Flash Fire by TJ Klune

Rating: WARTY!

From an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

I did not like this one bit and ditched it in disgust after 10%. That's a lot less than I normally give a book that I do not like. Usually I can soldier on, and I try to cover at least a quarter or a third, and sometimes half or more of a novel like this, but I honestly could not stand to read this one at all. It just felt bad and wrong in every way. The book is a sequel, which I knew going in, and it was not a problem - except that of course I had no background for these characters, having been unaware of the first novel when it came out; but if I'd read that I probably wouldn't be reading this one; so - swings and carousel!

What it meant was that I was meeting these people for the first time and I was sorry the author didn't help. The assumption seems to be that any reader of this volume has just completed volume one and is immediately going into volume two, which didn't work in my case. Naturally no author wants to rewrite entire character biographies in each volume, and no one who is following a series wants or needs that either, but for readers coming in new, or after a long layoff, a few words of context here and there would not have hurt, and would not have been obtrusive. I didn't get those, which made it difficult to get into, and difficult to relate to the characters. An action scene right up front, showing off these people, would have worked well, but it didn't come.

The real problem for me though, is the billing. It's billed as a super hero novel with gay characters, which sounds great, but it's actually a gay novel with superhero characters. That's an important difference. That would not have been an issue either, had it been better written, but as it was it felt juvenile and not in a good way; the entire relationship between Nicky and Seth seems to be physical with nothing else to hold it together, and that's not a good thing in a world that seems like it's entirely a no-consequence world.

As for the lack of consequences, at one point for example, the teens spend, without permission, ten thousand dollars on equipment they decide they want for their super hero team, which is not only irresponsible, it's dishonest. It's theft, in effect, yet no one feels bad and no one gets in trouble. That just felt inauthentic. These are the heroes?! Ten thousand dollars is not an insignificant amount, even for a wealthy family. That sabotaged the suspension of disbelief for me.

Appropriating large sums of money is hardly heroic, but the weird thing is that the novel seems not to differentiate between good guys and bad guys if judged by the book description, which has them all as heroes. It tells us: "with new heroes arriving in Nova City it's up to Nick and his friends to determine who is virtuous and who is villainous." Why? Why is it up to these teenagers? And why are 'new heroes' arriving in Nova City (not a very imaginative name)? What's the attraction? Why there as opposed to somewhere else?

The thing is that I don't honestly get how a villain is a hero. Not that we met either - not in any meaningful sense in the portion I read. I'd expect a story like this would have some action up front, but the only action is between Nicky and Seth on the bed. Is that the most important thing that's going to happen in this novel? Because if that's all the story is about why even have supers in it? Why not just two horny young guys in bed and call it Flash Junk?

This is a problem with series, and why I'm typically not a fan. The first volume in a series is the prolog and/or the introductory volume and it seems like the author feels like he did all the action work in volume one as well - which he may well have for all I know - but I don't think that absolves him from bringing some in volume two, but if it's here, it's much further in than I read. What I read felt like a backwater, a doldrums, a slack tide, and it was, frankly, rather boring. It did nothing to substantially introduce me to the characters or to endear me to them. From what I read of them here, they felt shallow and thin and I had zero interest in learning any more about any of them.

Worse than this though, is that the ten percent that I read seemed obsessed with the physical relationship between Seth and Nicky, which is broken-up by Nicky's dad, who seems like a jerk who's main passion in life is discussing homemade dental dams. It wasn't clear to me where this story is taking place because it's one of those fake cities that DC Comics favors, rather than real world locations, but the idea is that Nicky and Seth are under age. Maybe they are, but without a real-world specified locale, at sixteen, you are over the age of consent in about fifty percent of the US states, so in the absence of other information, the chances are just as good that they were legal as not. Evidently they live in a state where the age of consent is higher, but a fake Nova City doesn't help establish anything. The story felt disconnected from reality.

The book blurb tells us that Seth "is the superpowered Pyro Storm, who can manifest fire and spends much of his free time aiding local citizens in their fair city," but it's unclear exactly what he does - and how manifesting fire helps local citizens. Do they have a lot of yard waste to burn? I didn't like 'Pyro Storm' as the hero name. It felt too much like a 'junior X-men' kind of thing, and Nicky's adoration of him felt forced rather than natural, especially given that it was built entirely around sexual attraction - so it seemed from what I read in this volume. Maybe there was a lot more to it - aspects of the relationship that were revealed in volume one - I don't know, but judged by what was written here, I have very little faith that there is more to it and I don't want to read a gay sex novel - not without a lot more substance to it than this novel seems willing to offer.

So based on my admittedly limited reading, I can't commend this. I would have liked more - to have had an incentive to read further, but life is short and novels many and I don't see the point of a forced march through a novel that simply isn't doing it for me as a reader who is looking for a fun, interesting, imaginative, and engaging story, with fascinating characters, an intriguing world, and original situations.

Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn

Rating: WARTY!

This was an audio book read competently by Emily Woo Zeller. The story is of two childhood friends, one of whom, Aveda Jupiter (note that this is her superhero name), grew up to be a renowned - if spoiled rotten - San Francisco super hero, whereas the other, Evie Tanaka, who also has a power, had such a traumatic experience with it when younger that she tamped it down and is happy - so she thinks - to play sidekick to her friend. On the one hand Asian superheroes is a good thing, but on the other, Asian stereotypes is a godawful thing.

I don't know if the author did this on purpose, but Aveda backwards is 'a diva' (near enough!), and it suits the character perfectly. Other parts of this story were amusing too, to begin with, and I liked that the 'super villain' approach here was something off the beaten track, but I DNF'd this about halfway through because I grew sick and tired of the ham-fisted and telegraphed from ten miles away 'romance' between Evie and the macho-muscled guy who also worked on Aveda's team. Their codependent relationship was the exact opposite of romantic and once again we get a novel where sexual diseases seem not to exist - at least they don't with regard to people talking about them before diving into sex. Also I didn't like the 'Jupiter' part of the hero's name. What was that all about ? Rip off Watchmen much?

There was another problem with this, too, and arguably it was the biggest one. Evie was far too weak and servile for my taste. She just annoyed the hell out of me. She did begin to rebel, but it took her half of the novel before she even remotely started to get pissed-off with the truly shitty way she was treated by Aveda. This is a toxic relationship and Evie needed to get out of it, yet no one is advising her along those lines.

I know these guys a have a long history together, but that made it harder to understand how Evie had been so subjugated for so long. Plus Evie's oft stated desire is to be normal - no superpower - but if she's that into it, why the hell doesn't she get out of the superhero life and find a "normal" job where she's not stressed, and get that life for herself? Her show and tell are completely at odds with one another.

Also we're told like fifty million times that Evie is shut-down with regard to sex (again due to her traumatic experience), and despite it being entirely possible that she is in fact asexual, this is never addressed. Instead, people are all along essentially telling her that she needs to get laid. Do I actually have to say this is the wrong approach? Not only that, it's entirely insensitive to anyone who actually is asexual.

