Marvel presents a world of crime in United States of Murder Inc #1

Brian Michael Bendis presents a world where crime is king, and the only good guys aren’t all that heroic.

“We have been working on this book for years,” says series writer Brian Michael Bendis. “We have been world building and workshopping and taking ideas out for a spin and we came up with a world as interesting to us as the one Mike and I brought to you in Powers.  We could not be more excited for its public debut.”

Bendis is taking about United States of Murder Inc., Marvel’s newest addition to their Icons line of creator-owned books that stand apart form the Marvel Universe that we all know. USoMI sets readers in a world where the five families control the US with authority and crime as it was in the early 20th century was never wrangled in and runs rampant.

This sets the stage for Valentine Gallo. The main character (lets not call him a ‘hero’) of the story, Gallo becomes a made man and should have the world laid out at his feet. It should be a big day in his life, but what ends up happening isn’t what he expected. That’s because Val discovers “the sinister secrets behind the organization he’s devoted his entire life to. Secrets that will turn his life upside down!”

Throw in a ‘mysterious’ hit-woman named Jagger Rose as a wild-card and the talents of Bendis’ Powers co-creator Michael Avon Oeming and you’ve got a book that Marvel is promising will be ‘explosive’. Like the horror genre, the crime genre of comics is one that’s been hitting the back burner for a good long time now. Hopefully, United States of Murder Inc. will do a little something about that when it hits the stands on May 14th.