Critic Reviews

Powers gives you the slam-bang super-hero action you want, as well as the hard-boiled tone many cop shows aim for and seldom attain.

Instead of gratuitous thrills, the creatives--also including Remi Aubuchon (“Caprica”) and Michael Dinner (“Justified”)--emphasize story, with enough twists and turns in each episode to keep the target audience hooked.

It is a refreshing amalgamation of the two genres that creates a fascinating exploration into the world of four-color comics by imagining what it might really be like to live among costumed superheroes and villains.

Powers is at its best when it’s not focusing on Christian Walker, who unfortunately is the series’ main character.

[The cast] all do their best to provide what every comic-book adaptation needs and so few achieve, which is a little soul, some human substance at the core. Powers shows occasional, fitful signs of that kind of life, though in the long run it may be just too threadbare to get there.

The series is overwrought or obvious at times, and here and there can look surprisingly cheap. But it's generally quite watchable and not uninteresting.

Powers the show acts as if its viewers needs their hands held through an introduction to the world, and everything has to be spelled out to make sure nothing gets the slightest bit confusing.

Powers doesn't get off to the the best start but the concept is strong and the world so detailed and cleverly built out that it's probably a series that bears some monitoring to see if it will improve.

For all its adult-oriented leanings and gritty realism, Powers lacks the one thing that its comic-book counterpart has in spades: style. [13 Mar 2015, p.64]

What Powers is, from the start, is something stranger, more convoluted, and a bit grandiose (at least in the three episodes shared with critics).