This shut-down of Evie's inexplicably turns to rampant explicit (be warned) passion with almost no overture. The book is very mature (or immature depending on how you view it!) in a lot of language use and explicit situations, so it's not your usual PG-13 YA book The characters are all in their twenties, but appear much younger if judged from their behavior and speech patterns. It's like they're a bunch of stalled frat boys instead of super hero team. Evie also has a kid sister who is thoroughly obnoxious and pays no price for her attitude or her behavior. It's wrong. Worse though is that this teenage kid has a drinking problem that no one takes seriously.

Starting early in the story Evie is forced to step-up from side-kick to hero - or rather, hero impersonator - since (aided by a glamor from another guy whose super power is magic) she has to stand in for Aveda when the hero is injured and doesn't want to show weakness in front of her fans. It's all about fans and rather than care about what TV or news media might say, everything in this story inexplicably hinges on some chick who writes a blog and is so two-faced about it that it's not even a secret, yet no one ever calls her on her manic approach to blogging about Aveda, not even Evie, who is supposedly so protective of Aveda and her reputation.

No matter what the blogger "prints," the team continues to suck up to her and give her exclusive interviews. It was just stupid, and ridiculous to present her as the only voice in town worth listening to. Her big blog story (as this kicks off) is the zit on Aveda's face. Yeah, if this were really a young teen book, I could see that flying, maybe, but no, this is a grown-up book (supposedly), and it just felt stupid and thoroughly inauthentic, especially since it just went on and on, entirely ignoring what she'd just done to save the city. If that had been used as an example to show shallow, but mixed with other reports, that would be one thing, but it would seem that shallow is all this novel has on offer. Despite my really wanting to read this initially, I was about ready to kiss-off the story right there when finally the zit meme was done with, so I kept reading. More fool me.

Naturally Evie's latent power starts surfacing as her impersonation of Aveda drags on long past it's sell-by date, and there's a conflict, but by this point I was so tired of the poor writing and Evie's complete lack of a backbone that I couldn't stand to read any more. I moved on to a middle-grade audio book, and liked that significantly more even though it too, had problems. I guess I should have realized from the title 'heroine' as opposed to 'hero' that this novel would be all wrong for me. Not that I'd prefer to read a book about guys, but it bugs me that women have to be heroines, whereas the guys are heroes. Why not all heroes? Why does the female have to have a specially reserved title? She can't be a hero? And before you jump on that, the word 'hero' has no gender, or if it does and we go by the earliest use, it was the name of a priestess!

So in short, this is a big no: it isn't ready for prime time, it tells the wrong story, misleadingly so given the book description, and it's poorly written.

Arsenal by Jeffery H Haskell

Rating: WARTY!

Amelia Lockheart (Earhart much?) is the Arsenal of the title, but the shorter version, Arse would have worked perfectly. The book is first person present tense which is awful. Even after I gave it a chance and let it play on it failed for me because it wasn't believable It was an audio book and the reader's voice (Emily Beresford) seemed completely wrong for the character and way immature for her age, which is 20 or so.

Amelia has only two claims to fame: she's supposedly an inventor genius, and her legs are paralyzed. She's also supposed to be on a quest to find out what happened to her parents, although she never actually pursues this despite her supposed genius. The thing is that she's a direct rip-off of Ironheart of the Marvel superhero universe with a solid dash of Iron Man. Wears a super-duper alloy mechanical suit that's highly weaponized? Check. She can modify the suit to do anything? Check! Parents not on the scene after car accident? Check (except in Ironheart, only daddy is out of the picture). She carries a nuke into the upper atmosphere to save an American city? Check. Yawn. Move along. There's nothing new to see here.

There is of course a plot against her by super-mega-hyper-corp which is what the author no doubt believes will carry this turkey through several volumes. Count me out. The problems are multiple. First person voice is too ridiculous to read unless it's done really well, and for an action story like this, the idea that the main character is narrating this through all kinds of deathly situations made it feel completely inauthentic to me. It made even less sense to start the story in the middle of a battle without any sort of a lead-in whatsoever. Were it not in first person that might have worked, but you can't have both and have me as an avid reader.

So I was turned off right from the start, but stayed with it for a while and started getting into it a bit, but the main character really wasn't interesting and was a consistent disappointment. The one thing I detested about Tony Stark was how selfish he was. Even on his best day he failed to be all he could be. I mean you heard talk about the 'Stark Foundation' or whatever it was called, but whatever it did, and however much he may have donated to it, still Tony Stark led a selfish, self-indulgent multi-billionnaire life, buying whatever he wanted whenever he wanted and squandering so much money.

That's not a quality I can admire in anyone. He had all this technology but never shared any of it. He never used his genius and technology, for example, to help people who had handicaps. Amelia has the same problem and it;s worse with her because she has one herself and knows directly what it;s like. In the story, she's often told that she could sell her technology and become rich, but with twenty million in the bank she ain't hurting. The thing is that she could have donated at ;east some of her technology to enable others to have the same mobility she enjoyed - and not to fly around bombing and sonic lancing villains, but just to be able to move and walk, and yet it never crosses her mind. How selfish is that? A real hero would have helped.

Worse, we really got nothing about the handicap she had to deal with - it was like it didn't exist except to get a mention in passing, because the suit nullified it and she was so rarely out of the suit. The worst part of this though was when she started swooning over another superhero type named Luke. He was your trope chiselled muscular type which really turned me off because it's such a cliché. Why not go the whole hog and name him Jack?!

There was a female character who got a lot of description about her looks - because as you know looks are the only important thing in the world. The way Amelia kept describing her made it sound like there was going to be a lesbian relationship in the offing and that would have been more palatable than Mr Steely Jaws, but Amelia doesn't lean that way or even question her obsession with Domino's looks, which begs the question as to why she's crushing so badly on this other character. Maybe because the author's male? It woudl be really interesting to see what a female author would have done with this story.

The worst part though was when Luke encounters Amelia out of her chair and immediately assumes she's had an accident and is helpless, which rightly pisses Amelia off, but just a few paragraphs beyond that, Luke has to carry her somewhere and she's all swooning and wilting over how strong he is. I about barfed right there and then and quit listening because it was so pathetic and hypocritical and a complete about-turn from where we;d been just a few words before. Yuk. Way to diminish your main character. I'm done with this story and this author and I will not commend it. This is about as warty as they get.

Super by Ernie Lyndsey

Rating: WORTHY!

This was an audiobook that was in first person and believe it or not, miracle of miracles, I ended up enjoying it enough that I consider it a worthy read even though some parts were less than thrilling and the ending was a bit flat. I enjoyed the cynical and sly humor and the overall take on super heroes, as well as the shifty roles played by many of the characters here. It's not your usual super hero novel and I enjoyed that - the fact that it was off the beaten path and there were no angst-y heroes or braindead romances going on here was part of the appeal for me.

