Brian Michael Bendis Talks ‘Powers,’ Comic Books, and Strong Females [Exclusive Interview]

Brian Michael Bendis, creator and co-executive producer of the PlayStation series, Powers, has always been a fan of comics, and knew from an early age exactly what his future would hold.

I recently sat down with Bendis at the ATX Television Festival, where he shared the story.

“I told my mom at the Passover dinner. I stood up and said, ‘I will be the artist of Spider-man.’ I announced it.”

Bendis would go on to be the writer behind Marvel’s Ultimate Spider-Man, a job he’s had for nearly 17 years. “My mom did say to me a couple of years ago, ‘You know, you got really close — that is shocking how right on the money you were at six,'” Bendis said.

Writing comics for one of his favorite heroes is just one of the many things that Bendis has accomplished during his impressive career. A five-time Eisner Award winner, he worked his way up through the ranks at Marvel Comics and went on to create the comic series, Powers.

Bendis wanted to tell a unique story. “That’s the problem with growing up in high school when Watchmen and Dark Knight came out. It’s that you think you’ve seen it all about superheroes, and it takes a while for you to go, ‘No, no, no, there’s more to be seen and shown,” he explained.

Bendis knew he’d need a different angle. “My theme was, how would we really treat our superheroes? If it was the real world, how would we treat our superheroes? How would they treat us? How would they affect us sociologically, sexually, politically? And some of this has been dabbled in in places like Watchmen.”

The idea for Powers came while he was writing in another genre.

“I came from crime fiction…David Simon wrote a book, Homicide, that the TV show became based on. The book is amazing. It’s this lavishly adapted researched year in the life of Baltimore police. And I was doing my own research in Cleveland with the police, and then all of a sudden I thought, ‘What if there was superheroes in this world of these police?’ and that became Powers.” Bendis said.

The comics became a television series over a decade later thanks to the PlayStation Network, and recently began its second season.

“I gotta tell you, I discovered that the second season is a bigger win than the first season. I mean, the first season you just convince a bunch of suits, but the second season means enough people wanted it.”

Along with showing the darker side of being a hero on Powers, Bendis also created Jessica Jones, now a household name thanks to the series of the same title on Netflix.

We asked Bendis how it feels to turn on his television and see Jessica. He said, “It feels crazy,” and went on to share with us a moment he’ll never forget involving the heroine he created.

“So, I’m in The Grove (a restaurant in Los Angeles) having dinner with my manager, who is one of my best friends, and David Mack, who’s the cover artist of all the Jessica Jones issues. We’re just sitting there, having dinner…at the table right next to us, two women were talking about Jessica Jones like she was a real person…and David goes, ‘Do you think they know we’re here?’ and I go, ‘No, no. Jessica has left the building. [She] is the world’s now.'”

Bendis also said there are other adaptations of his work on-screen that make him happy.

“I must say that it’s the weirder stuff.  Like, people don’t even know that I was one of the creators of Maria Hill, and I created Avengers tower. The Avengers were in a house, and then I put them in a tower. When the tower showed up in the movie, I was like, ‘Yay!'”

Maria Hill and Jessica Jones are just two of the strong female characters that Bendis has created for Marvel. On Powers, nearly every female can kick some serious ass, from the power-less Deena Pilgrim (who is played brilliantly by Susan Heyward), to Retro Girl, the Power every young girl aspires to be (and played to perfection by Michelle Forbes).

Bendis explained that writing strong females was always important to him, and is a response to what he didn’t see on his comic pages growing up.

“I was raised by a single, strong woman. I married a strong woman. I’m raising three strong women, and you become hyper aware that there’s not enough. The world I live in is not represented clearly in fiction. The ones that are, it’s such a small percentage, where in my world, it’s everything.”

He went on to say, “The complexity should be reflected, and it’s not, so I’ll do that because that’s what I’d like to see more of. In the mainstream stuff, I’ve just become hyper aware of what my kids are in-taking and what they’re responding to, and the Disney princesses wasn’t enough for two of my three daughters. I’m now assuming that there’s millions of girls in the same position and I will add as much as I can organically to the pot to make that the way it should be.”

Diversity in comics, and on-screen, is also something that is near to Bendis’ heart. “Two of my daughters are of color. I see that all they see is these Nickelodeon shows where ‘It’s the sassy best friend!’ and that’s not who they are and it’s not enough,” Bendis said.

“Particularly with Marvel, I’ve been throwing as many new characters into the pot as possible, just to see what the audience likes. Miles Morales (one iteration of Spider-man created by Bendis) was a big win for us, and the audience really took to him. We have a new character coming out for Iron Man, who’s going to be a big part of the Marvel Universe moving forward, who’s a 15 year old African-American genius who may be smarter than Tony Stark already. That’s the world I see, and that’s the world that should be reflected in our fiction.”

There is one thing that Bendis is excited about when he turns on his television. “Who knew that by the time we got a show together that there’d be all these — the TV Guide looks like a comic book catalog. It’s like, whereas Powers the comic book is sitting on a shelf next to Supergirl and The Flash and iZombie, now the TV show…it’s the same thing, and that’s amazing. I could not have planned that.”

There is another reason this superhero resurgence on television makes Bendis happy. He said, “The other great part is that an audience finds the comics that never would have found it. Jessica [Jones], this year, sold more comics than it did the whole time it was actually a comic book. That found audience is a beautiful, beautiful thing.”

Bendis encourages everyone to read comics. “I tell people who don’t think comics are for them, ‘Name it. I’ll get you a comic that you’ll love. Name the thing you like; I’ll get you a great comic.'”

Looking at the wide collection of heroes currently on shelves, and on our television screens, we can’t help but agree.

New episodes of Powers stream every Tuesday on the PlayStation Network.

You can check out all of our coverage of the ATX Television Festival right here. (There is a lot more to come!)

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