powers, Starman

Powers v10: Cosmic - SPOILERS >>> A power (person with superhuman abilities) gets killed by another power. Walker and Pilgrim investigate only to get pulled off the case by the FBI. Turns out the power who was killed was the human agent of the Millenium Guard (think Green Lantern Corps of the Powers universe). Walker gets tapped by the Millenium Guard to replace the dead man as the protector of Earth. Meanwhile Deena is being investigated by Internal Affairs and trying to deal with the her new powers. <<<

I liked both Christian's and Deena's story arcs. Both are dealing with having powers. He used to have them, she's never had them. How do they cope? Her story arc is a little more developed and actually began in the last collection.

I enjoyed this collection but I wouldn't recommend it to someone who hadn't read Powers before. Its an in-between-er arc. There are developments but it feels like everything here is building to something bigger that's coming down the line. There are some great moments, great sequential art by Mike Avon Oeming, and great dialogue by Brian Michael Bendis but once again this feels like the 2nd or 3rd act of a 5 act play. Things develop but nothing substantial gets resolved.

Starman Omnibus v1 - I wrote about Starman before, but that was when I was halfway through the book. I finished it off several months ago but have not written about it since. The short of it is that I wasn't wild about it. There wasn't any single aspect of the story that I really liked, that would keep me coming back for more. It had its moments but on the whole it came up short and didn't impress me.

On iFanboy Booksplode # 1 (released about 1 week ago) Josh, Connor, Paul, and Sonia discussed volume 1 of this often praised series. I listened to it in the hopes that it would spark my interest in the book and nudge me closer to picking up the second volume. Instead, for the most part, it only reminded me of the parts that I didn't like and that I feel that it is overrated. I finished the program feeling the same way about Starman as I did after reading v1: it wasn't bad but it also wasn't something that I felt the urge to read more of.

I've read the first 17 chapters in this series. It didn't hook me or pique my interest enough to want to know what comes next. Its time to move on and read something else. That said I just learned that the guys at Around Comics also recorded a podcast about Starman Omnibus v1, episode # 191. Because so many people think this is a great series and because I like to hear different POVs on the same topic I will probably be listening to their discussion of Starman soon.