Paul Woodson did a pretty decent read for the main character, who was narrating the story, but I'm not sure I'd want to listen to him reading anything else. He seemed right for this part though. The part is a cocky and opinionated guy named Leo who assassinates superheroes who have, for one reason or another, annoyed the US government. He has worked for all the top agencies: CIA, FBI, NSA, and now he's being recruited by an agency supposedly so secretive that even the president doesn't know about it. His job is two-fold: eliminate renowned and beloved superhero Patriotman and uncover the assassin in Leo's organization which is apparently targeting the US president.

It's no spoiler to say that he succeeds at the one, and the assassin fails at the other, but this novel is full of twists and turns and often things are not remotely like they seem. Leo has to navigate this world and the risks and dangers inherent in it and he does an amusing and nifty job. I commend this as a worthy read, although I have to say I do not feel compelled to read anything else by this author, especially not since it seems he writes mostly series.

Please don't tell My Parents I'm a Super Villain! by Richard Roberts

Rating: WORTHY!

I'm not much for series, but once in a while one comes along that makes me want to follow it, and if this series (this is book one of three as of this writing) is as good as its opener, then it will definitely be one I follow. Note that this novel is in no way representative of the real world and to judge it by real world standards is wrong. It's an off-kilter fantasy world, and it's in that context that I review it here since it's neither wilder nor more sensible than your average super hero graphic novel!

In the version of LA where she lives, Penelope Akk lives in a superhero world and has superhero parents. Mom was once a super villain, and dad is a tech genius, so it's hardly surprising their daughter turns out to be a mad scientist. Penny's skills start coming in far more aggressively than most do, but they also come spasmodically. That's nothing unusual, but the nature of Penny's skills deceive her parents, who pay her nowhere near the attention she deserves because they're supers themselves and always too busy. They may regret that.

Penny's real problem though, is that she creates things that typically work weirdly, and she has no idea how they work, and often no memory of the actual creative process at all. In the back of her mind they make sense, but she's never able to grasp that and pull it up front into the light. She invents some cool gadgets though, and what better way to test them out than with some good, old-fashioned villainy? I really liked Penny because she's a smart, strong young woman who never gives up and is always learning.

Teaming up with her friend Claire, and her other friend Ray, the trio becomes "The Inscrutable Machine" - talented and super-coordinated villains, whose success goes way beyond what their age would suggest they were capable of, and once Penny - now known as Bad Penny - has invented a few cool gadgets for her friends as well as a serum that brings on their powers too, they really take off. Claire becomes the extra-charming 'e-Claire' and Ray becomes the super-strong, super-fast 'Reviled'.

Their capers, beginning quite accidentally, become almost legendary, and bring them to the attention of Spider, the biggest villain of all, who is apparently an actual spider (although I had my doubts). It becomes ever more difficult for them to withdraw from their super villain life (it was so much fun!) and retreat to a life of super-heroing which is what Penny really wants. Or is it?

When Spider blackmails them into pulling a couple of jobs, Penny finds herself having to come down firmly on one side or the other. But how can she do that, save the city, beat Spider, and preserve her anonymity? Because the last thing she wants is for her parents to learn that she's a super villain! Yes, sometimes their thinking can be whack, and their motives a bit obscure, but they're so engaging that you can't stop wanting to know what scrape they'll get themselves into next - or how they'll get out of it. This is where Penny's unmatched, but totally not understood genius comes into play. Some of her inventions have a mind of their own - literally.

This book is one of the best I've ever read, despite it being aimed seemingly at a middle-grade audience. It's inventive and funny, and completely believable even as the fantastical world the author creates is outrageous - and beautifully put together with a cast of amazing and creative characters. There are some classic super heroes (my favorite is Marvelous) and super villains (my favorite is Lucy Farr). Note that these names are taken from an audiobook so the spellings may be off! I thought this was a fun world and a great book, and I commend it as a worthy read.

What Makes a Hero by Pamela Bobwicz, Eda Kaban

Rating: WORTHY!

Written by Bobwicz and illustrated by Kaban, this was a cute book and a good idea: having female heroes from the Marvel stable advising young children about what makes a real hero - and it isn't a costume and a cape, or super powers. In this era of intolerance, rudeness, name-calling, boorishness, misogyny, homophobia, dishonesty, self-serving power-grabbing, and general disregard for rules and common decency (and we all know where that buck stops), it's important to remember that decent behavior and consideration of others are super powers! I commend this book as a worthy read.

The Superhero's Test by Timothy L Cerepaka, aka Lucas Flint

Rating: WARTY!

I'm very late with this particular review because I've had the book for some time and never got around to it, so apologies for that. The author is, in my opinion, dishonestly publishing this under a fake name. I have no idea why authors do this. It's ridiculous, but there it is: new genre, new name. I'd have to have a dozen aliases if I published my work under a different name for each genre. I've never seen the point of it and it turns me off an author.

That aside, I discovered this book was only the first three chapters and then the author offered an almost blackmail-like demand at the end to go buy it at Amazon if you want to read the rest! I don't, and if I did I would never give money to Amazon, not even to get a book in return. From this point onwards I'm going to downgrade all books which offer Amazon and only Amazon as a source, like it's the only bookseller on the planet. I'm sorry if you've allowed yourself to be deluded into thinking that, but it isn't and it never will be. Bezos's terrifying and abusive Behemoth only has the power it has because a collective we have voluntarily surrendered that power to it and we can take it back any time we wake up and realize what a huge mistake that was.

As it happens it was easy to fail this particular book because the writing was atrocious, set in high-school but reading like it was written for middle-graders, the story completely unimaginative and the plot a dismal and tired, should be retired, trope. It's first person voice, so fail there. That voice is almost always a mistake and in this case it lent the main character a disturbing arrogance. It was disturbing because this child has dangerous superpowers and all we're getting is a matter-of-fact story from this same, single source! There's no awe and wonder here, just 'hey! Look how great I am'! Barf. Super? No! heroic? No.

The very first sentence ends with main character Kevin Jake Jason stating, “...at least before I punched the local school bully through the cafeteria wall with one blow after I lost my temper.” There's no sign of an apology or a regret there, and clearly the author wants to grab our attention with violence more than anything else in a so-called superhero story. Where's the super? Where's the heroic? That term is thrown into the mix far too readily these days, just like the word 'hero' is bandied-around in real life to the extent that it has become meaningless and therefore no accolade at all. Coming right after that sentence, without any evidence of remorse, we get an introduction: “My name is Kevin Jake Jason and I am seventeen-years-old and an only child.” How is any of that relevant?

