Question A Brief Review of some other SuperHero Ficiton I have read recently

Action Figures by Michael C Bailey: This is a 7 book series with at least another two on books to come. And on balance I liked it. The characters are fun to read about, and, have issues and backstories that aren't just about catching the villains. The series also handles the issues of managing secret identities quite well, especially as the protagonists are teenagers sneaking out the house to be heroes. That said the writing style is a little strange at times. Its first person past tense and several of the POV characters make asides to the reader and even withhold information at times, which I'm not a fan of. The Author also has a habit of mixing direct and indirect speech in the same conversation which I found jarring and confusing.

I despise the quibbles I would recommend it

Emily Monroe Is Not The Chosen One by Erik Schubach a Novella, with a surprising amount of depth hidden behind what is a very light and humorous story. I'd definitely recommend it. Note that it definitely leaves a lot of open threads and I strongly suspect that there will be more Emily Monroe stories to follow.

Just Cause by Ian Thomas Healy: Also the start of a series but one I just could not get into. The protagonists came across as incompetent and not at all like someone who graduated from a specialised super school, and the first few chapters were a just constant description and exposition with so little action that I gave up. I would not recommend it.

Dating the Villain by Jason Krumbine: I'm still reading this one, and there is definitely a good story here, but the main character leaves a lot to be desired. As far as I can see she is something of a failed attempt to depict a manic pixie dream girl, who just comes across like an over-indulged child. She acts more like a middle schooler than a college student. The dialogue seems to swing between being truly funny and trying too hard to be funny. Despite its flaws, I think it's going to be worth reading.

I just finished Action Figures Book 1, and it's a good read. Chapter 1's title gave me a chuckle, "The New Girl in Town."

I recommend it.

Edit: Additional review material.

OK I've read some more of the series, and despite some serious flaws, I still recommend it.



I do still recommend the series.

Since I have not seen it mentioned here or on other threads:
Worm and its countless fanfictions all across the net.

The story of an introverted teenager at a lousy high school who gets superpowers in a particularly nasty bullying incident. She is determined to be a better person than her bullies and use her power for improving the world. The world has other ideas...

There are some similarities to Whateley, as most of the parahumans in Worm are young and still going to school. Also, the power levels are mostly Whateley rather than Marvel. Ignoring the really high end threats for the moment...

A major difference though is that the Wormverse is quite a grim place. The bad guys outnumber the good guys, and the authorities are in many cases limited to curb the worst excesses of the villains, rather than putting them in jail for good. There is one super-jail for the worst of the worst though, so there are exceptions.
Also, the monsters are more active and present than in Whateley. Where Whateley's biggest fight on screen so far was Halloween (Gen1), Worm has at least one Endbringer battle and it is bloody. As in, a significant part of the city leveled and multiple heroes killed. The descriptions of the violence are also a bit more graphic.

Note that I have not read all of it yet, Worm is huge in terms of word count. If you including the fan fics, some of which are quite good, you could read Worm and related stuff for months

Rabiata wrote: Also, the monsters are more active and present than in Whateley. Where Whateley's biggest fight on screen so far was Halloween (Gen1), Worm has at least one Endbringer battle and it is bloody. As in, a significant part of the city leveled and multiple heroes killed. The descriptions of the violence are also a bit more graphic.

Well, that bit about Halloween being the biggest Gen1 Whateley fight is no longer true, but I won't spoil it for you if you haven't gotten to that story yet.

On the topic of Worm, its sequel Ward is currently ongoing. It picks up a couple years later and follows a different protagonist. Can't say much about the scenario or even who the protagonist is without spoiling things from Worm. So far the protagonist's path does tend more toward the heroic side of things than the morally ambiguous path Taylor took, so anyone who was bothered by that element of Worm should consider giving Ward a chance anyway.

Now that I've finished reading Dating the Villain I have to say that it was a poor effort, and I won't be reading the sequels. But I have read through several more that are worthy of mention:

The Private Life of Jane Maxwell by Jenn Gott, this is a well written and more serious story, with good character building about different realities colliding. In one of them Jane Maxwell is a comic book author, and in the other, she is the leader of the Hero Team she writes about.

