Easily the best psychological exploration of this most famous of villains since Alan Moore's 'The Killing Joke'. The choice of criminal prot

For the couple years I've been reading everything by Bendis that I can get my hands on. His character and dialogue driven stories have changed the face of action oriented mainstream comics. Two of Marvel Comics lead titles ('Ultimate Spiderman' and 'New Avengers') are his babies, and the traditional ratio of action to exposition is entirely reversed in these stories; the best and most dramatic scenes being, for instance, six pages of dialogue between two characters sitting on a bed. Bendis' ability to create a sense of comic timing in a still panel is astounding and obviously influenced by the work of Joss Whedon.

My favorite title by Bendis, however, is 'Powers'. A ten volume (so far) independent series that is essentially 'NYPD Blue' crossed with the world of superheroes, 'Powers' follows a couple of sharp-witted homicide detectives in their never ending investigations of the deaths of the hapless heroes who are murdered in spectacular ways. The plotting in these is not always successful, but it's a small price to pay for the excellent character studies and hilarious dialogue. 'Powers' is highly recommended for anyone who likes their superheroes to be well deconstructed.