FX Greenlights Pilot for Comic Book Series 'Powers'

There has been a recent resurgence in superheroes on television: it all started with "Heroes", then snowballed into "No Ordinary Family," "The Cape" and the upcoming "Wonder Woman" series. Now, FX has ordered a pilot episode adapting the comic book series Powers, by Brian Michael Bendis.

The comic book series lends itself perfect to TV adaptation, as it is essentially a police procedural, complete with murders to solve and criminals to catch. Bendis himself tweeted that "it’s not a super hero show… It’s a cop show with a superhero element. Big difference."

In the same way that Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight" is more of a crime/mob movie that happens to have a superhero starring character, "Powers" should have the same sort of tone: the fact that superheroes exist in the show's universe is simply a detail to the main drama, which is solving crimes.

As of now, the show has two creatives attached: writer Charles Eglee and director Michael Dinner. They're not huge names, but you know their work: Dinner directed the first episodes of "Sons of Anarchy" and "Justified", while Eglee has both police show and sci-fi cred having written for "Dark Angel", "NYPD Blue", "The Shield", "Dexter", and "The Walking Dead".

FX as a network has been on fire lately, releasing well-loved shows like "Louie", "Archer", and "Terriers" which (except for the last of the three was sadly cancelled before its time)  have enjoyed some success.

The best thing about FX, though, is that they seem to give the creative teams a lot of control over their own projects, and don't meddle too much. As a result, you get shows with a distinct voice that reflect their creators: Louis C.K.'s style of comedy shines through in "Louie", and anyone familiar with Adult Swim shows "Sealab 2021" and "Frisky Dingo" will recognize Adam Reed's touch on "Archer". If FX allows the same freedoms for Bendis and his team on "Powers", the result should be another excellent show.