Naturally, Kevin is the new boy at school (yawn), and he ends up with the misfits (yawn II) and is bullied (yawn III) all in the next few pages. The amount of rampant and unchecked school bullying going on in these books, with the victim being the one who is punished, is laughable. And a major turn-off. But just as Kevin is about to be taken to the principal's office (apparently not a single teacher was present in the dining hall in this school), he's magically rescued by his dad, who evidently is a retired "superhero" who somehow magically knew that Kevin was in trouble at school and materialized to rescue him and spread a lie about what happened. Super? No! heroic? No! Talk about helicopter parenting. How he knew Kevin was in trouble isn't explained, at least not in my three charity chapters, but evidently this is how Kevin got his powers - it's a manly thing, see?

How does Kevin get out of trouble? Well, his dad evidently is a big fan of Men in Black, because he produces a magic light that wipes the minds of everyone present, and then he tells them what they should remember. Yawn. See what I mean about tired tropes and lack of imagination? This book is a huge fail, and don't try reading it in Adobe Digital Editions because for some reason that cuts off the last few lines of every page. Don't know why. But I don't care because I'm done with this novel and this author. I'm sorry I wasted my valuable time on it.

Hellcat Careless Whiskers by Kate Leth, Brittney L Williams, Rachelle Rosenberg

Rating: WARTY!

I have to say of this that I found the title far more entertaining than the content. I'm sorry to have to say that, but there it is. The story didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, and there really wasn't much happening. This is the only one about this character that I've read and it isn't the first one in the series, so maybe it loses something for that, but to me it wasn't appealing at all. I liked the Hellcat played by Rachael Taylor in the Netflix series Jessica Jones far more than ever I liked this one, who was rather lacking in substance.

That was the entire problem: it was nothing but a ping-pong game between Hellcat and her rival who was chewing up the scenery and not in any entertaining fashion at that. Hellcat's followers were being subsumed by her rival (whose name I completely forget) and as soon as hellcat would manage to liberate one, another would get sucked in due to some magical ability inherent in her rival's claws. I actually was liking her rival better than the hero quite frankly, but that's a relative liking. Nothing of interest was happening, and overall I didn't like this at all or find it entertaining or engaging. I can't commend it. At least I can say it got a negative OC rating (i.e. there were no open crotch shots in this comic) - but then it was a female vehicle so that didn't surprise me).

Zatanna's Search by arrested-adolescence writers and artists

Rating: WARTY!

Zatanna the female magician starts out right on the front cover in fishnet hose, so though it's technically not an open crotch shot, I didn't need to go any further into this comic book to fail it. The crotch shot is completely obviated by the cover itself. FAIL. Her legs are entirely out of proportion to the rest of her body as well. Just sayin'. Art or porn?

Spider-Gwen Radioactive apparently written by adolescents

Rating: WARTY!

I was impressed by Spider-Gwen in the hugely successful animated move Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse which made over four times its budget and will, so I've read, spawn at least two sequels/spin-offs. This comic unfortunately, is a FAIL because the OC rating for this graphic novel was 46. That means that it took only until page 46 for a gratuitous open crotch shot, which admittedly is better than many I've looked at recently, but still unacceptable. The art crew? Unsurprisingly, it was almost entirely male.

Cable and X-Force Onslaught Rising by various adolescents

Rating: WARTY!

This comic gets an OC rating of 19. That's the page number I quit reading at because that's where the first illustration of a female appeared with her legs wide open for no reason at all except that the artists of this trash are quite evidently perennially adolescents. Open Crotch on page 19 says it all.

Almost as bad was the artwork in general, which was so scratchy it made me itch - for less. There was nothing attractive, elegant, or anything about it at all. It had bared, gnashing teeth and fighting on every other page. The only chops it had were drooling, and it's not remotely entertaining at all.

X-Force a Force to be Reckoned With by assorted delayed-adolescence writers and artists

Rating: WARTY!

This has an OC rating of 26 - that is, it took only until page 26 for a female to be portrayed with her legs wide open to the viewer. Hilariously, the one thing the woman is saying in that same panel is "Never!". Any OC (open crotch) rating is a fail for comic book and graphic novels, and the lower the number, the greater the failure. This book is a fail regardless of whetever else it thinks it has to offer.

The entire creative cast for this book was evidently high testosterone, adolescent males so this surprises me not a whit, but the interesting thing is that if this was rated on male open crotch shots instead of female, it would have an even higher rating of 1, meaning the very first page had an open crotch shot of a male. That's the lowest rating you can get nrxt to a zero for such an image on the cover. In 1998, a study at the University of Central Florida of 33 video games found that half of them depicted violence against women or sexually-objectified them. Do we really want comics going down that stinking, testosterone-laced alley? No wonder female comic book buyers are in the minority.

So the novel is a fail, but I also have to say that the drawing was poor for my taste. It was too 'scratchy' - like if you load an image into a computer art app and sharpen it up too much? That's what the artwork looked like in this book. I didn't like it. I didn't like the characters, either, especially not cable, and the story was boring. These characters were fighting every other page. What the hell is wrong with these morons who write these books? Do they think endless fighting equals a story? More to the point, what the hell is wrong with the morons who read trash like this? WARTY, period.

Domino Killer instinct by Gail Simone, David Baldeón, Michael Shelfer, Jesus Aburton

Rating: WARTY!

Given that, apart from the writer (Simone) who apparently has little influence or simply doesn't care, this is entirely the work of evidently adolescent males (drawn by Baldeón and Shelfer, colored by Aburton), this graphic novel didn't surprise me at all to see that its rating in my new system was a very poor 22 (the lower the number the worse the comic book). What this means is that the book only made it to page 22 before it showed a female character (in this case the main one, and in her underwear) in an image with her leg legs wide open facing the viewer. It took her fewer pages than that to get her into the frilly underwear she apparently favors when working.

From now on regardless of the story, any graphic novel/comic book that gratuitously shows that kind of an image (and I can't off-hand think of an instance where it wouldn't be gratuitous), it's an immediate WARTY rating on my blog. The story wasn't that great anyway. I skimmed through it from p22 onward and it was the same kind of crap we normally get in Marvel comics - and probably in DC comics too. It's supposed to be about the main character Domino, but every step of the way, every known character in the entire Marvel universe puts in an appearance to help the poor helpless girl out, so the story really isn't about her at all when you get right down to it, it's about how many Marvel characters we can fit into her story and how helpless, disempowered, and devalued can we make her on the way through it.

I expected better from a female writer. I got exactly what I expected from a male art crew. In short, this graphic novel sucked.

America Fast and Fuertona by Gabby Rivera and assorted artists

Rating: WARTY!

Presumably because the writer is Latinx, there's the occasional Spanish phrase or word in here which isn't translated, and that's the way it should be, because the contest gives it all you need. Fuertona though, means forceful or strong, in case you wondered. I got this because I thought it was about a female Captain America and in a sense it is, because I understand from some back-reading that America Chavez - in that endless asinine merry-go-round of every Marvel hero subbing for every other Marvel hero, She does don his mantle at some point, but that didn't happen here.

