A new animated take on Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming's long-running Dark Horse comic series, Powers, is in the works at Netflix.
The adult-oriented series has Dark Horse Entertainment‘s Keith Goldberg and Chris Tongue on board as executive producers, with Bendis writing the pilot and Oeming participating in the visual development.
"Combining the tropes of the superhero genre with the police procedural genre, Powers follows two Chicago homicide detectives, Christian Walker and Deena Pilgrim, who work in cases involving super powers."
This won't be the first time Powers has been adapted for the screen. Back in the mid-2010s, a live-action series starring Sharlto Copley and Susan Heyward as Walker and Pilgrim launched on the PlayStation Network. Though fans of the comic responded well enough, the show received mixed reviews and was cancelled after two seasons.
"It's a homicide detective show set in a world where there are superheroes," Bendis said of the project back in 2015. "I say it's also about how media and celebrity culture treat superheroes. Some of them are glorified. Some are like one-hit wonders. We investigate all of this from the dead body on up. What's interesting is one of our detectives used to be a superhero whose Powers were taken away, Christian Walker."
With Bendis involved, we assume this animated adaptation will stick pretty closely to the original premise.
Powers initially launched independently before being published by Image Comics in the early 2000s. The comic won an Eisner Award for best new series in 2001, with Bendis winning best writer in 2002 and 2003. The series later moved to Icon, a short-lived Marvel imprint that put out creator-owned books, and is now in the middle of a new Dark Horse limited series story tied to its 25th anniversary.
Powers 25, a new 12-issue limited series, debuted last September.
“This new tale is a fun, dangerous, adult look at a world of heroes through the eyes of special homicide officer Detective Kutter and her brand-new partner, and the first power to ever make the powers division, Moebius Moon. Under the watchful eyes of legendary Captains Deena Pilgrim and Enki Sunrise, the new detectives run through a minefield of all-new dangers. A new unsolvable powers murder has Kutter and Moon questioning EVERYTHING about the world and their place in it.”
What do you make of this news? Any Powers fans out there? Drop us a comment down below.