One of the big reveals for Sony at E3 has been their exclusive TV show for PlayStation Network.  Microsoft has Halo, but Sony has Powers; and in my opinion Sony won this round.

Powers is a comic book first introduced in 2000 by Brian Michael Bendis.  Bendis is one of the main writers for Marvel comics, rebooting Avengers with his New Avengers series and most recently launching the All New X-Men.  He first began writing Powers, with artist Michael Oeming, for Image comics.  Eventually the series was transferred to Marvel and launched under their Icon Comics brand.

The reason Powers wasn’t launched as a Marvel comic book is because the series is much too controversial.  The series takes place in the lives of two detectives that live in a world full of superheroes and supervillains.  In this world there is no shortage of sex drugs and violence, but everything is bumped up to a super level.

It will be interesting to see if Sony’s PlayStation Network waters down the stories or not.  This show is very much a gritty cop show.  Imagine Seven except Brad Pitt is chasing down a serial killer that would use his heat vision to make his victims boil from the inside.  Or imagine The Shield except when they go to handcuff the suspect he rubs super powered semen on the police officers which cause them to in return get pregnant.  This is the world you can find in Powers, whether or not that will transfer to the small screen is yet to be seen.

-F