Forget about all the interesting ramifications of the case that Walker and Pilgrim are working on, and forget about the impressive pyrotechnics of the last issue. This one is all about the emotional fallout of the last issue, for Walker and for the issue's mystery guest, and it's fantastic. Oeming and Pantazis capture the darkness of Walker's mood, the quiet desperation, as well as he captured the more spectacular shots of Boogie Girl and Zora battling it out over the street. And Bendis turns on the Oliver Stone mode for some great conspiracy storytelling right in the middle of a believable and gripping emotional wringer for Walker.
Though I've enjoyed the lead characters in this book from the start, I was surprised at how much I felt for Walker in this issue. We've seen him angry and bitter, we've seen him cool and collected, but this is the first time I remember seeing him so devastated. It was implied in previous issues that he and Zora had shared a fairly intimate relationship, and even without seeing the details of that relationship, the reaction makes it all too clear. Walker sitting quietly in a room while a newscast relates the story of her death is one of the most haunting visuals I've seen in a comic for a while.
I was all set for this to be an introspective, fairly quiet issue until Walker meets up with the mystery guest in his apartment. It was something I should have seen coming, but I didn't, and to hear the true story of FG-3 at that particular time and with Walker in that emotional state made it very interesting. I tend to ask a lot of conspiracy stories, even though I love them; they're too easy to write poorly, and too many writers make a conspiracy all-encompassing or mindlessly evil. Bendis grounds the conspiracy in one of the oldest and most believable of motivations, and he manages to make their actions all the more evil as a result of their callous indifference to the human cost involved.
Like so much of Powers, the story here is about how the media perceives reality, even though the book is about cops and crooks rather than reporters and stories. The story of FG-3, and how it was spun in the media, adds onto a long list of examining how super-powers might work in the world, right alongside the federally-funded superstar team, late night talk show and "mask laws" that Bendis and Oeming have introduced previously.
This story arc has been full of disturbing and powerful visuals and intelligent ideas, with solid characterization backing it up. I'd enjoy it a tiny bit more if it weren't also full of f*#%^kin typos, which tend to get distracting, but that one weakness on Bendis's part is overcome by his many writing strengths, and the art team on this book is as solid as ever.
