Brian Michael Bendis, art of Powers comics, Michael Avon Oeming Sasha Haagensen/Getty Images; Courtesy of Dark Horse; Courtesy of Oeming Logo text Powers, the Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming indie comic series currently published by Dark Horse Comics, is getting the adult animated treatment.
Netflix is developing an adult animated series adaptation of the long-running comic, with Dark Horse Entertainment‘s Keith Goldberg and Chris Tongue executive producing.
The two creators are involved in the development. Bendis is said to be writing the pilot while Oeming is participating in the visual development for the show.
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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.
The title first launched independently then was published by Image Comics in the early 2000s. It won an Eisner Award for best new series in 2001, with Bendis winning best writer in 2002 and 2003. The comic later moved to Icon, a short-lived Marvel imprint that put out creator-owned books at the height of Bendis’ popular Ultimate Spider-Man run. Powers is now in the middle of a new limited series story tied to its 25th anniversary and published by Dark Horse.
Powers already had a brush with Hollywood in the mid-2010s when it became a live-action series from the PlayStation Network, which was making a stab into original series programming at the time. Sharlto Copley and Susan Heyward starred in the show, which ran two seasons.
Adult animation has proven to be big business for streaming services. Invincible, based on a Robert Kirkman superhero comic, is in the top three of most watched shows on Amazon’s Prime Video. And Netflix has a whole cadre of series, both dramatic and comedic. Among its big titles hitting this year are Devil May Cry season two and Bass x Machina from Bryan Tyree Henry.
Powers becomes Bendis’ latest creation to rekindle its Hollywood connection. His period crime saga graphic novel Torso, published in the late 1990s, is also currently in development at Netflix, with Weapons filmmaker Zach Cregger among the producers.
Dark Horse, meanwhile, is coming off the SXSW premiere of its dark comedy mystery Kill Me, starring Charlie Day, Allison Williams and Giancarlo Esposito. The movie currently sits at 100 percent on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
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