When you dive into Powers, the new series hitting Sony PlayStation this week, youre entering into a world where superheroes and villains exist, but its the poor schlubs of the police force who have to clean everything up afterwards. Its a take on the genre that might be surprising for audiences more used to the sleek government agencies of the Marvel universe, but you get used to it. It also helps if youve consumed the source materialparticularly the works of Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming, who co-created the comics the show is based on. Heres a quick reading list to help you prepare.

The relationship between the Powers comic book and TV show is akin to that between the comic and TV versions of The Walking Dead: the characters and overall situation are the same, and some events are shared, but theyre essentially alternate takes on the same ideas. That means you can read the earliest issues of Bendis and Oemings comic and think of them as an ersatz preview of whats to come, instead of a series of spoilers for the show itself. How to read it: Available digitally and in print collections as Who Killed Retro Girl?, Roleplay, and Little Deaths.

The first issues of the comic book series second volume might be a jump ahead from the previous selectionthe first volume ran 37 issues and one annual in totalbut the Legends storyline might prove particularly important for one of the characters at the center of the Powers show. No spoilers here, but once you see the first episode and wonder if Calista (played in the show by Olesya Rulin) will get the superpowers she longs for, youll find yourself tempted to skip to the answer in here. (The second volumes revised premise, which sees superpowers outlawed as the result of an apocalyptic event in the previous series, also hints at a potential future for the TV show; think of it as a somewhat involved What if?) How to read it: Available digitally and in the Legends print collection.

Outside of the realm of Powers, another comic book written by Bendis also offers some of the attitude on display in the show. Scarlet might not feature superpowers, but its focus on the beginnings of a social insurrectionand, in particular, the young girl at the center of it alltouches on some of the generational issues on display in the Powers show, as well as showing a somewhat less favorable attitude towards the authorities. You can almost imagine Scarlet being one of the younger characters bitter at those with superpowers and hanging around with Calista, in many ways. (Lovely art by Alex Maleev, as well.) How to read it: Available digitally and in a print collection.

For those looking for more straight-forward superheroics, Powers co-creator Michael Avon Oeming is also the man behind The Victories, a straight-up superhero epic, complete with Superman and Batman analogs (Metatron and Faustus, respectively). Oeming described the series as being about the heroes behind the mask, which makes it a good companion piece to the equally-grounded Powers if one thats a little more sympathetic to the guys in tights. How to read it: Available digitally and in the Transhuman, Posthuman and Metahuman print collections.

And now for something completely different: Bendis and Oeming dont just collaborate on Powers; theyre also the co-creators of a kid-friendly series called Takio, about two sisters who end up with superpowers and decide to use them to fight crime. The series, which so far consists of two graphic novels, has a similar sense of humor and the frenetic pacing of Powers, but replaces the satirical grimness of the latter with something far more zany, for want of a better word. Think of it as the pitch for the next Sony PlayStation series. How to read it: Available digitally and in print editions.

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5 Comics to Read Before Watching the New Series Powers