By: Brian Michael Bendis, Michael Avon Oeming & Olivia Bendis (creators), B.M. Bendis & Oeming (writers & art), Nick Filardi (colors), Chris Eliopoulos (letters) & Jennifer Grunwald (editor)
The Story: Two sisters get superpowers.
Background: If you’re at all active in the online comic fan community, you’ve doubtless heard the calls for “more all ages comics” as comic fans wring their hands over the fact that there don’t seem to be comics to give to kids. The common approach from some publishers to all-ages content is to pump out some out-of-continuity Batman/Spider-Man or new versions of popular kids’ fare from the 70’s/80’s (Muppets, Scooby Doo, Fraggle Rock, etc.) and call it a day. I’ve never been sure that was the best approach for a few reasons. For one thing, if you read comics and get these Marvel Adventures or Batman: The Brave and the Bold type stories for your kids, your kids are intimately aware that what they are reading isn’t “the real Batman”. Kids want the real thing, not a watered down alternative. For another, who says that kids have to read Batman & Spider-Man? I love those characters, but my Dad loved The Shadow and Howdy Doody and those weren’t anything I was interested in as a kid. Why not develop a new property for kids?
What’s Good: Takio is just super fresh and new. Bendis and Oeming deserve a LOT of credit for putting their creator-owned adult comic series (Powers) to the side and generating this new set of characters and stories that can bear fruit for a long period of time. They also deserve credit for bringing Bendis’ daughter Olivia into the creative process. Lots of comic creators have young kids, but I’ve never heard of involving one in the creative process when crafting an all-ages title. Even if a sample size of one is anecdotal as hell, it is still better than what most folks do in terms of market research and it also shows willingness by two industry pros (Bendis and Oeming) to admit that there might still be things to learn.
Even though I thoroughly enjoyed it, this story is going to be very attractive to young girls and that’s important because girls read more than boys (that’s why they’re smarter than us, guys!). It follows two adoptive sisters who are roughly 12-ish and 7-ish. They come from a single mother household, but rather than roll around in how awful their lives are, the creators merely use this as a tool to establish that these two sisters are close out of necessity. And while they do like each other, the older sister (Taki) is about to become a young woman. She’s just starting to be concerned with what is cool, nice clothes, and her clique of friends; and having a tag-along seven-year-old sister isn’t that conducive to being “cool.” We can all identify with that age, right? And little Olivia still has that spunky, unself-conscious love-of-life that makes kids so wonderful. Seven is such a wonderful age to see kids because they have big-kid capabilities, but they still think their parents are awesome and will laugh at fart jokes. These two kiddos are just wonderful comic characters that will remind you of lots of kids that you know.
As you can tell from the cover art, the girls get superpowers in this volume. I don’t want to spoil the when and how for you, but watching the girls take different approaches to trying out their powers and whether or not they should be superheroes is golden.
Oeming is really on top of his game in this issue and he uses a different style than he does for Powers. This issue has no largely black panels. No hulking men with broad shoulders and none of his crazy layouts. I do love Oeming’s crazy layouts, but those are things that you toss at us professional comic readers. Kids are just confused about how to read those things and which word balloon comes first, so he wisely sticks to a grid. But, the best thing about his characters is that they seem so spunky and expressive. When you look at Olivia, you really do think of a larger-than-life seven-year-old kid. Nick Filardi’s colors also give the book a very bright tone.
What’s Not So Good: Even though I loved this OGN, I wouldn’t have minded it covering a little more material and perhaps getting into Taki and Olivia’s first true adventure. This OGN was all set-ups. And, you can bet that if I felt frustrated, a kid might get a little bored. It’s just when I think back to the comics that engaged me as a kid, there was a lot of instant gratification. Not everything was a done-in-one, but they did move a little faster than this OGN did.
Conclusion: A really strong, new all-ages OGN. I loved it and my kid was interested in taking a look at it too. That’s a Win-Win! Bendis and Oeming deserve a LOT of credit for taking this bold step to create some truly new intellectual property. I guess the “million dollar question” is whether I would give up Powers to have another volume of Takio… I think I actually would because I enjoyed this OGN more than I enjoyed the most recent issue of Powers.
Grade: B+
-Dean Stell
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