Given the strong Latin influence, I don't get why she's American. Why not simply make her Mexican or have her hail from some South American country? It made no sense to me, but that's the way comic books all-too-often are. She has to be an American hero because god forbid we should ever have a hero come from some other country! And if we did, the insular American media consumers would have about the same interest in this as they did in the MIB International movie!

So anyway, she's attending a school for super heroes, which again made no sense, especially since she was always sneaking off to do her heroics without so much as a by-your-achieve. To be fair, in this case, she does have some cause since the new head of the school is a villain - they went out of their way to make that painfully obvious. I'm surprised they didn't name her Adolfa.

What bothered me wasn't so much the story which was pretty much par-for-the-course for a comic book, but that the artists, several of whom were female, went out of their way to portray America and the chief spandexed villain ("Exterminatrix" seriously?) in as tightly-clad, bare-skinned, and pneumatic a manner as inhumanly possible. That's a fail for me. So was this comic book which gets a wart-rating of five per square inch. What's the point in introducing a diversity of super heroes if all you're going to do with them is make them exact clones of all the previous heroes??? Look for my up-coming OC rating for graphic novels starring female characters!

Shuri Volume 1 The Search for Black Panther by Nnedi Okorafor, Leonardo Romero, Jordie Bellaire

Rating: WARTY!

It's no wonder I'm reading that TV and movies have taken over the SDCC, because comics just aren't cutting it any more, es evidenced by this one, and many others I've read of late.

The only thing I'd previously read by Okorafor, the writer of this graphic novel, was Street Magicks which was a collection of short stories by assorted authors, and hers was one I did not like. So perhaps it's not surprising that in the end, I did not like this comic, with art by Romero, and colors by Bellaire. The story is ostensibly about Shuri, the younger sister of King T'Challa of Wakanda, aka the Black Panther. It started very strongly, but then sort of faded into mediocrity. I hate it when that happens.

When T'Challa, as the Black Panther, was out of commission in the past, his sister Shuri had stepped up and took over the role, but when he disappears this time (flying a warp spacecraft of Shuri's design!), she feels very reluctant to replace him again, and instead of exploring that, or showing her determined efforts to find out what happened to him, the novel goes off in two or three different tangents which have nothing to do with her ambivalence or her brother's disappearance. It's never even explained why T-Challa has to fly this craft. Evidently T'Challa is from the Star Trek world, where he can't delegate and has to go on every single mission himself, which is utterly nonsensical, but it seems to be the way things are done in fiction!

The story just felt way too dissipated and disingenuous to be an engaging one, and the artwork was not appealing to me. There was a huge gulf between the cover art and the occasional full page image of similarly striking quality, and the very angular and rather simplistic artwork in the actual story where Shuri looked nothing like she did in those individual images. I had a hard time reconciling the one with the other because those full-page pictures really showed-up the mediocrity of the regular and very utilitarian work in the panels.

But while the art is a large part of the graphic novel and can help to make or break it, for me the story is always the most important part and if the story sucks, no amount of brilliant art can save it. But unfortunately, here the art wasn't brilliant and the story sadly betrayed the agency of Shuri because it put her constantly in need of others helping her and thius robbed her of any power. It felt like a sellout - like she couldn't handle things on her own with her macho bro out of the picture, so she needed others to come rescue her including the white savor at the end, in the form of Tony Stark. I was disgusted by that.

To me there's a difference between an ensemble story like the Avengers, and an individual story about one of Marvel's characters, and I don't mind if there's some interaction between one super hero and another in an individual story, but it seems like every Marvel comic I've taken a look at recently insists upon dragging into the story the entire Marvel stable. Enough already! If you want to do that, then make it an Avengers (or whatever team) story. Don't proclaim on the front cover that this is a Shuri story and then proceed to portray her as a maiden in distress requiring periodic rescue by other characters. When these other Marvel heroes flock into the story for no apparent reason and worse, serve no useful purpose, then you have to really wonder if the writer knows what she's doing.

The first of these was another female 'goddess' (so we're told). I'd never heard of her, but then I'm not steeped in Wakandan lore. The problem is that this goddess disappears and contributes zero to the story. She could, were she actually a goddess, have helped Shuri on her mission, but no! Why do go that route? So Shuri is sent into space in spiritual form and completely flies by the place where she's supposed to go - her brother's spacecraft.

No reason is offered for that failure and it makes no sense since it's her brother she's focused on, not the two guys she ends up with! She then finds herself battling a ludicrous 'space insect' which is sucking power from Rocket and Groot's spacecraft. What? Why would she go there? No logical reason - except that the writer evidently decided to include those two in the story to serve no purpose whatsoever! Shuri inhabits Groot's body - again for no reason - and starts chanting "I am Shuri" in complete disregard of the fact that such a phrase would be meaningless in Groot's language since the phrase, 'I am Groot' is actually not Groot's way of introducing himself!

The insect follows them back to Wakanda (of course, because why not?!) despite there being no reason at all why it would. It evidently feeds on electricity, and let's not even get started on how such a creature would even evolve in space before the advent of machines using electricity. This insect is evidently a direct rip-off of the Mynocks from Star Wars. Yawn. And since there's no air in space, why does it have wings? Again, no reason at all. It's possible to have fantasy and magic in a story and have it make sense within its own framework, but this author simply doesn't care, so then why should I? This was a poor story, indifferently illustrated and an outright insult to the Shuri character. I dis-commend it.

Birds of Prey Vol 5 Soul crisis by Christy Marx

Rating: WARTY!

After failing the previous volume in October 2016, I don't know why I went into this one. It was on close-out sale at the library, so it was cheap and it helps the library, and I'd forgotten how I disliked the previous one, and there's a movie of the same name due out in 2020 (which would be a great year to release a Vision movie wouldn't it? LOL!) that is about these same characters. It's directed by Cathy Yan, written by Christina Hodson, and stars Margot Robbie and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, as well as being produced by Robbie who originally pitched the idea to the studio, so I'm definitely interested in a strongly female-influenced movie about female super heroes. Anyway, that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it! But I didn't like this graphic novel any better than the previous one.

The story is the usual tired retreading of the Batman world where Assh'le Gul tries to take over the world. Why they cannot find a new villain is a mystery to me, but this constant bringing back of antiquated garbage is tedious. Why Assh'le even wants this has zero rational, and why there has to be a balance of light and dark is unexplained as usual. His opponent is this old chick who periodically renews and returns to a childishly youthful appearance which is a bit warped to say the least, given that she's several thousand years old, purportedly. Maybe her age is messing with her mind and this explains why she speaks in riddles. Who knows? Who cares, honestly?

None of this made any sense at all, not even with the flood of exposition and characters from all parts DC, indifferent artwork (which to give fair due at least didn't obsess on sexualizing every female it came into contact with, although it definitely wandered too far into that territory and without any need to), and a poor story by Christy Marx (who may or may not know that she shares a name if not a spelling, with a porn actress).

