POWERS #31
by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming
Powers #31: the famous "monkey" issue. I started reading Powers in trade form at the end of Volume One. Todd and Dustin asked me if I'd "got to the monkeys yet" and I honestly couldn’t figure I out why I should be excited about monkeys. Powers #31 is original storytelling at its best. Think the first scene of 2001. The story is completely without dialogue and out of context. We do not see the heroes we know. It’s all monkeys, all issue. For the Powers series, these monkeys come completely out of left field and build into one of the best origin stories comics has ever seen. Usually “left-field” twists occur on the last page of a comic. This whole issue is that last page.
NOTE: This issue is absolutely not for kids, as the monkeys... well, they're monkeys. Parents, beware.
11 comments:
It was original, but really could have done without the monkey copulation!
Hey, Michael--bees do it; birds do it...
Hey, it's pretty commonly known that everything's better with monkeys.
Is everything really better with monkeys wheatley? EVERYTHING? Maybe you liked aspects of this comic a little too much.
Doug, C'mon man..get with it!Everything IS better with monkeys....I know that, and I've never even read this book!
By the way-what's copulation mean?
In reference to Michael's comments above--while the monkey scenes during 2001 were an excellent story telling device,in Powers, it seemed overdone, gratuitous, and derivative of Quest for Fire. it smacked of "look how clever I Am"ism, while actually lacking the qualities of being clever. Sometimes folks are desperatley in need of an editor.
Ooh, fight! I have to disagree with you here, Phil. Powers #31 turned that comic into a must-read for me. I'd always wondered how he was going to deal with the whole superpower thing, and sorta dreaded it the whole time, suspecting it would suck. This was totally outlandish to me, in the best way--how many times do you get surprised while reading monthly comics? Being able to surprise the Powers readership gives you double points. While this isn't anywhere near my Top Ten list, it is probably my favorite issue of the series, and to me an audacious direction to take.
It was not the idea that he was virtually immortal, from the paleolithic, it was the execution of that issue that left something to be desired. The idea, as you correctly point out, was quite ingenious.
I agree. good issue, but on that criteria, why not use Elfquest Number 19 instead. The issue was bold, exciting, different and successful but to be held in the same breath as Spiderman #33. I need more convincing.
Powers is truly a remarkable and successful series.
I think what gets me about this issue being on this list is that for one thing and (I remember Bendis saying something along these lines in the letter pages) is that issue makes no sense outside of the overall storyarc. It's a story about monkeys and (I'm going to spoil the end here so people who haven't read it don't read on!) oh two of them get superpowers at the end. It's okay by itself (and Oeming's art is the really redeeming factor here) but it feels like a gimmick everytime I read it. It just reads like post-modernism for the sake of post-modernism.
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