So I did learn there's actually a guy in the Birds of Prey which I had thought was all female. There was an intriguing character named Strix, who was described as a "Talon" but about whom nothing was explained. Presumably anyone invested in this world would know who she was, but with all the other stuff being painstakingly and overly detailed, there wasn't a word about her? Bizarre. It turns out that a Talon is a member of the Court of Owls, which explains nothing to me except that I don't thinks it's a court of ordinary wizarding levels. Even when I'm told they're reanimated assassins, it still explains nothing. I guess it's on a strixly need to know basis?

So endless fighting. No one uses guns even though the fate of the world is at stake and this would be a simple way to solve the problem? That tells me these people are morons. They agree to terms of battle with the Assh'le? Sorry, no. Check please, I'm done. It's bad enough that two people are considering screwing over one or more other people within the team. Not for me. The weird-ass thing about the Birds of Prey is the obsession with color, birds, and cattiness. The bird kind of makes sense, except that a canary isn't a raptor, and "Jade Canary" is really just as much a contradiction in terms as Black Canary is! LOL! But I can see Black Alice and Blue Beetle given how obsessed the team is with beating people those colors.

There was this odd 'dream world' story tacked onto the end of the main feature, like they were embarrassed by it and wanted to get rid of it there rather than try to sell it on its own merit. It was really the final straw - literally, and not a paper straw either, but a plastic one that's enough to choke a turtle. I can't commend this at all. Christy Marx needs to take an originality class or step aside and let some new talent have a chance at this.

Jessica Jones Blind Spot by Kelly Thompson, Mattia de Iulis, Marcio Takara, Rachelle Rosenberg

Rating: WORTHY!

I've been almost, but not quite, universally disappointed when I've back-tracked from a movie or TV show to the graphic novel version. The last disappointment was Captain Marvel which I took a look at before I went to see the movie. The movie turned out to be probably my favorite movie of all time. The graphic novels far from it. So you can see how I might honestly fear taking that step this time, but having watched season three (and probably the last - at least on Netflix) of Jessica Jones, and really enjoying the whole show - far more than the other three in the defenders quartet, what can I say? I was jonesing for more (yes, I went there!).

So I pulled this edition out of the library and gave it a chance. I'm glad I did because when I took a look at it, I was pleasantly surprised for once. This was a good solid story - very much a murder mystery (with a few twists along the way) and though I figured out what was going on before it was revealed, which is unusual for me in this kind of story, I really enjoyed reading it, so Kudos to writer Thompson for restoring my faith in comic book writers! Kudos also to artists and colorists Iulis, Takara, and Rosenberg.

It's nice to read a graphic novel which doesn't sexualize the female characters (except for in this one scene, but I decided to let that slide). Jessica Jones needs no sexualization because she is sexy as hell from her can-do attitude, her smarts, her never-say-die approach (which was severely tested here - LOL!), and her sharp wits. All of that was on display this story, and it beats any improbably pneumatic super hero "girl" any time in my book - and evidently in this crew's book too, I'm happy to report. That said I could have done without the ridiculous birthday party garbage added as a short story filler in back of this graphic novel. It sucked and was painfully stupid. And no, it wasn't about Iron Fist.

The main story begins with Jessica finding a corpse in her office, and it turns out to be a woman who came to Jessica for help some time before, and then who disappeared, leaving Jessica with a 'pebble in her shoe' feeling of failure. She resolves - after being arrested for the murder, and then freed by Matt Murdoch - that she will solve the woman's murder as a professional curtesy to try and alleviate her failure in the Dia Sloane case to begin with. Just like in season three of the TV show, Jessica finds herself on the trail of a serial killer, but this one is targeting supers - good or bad, but all female. His first target is Jessica. You'll have to read this to see how that goes.

One thing I don't like about too many Marvel comics I've read recently is the inexplicable need writers seem to feel to drag in every single Marvel name they can find. It's pathetic and I was sorry to see that Thompson failed to skip that. This brings me to a pet beef about Marvel - particularly with New York City. I don't get why every super in the Marvel pantheon lives in New York City. Stan Lee said it was because you write what you know. I don't buy that as an excuse, but given that, the logical outcome is that NYC ought to be the most crime-free city on the entire planet - and clearly it isn't.

Worse than this, Jessica seems to get zero help from any of these supers in solving this case - a case where she herself came close to death. She has visits from Iron Man, Captain Marvel, Captain America, Misty Knight, Doctor Strange, who is more like my parodied Doctor Deranged in this book, Elsa Bloodstone and others, and not a one of them lifts a finger to help her. What's up with that? So while this came clsoe to failing me, it held up well enough and for long enough that I consider it a rare worthy comic-book read.

Teen Titans: Raven by Kami Garcia, Gabriel Picolo

Rating: WARTY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Erratum:
p110 "I don't feel like taking right now " should be 'talking'

This is the first day I can post this because of an embargo, although I see scores of reviews already out there from other reviewers. Oh well! Anyway, Raven is a DC comics character who is almost the same age as the mature author of this YA graphic novel, but given that, and unlike authors unfortunately, comic book heroes never die and are paradoxically constantly reborn. Raven is being rebooted here yet again as a high-school senior and it's a major fail for reasons I shall go into shortly.

This is written by the author of Beautiful Creatures, something which it turns out, isn't a good idea. The story had annoying issues pretty much from the off, such as the whole vudu thing, which doesn't ever work for me. I just can't get with any spirit who can be bribed with spirits.

Plus despite the reboot, the story offered nothing new - only tired and outdated tropes: the new girl in high school, the school bitch, the creepy guy who instantly latches onto her and is entirely inappropriate, her "instadore" response to him for no reason at all, and this despite several warning signs that the guy is a creep. Authors are just so obsessed with adding a "romance" (I use the term loosely) that they're quite evidently willing to do anything, including selling-out and otherwise cheapening their main character, just to get it on.

If you haven't read the comics before this and you missed the pretty decent TNT live-action television series (which is how I came to be interested in this comic), Raven's name is Rachel Roth - and no, we can't get away from DC's tedious alliteration! Sorry! Her new male friend's name is Tommy Torres! Barf! Her backstory is that she's a 'cambion' - the offspring of a demon and a human mother - some might call her the antichrist!

In this new rebirth, she's a teenager who survives an MVA that kills her prospective adoptive mother, and in another trope, robs Raven of her memory. She's taken in by an aunt. Why this didn't happen first - why she was about to be adopted by a stranger instead of moving in with an aunt who is family - remained a mystery, and no explanation for that was forthcoming. Since this is New Orleans, naturally, her 'aunt' is a vudu priest, and her aunt's daughter Max evidently has supernatural powers although there was little evidence of that here.

Max is short for Maxine, and I found myself wondering, "Who named their kids Tommy and Maxine, seventeen years ago?" No one I know of! Thomas was 36th on the list of most popular names in 2002. Maxine wasn't even in the top 100. Clearly the author, admittedly stuck with 'Raven', expended no thought whatsoever into the naming of her other characters, but these things matter, especially in a book about magic and demons! These are not even the original names from Raven's earlier incarnations: they were apparently dreamed up by the author.

On top of this, I have to say that Tommy comes off as a complete creep the way he's written here. He passes her a note in class essentially demanding that she meet him in the gym, and she passively goes along with it. She doesn't even know this guy. She hasn't interacted with him anywhere near enough to get any sort of vibe let alone a good one, much less be full-frontal crushing on him, so this debased Raven for me right from the outset.

It ruined the story, which was supposed to be about Raven trying to figure out who she was. As is so often the case in these YA efforts, the story instead became that of Raven melting like ice cream in the heat emitted by the torrid Tom cat. His grand gesture was to bring a bag full of candy bars to the gym rendezvous, like Raven was some sort of retard who couldn't figure out which she liked best on her own and so desperately needed this Tom foolery? This whole event had the vibe of some sick guy trying to lure kids into his panel van by offering them candy. It was downright creepy.

As if that wasn't bad enough, later we get a guy (who at first I had also thought was Tommy because of the average to below average illustration) asking Maxine for a kiss right in front of Raven in the school hallway, and neither of the two girls thought there was anything wrong with that. This is at the same time as Tommy is trying to 'move in on' Raven like he wanted to own her, yet she's never remotely suspicious about any of his behavior even though she's pretty much paranoid about everything else, and is also going through a time when she's hearing voices? It all felt unnatural and far too forced.

I have to confess, at this point, that it's possible, due to laxity in illustration, that I'm confusing one male character - Tommy - with another - a guy who has the decidedly odd name of 'name' backwards - Eman. The two looked so alike and were so interchangeable that I honestly couldn't tell the difference to begin with. Part of this problem was that the Eman (it's right there in the name how masculine he is: Eman and the Masters of the Wombiverse!) was not even a character in the story worth the mention, so rarely did he appear. It took me some time before I realized that I might have been confusing the two of them until I was about two-thirds the way through the novel, but even if it's true, it didn't make any difference because they were so interchangeable. All it actually meant was that there were two dicks instead of one and that Eman was just as bad as Tommy was.

As the school prom draws closer, one of the two (I guess Eman?) was going on and on about the girls buying roses (which are sent to the boys to ask them to the prom), and putting his arm around Maxine's neck uninvited. Despite being clearly told "No" several times, he keeps on trying to force the issue, offering to give them money or to buy the roses for them. Tommy was definitely a dick at this point, evidently willing to pimp the girls out, convinced that they do protest too much!

This wasn't remotely funny, and a female author - even a YA author - should know better than to do this to a female character - especially when she fails to have that female character react negatively to a clear #MeToo moment. This author is obviously out of touch and is a part of the problem. This is why I don't like YA relationships because they're usually so very poorly done - as badly as this one was. They're sending the wrong message in any era, let alone this one today.

I honestly don't know what the hell the problem is with YA authors; I really don't. They will gasp in horror when they hear of the latest abuse of women even as they're actively writing the next one in their latest book. The whole lot of them, with few exceptions, ought to be shipped-off to sensitivity training for sure. The problem is even spelled-out in this very novel, and still no one gets it. Max has made it clear to Enama that the answer is "No!" yet he will not, we learn, leave her alone. If Tommy had known Raven for years and they were friends, that would be one thing, but he doesn't. As he tells Raven earlier in the story, he's new to the school too. So no. Just no for either of these "relationships."

On top of all of this, we have the tired and antique trope of Raven tripping and pretty much falling into Tommy's arms. I felt almost literally nauseated at that point because it is so pathetic and such a tired and douche move by an author. He of course grabs her hand and almost drags her into the school like she's a child in desperate need of his guidance and protection, but I guess this is how this guy wants 'his woman': passive, compliant, and child-like, so he can own and manipulate her at will. This attitude is rewarded, because Raven falls for him, showing what a moron she is, too. Wrong message to send.

So the worn-out YA trope of the new girl in school, which I don't like because it's been done to death, and the ancient trope of a guy coming into her life to validate and rescue her, I can do without. New guys can be as much a curse on a story (particularly one by a YA author) as they can a blessing. In this case it was quite clearly a curse, unsurprisingly. Tommy was in no way needed for this story, and yet there he was. On top of those inexcusable issues, the problems Raven has with her memory seem curiously random: she can't remember her favorite song or candy bar, but she knows math and cooking?

But on with the story. Oddball things seem to happen around Raven for which she has no explanation. She can hear the thoughts of classmates which doesn't freak her out as much as you might imagine it would. Curiously, wearing earplugs drowns out the voices. I didn't get why that was, since she was clearly not literally hearing them. Maybe the earplugs had a psychological effect? Who knows? This story isn't deep enough to go into things like that, since there's a hot romance to cold brew.

Later, from unwilling interactions with the annoying, trope school bitch, Raven discovers that she can also have a physical impact on other people, like making this same girl trip over or choke on some food after she's said something mean. There's also another voice which she hears from time to time, like it's her conscience or her advisor. "Raven? Can you hear me? It's Trigon.

This ARC copy (which in my case was an ebook) seemed odd to me in that there were red lines around the borders of the pages. I don't know if this is a development thing - part of the creative process which will be removed from the final edition, or if it's actually a part of the finished book. I just found them annoying. Gabriel Picolo's art work was curiously basic, too, like he didn't care enough about this project to make any real effort. I mean it was okay in that it serviced the text, but it was certainly nothing spectacular and as I said, it really made the two guys indistinguishable for the most part.

Why there were references to Dracula, I do not know, but Raven has a copy of Bram Stoker's novel and it has notes inside that are in her handwriting. We're told it was her mother's favorite book, but it had nothing to do with the story, so maybe the author wanted to try and add some sorely needed literary cred? It didn't work. Neither did the inexplicable dichotomy between Raven's failure to remember even simple things - a memory which doesn't seem to be returning - and this blooming and seemingly endless growth of her powers. It was a bit much. Plus it's so amateurishly one dimensional.

Raven seems to be using only the sense of sight, not that of smell, hearing, or touch (though it's touched on, so to speak, in passing). I imagine someone who has lost their memory would be rather more attuned to her senses, drinking in everything, and hoping the experience will trigger locked-up memories, but no, not really. Not here, anyway. Again, the story is too shallow and limited to explore something like that.

Next she's 'astral projecting' - so we're told - in that she was, while sleeping, able to see this sacrificial plea for help her 'aunt' made at the local cemetery. So, another power popping up out of nowhere for no apparent reason. Again, it seemed so random. Whenever she needs a magical power, there it is at her fingertips! And she's an instant expert in using it!

This leads to her aunt declaring that Raven's powers are developing faster than expected, only a short while after this same aunt claims she has no idea what's going on with Raven. How would she? She and Raven's mom were estranged for a long time, but that doesn't explain why the aunt, now seemingly so concerned, apparently had never wanted to get in touch with Raven after her mother had died, to the point where Raven was going to be adopted by someone else. None of this made any sense.

Rather like the movie Carrie, based on the tedious Stephen King "novel" of the same name, this one once again fails to be original, and uses the same trope of a climax at the prom. By this point I was only glad it was over and I didn't have to read any more. There are so many ways this novel could have broken new ground, liberated young super-powered females, and set standards, but instead, it chose to wallow in worn-out and threadbare YA trope with the requisite weak, female main character. It abused the main character every bit as much as those macho male-authored comics which star improbably pneumatic and skin-tight costumed super hero women, and call them girls, yet doing it this way is so much more insidious isn't it? This is why I can't commend this comic at all.

A Dark Inheritance by Chris D'Lacey

Rating: WARTY!

Read rather oddly by Raphael Corkhill, this was another audiobook which started out really well and then Le Stupide set in big time. I had thought I was going to get through it unscathed, but it was not to be. About two-thirds the way in, it went south with the ducks - and normally I like ducks. Some of my best friends are...not ducks, but anyway, to see them in the southbound lane was still rather sad. Duck asses are not the most engaging of sights.

The initial premise was an interesting one and the story changed up periodically so it did not quickly become boring, but the more I listened, the less the story seemed to have a plan to go anywhere. It wasn't until later that I discovered why. The main character was so passive as to be tedious, as was his momma! Worse than this, I discovered by skipping to the end after I'd given up on it, that this novel is part of a series, of which there is zero indication whatsoever on the book cover, so the publisher is outright lying to readers and I will not countenance that.

This explains why this novel never was interested in going anywhere. The author gave up that motivation when he decided to thinly-stretch material sufficient for one book into a trilogy or more. Michael learns nothing - not even how to control his ability, and he never does learn a damned thing about his father because this is not a novel, it's a prologue.

By accident, this semi-orphan with the uninventive name of Michael Malone discovers that he has the ability to not so much change reality as to be able to switch between realities in a multiverse. He can only do this at first when under stress, which is how he does it the first time. His new reality is always very similar to the old one with some minor changes, but the important thing is that he's supposed to be able to switch to one which conforms to some idea he has of the kind of reality he wants to live in.

Michael is seventeen. A kid of that age ought to be at a point in life where he has some self-motivation and some idea of what he wants out of life, along with a few grown-up thoughts here and there, but none of this is true with Michael who acts more like he's thirteen. He has no excitement or curiosity whatsoever about his magical power and shows no inclination at all to investigate it or to try to use it to put himself into a reality where his father is back with the family, and the villains are out of his life. He'd evidently much rather attend his own self-pity party.

These villains arrive suddenly in the form of a young French woman and an older German man by the name of Klimt. We never learn how they latched on to Michael, but apparently it's through his missing father who evidently had some of the same abilities as Michael does. Klimt wants to use Michael for some purpose of his own and holds the carrot of finding Michael's father and the stick of changing Michael's reality into something horrible. These people are from the "Unicorne" society and Michael at one point discovers he's been inducted into it while he was unconscious after an bike accident. Now he has a black Unicorne tattoo, which covers a spot in his skin where he has, he's informed, been injected with a microchip for the purpose of tracking him not only in this reality, but in others, too.

Michael shows zero anger at this, zero curiosity about how he can disable the chip (by changing his reality for exmaple!), and no amusement at how pathetic it is that this secret society blatantly advertises its existence with this unusual tattoo. This was my first adverse reaction to the story. If this had been a middle grade novel, then I could probably have countenanced this, but for a young adult novel it was pathetic at best. There are ways to write that do not make your characters look limp, or stupid, and your story amateur, but this author is apparently too lazy or unimaginative to think of them, hence his penchant for writing series with uninventive titles. That coupled with the laziness and lack of imagination inherent in writing a series is enough to avoid this author like the plague from now on. I expect a lot better from a university-educated writer. Or maybe that's the problem.

It got worse when the story began to drag with little-to-nothing happening. At one point Michael is hit by a car when riding his bicycle and ends up in a private hospital where the doctor is of course Klimt, and the nurse is this same French girl. On top of this there are two police detectives investigating the car accident, yet they are literally grilling Michael over matters that are totally irrelevant to what happened and neither Michael nor his mother objects to this line of questioning. That immediately said "Dumbasses" to me, and it's where I quit being interested in this purportedly young adult, but more like middle grade or younger story.

I skimmed to the end, and discovered that the book has no resolution whatsoever, and so is merely a prologue to volume two. I don't do prologues, and I do not accept books like this one. I would have rated this negatively for treating readers like mushrooms (keeping them in the dark and feeding them bullshit) if it hadn't already failed me. The book is poorly written and is a rip-off. I dis-recommend it.

Under the Moon: A Catwoman Tale by Lauren Myracle, Isaac Goodhart

Rating: WORTHY!

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Illustrated beautifully by Isaac Goodhart, and written by Myracle, this graphic novel began for me in a disappointing way. Retreaded origin stories for super heroes/villains are so five volumes ago and are so common these days that they're tedious to say the least, but before I could become completely disllusioned with a world where robotic reboots are more common than original stories, this one turned around and drew me in. The characters were realistic and realistically drawn, and the main character wasn't any guy's simpering plaything. She didn't need a guy to validate her, which was a refreshing and welcome change.

At fifteen, Selina Kyle makes a deliberate choice to quit both her home and school, and live on the street, having come to the end of her tether with her single mom's endless parade of vile boyfriends. To steal a line from a popular movie, anyone who's anyone knows who she is: Selina Kyle is the girl who will become Catwoman. I was looking for some serious payback with that last boyfiend which I'm sorry to report never came, but maybe volume 2 will take care of that? One can but hope!

It's not long before Selena meets a criminal element, but these guys (and a girl) - who all have stories of their own - are not your usual gang-bangers or drug pushers. They're pretty much in the same boat that Selina is, and once she begins training in Parkour with one of them whom she meets by chance, she soon starts hanging with them, but is never really one of them. This story has depth and feeling and is very engaging. This is the kind of origin story I can enjoy, despite my weariness with such stories, and it made me want to read the next volume, like, now!

The only sour note it struck for me was the high school story - but I'm not a big fan of high school stories which are almost (but not quite) uniformly cookie-cutter tedious. Selena lives with her lower-class single mom. Buce Wayne is the orphaned child of a billionnaire. Yet they've known each other from childhood because they attended the same schools together? How is that possible? I'm sorry but it didn't work, and no explantion was even attempted to explain how it might. The Gotham TV show rooted in DC Comics' Batman world tells a much more plausible story of how these two people from such different worlds came to meet.

That failure aside though, this story was different, entertaining, inventive, and enjoyable. I commend it as a worthy read, and I'm very much looking forward to volume 2!