Superheroes Anonymous by Lexie Dunne. A fun read which starts out with a heroine who's earned the nickname Hostage Girl, she doesn't have any powers but everybody thinks she is dating the cities premier hero, the end result being that every villain passing through town take a swing at holding her hostage. This one is definitely on the lighter side as far as the stories go.

So not a Hero by S. J. Delos. The story of an ex-con villain who joins a hero team. The one reservation I have about this one is that that it has a fair share of fanservice, with the titular heroine being rather prone to wardrobe malfunctions. Also a chapter long sex scene in the first book.


regarding Valentine's comment on Action Figures, yes its definatly defivative, and there are lot of characters which take rather direct "Inspiration" from well knwon comic book characters.

OK, found and read The Book Of Darwin, part 2. That comes close to Leviatahan vs. Brockton Bay.

Honestly, I wouldn't even put Halloween Gen 1, Year 1 in the top three anymore.

Katssun wrote: Honestly, I wouldn't even put Halloween Gen 1, Year 1 in the top three anymore.

Well, how many gen 1 supersized hero fights are there??? Off the top of my head:

- The Boston Brawl I & II (counting them as a single event). Of these three I can think of, they're the smallest

- The Darwin fight. Definately the largest in scale and complexity.

- The halloween invasion (middle-of-the road)

I can really only think of those three qualifying, four if you want to stretch it. Hell, the first two aren't even that big. In fact, most of the massive fights in the WU gen 1 aren't that big, and there aren't that many of them. Also, if ANYONE accuses me again of 'having read only half the stories', I will thrash you with a evil glare that transcends continents and travels through the net.



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CrazyMinh wrote:

Katssun wrote: Honestly, I wouldn't even put Halloween Gen 1, Year 1 in the top three anymore.

Well, how many gen 1 supersized hero fights are there???
...
Also, if ANYONE accuses me again of 'having read only half the stories', I will thrash you with a evil glare that transcends continents and travels through the net.

But that would be telling...

I'm not necessarily gauging my top three on duration, or attendance list either, but purely on immediate cost of failure. That is how I would make the comparison to Worm's Endbringer fights.

CrazyMinh wrote: Well, how many gen 1 supersized hero fights are there??? Off the top of my head:

- The Boston Brawl I & II (counting them as a single event). Of these three I can think of, they're the smallest

Haven't read all the Ayla stories, have you?

CrazyMinh wrote:

Katssun wrote: Honestly, I wouldn't even put Halloween Gen 1, Year 1 in the top three anymore.

Well, how many gen 1 supersized hero fights are there??? Off the top of my head:

- The Boston Brawl I & II (counting them as a single event). Of these three I can think of, they're the smallest

- The Darwin fight. Definately the largest in scale and complexity.

- The halloween invasion (middle-of-the road)

I can really only think of those three qualifying, four if you want to stretch it. Hell, the first two aren't even that big. In fact, most of the massive fights in the WU gen 1 aren't that big, and there aren't that many of them. Also, if ANYONE accuses me again of 'having read only half the stories', I will thrash you with a evil glare that transcends continents and travels through the net.

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What qualifies as a Supersized hero fight?

Halloween had at least 100 of the students fighting. Not all were mentioned, and it included all the on duty Security.

Boston Brawl I Team Kimba and Riptide and the Masterminds vs Children of the Night & mooks.

Boston Brawl II Team Kimba and others vs Children of the Night & a couple extras.

Birthday Brawl, while 4 independent battles went on, they were coordinated. Team Kimba and Riptide and Phase's friends vs. Children of the Night, a couple dozen mercenaries in armor, Mimeo, other escapees, Lamplighter, the museum robbers, and the three at the hostage situation.

There are other fights with a dozen or so combatants.

null0trooper wrote:

CrazyMinh wrote: Well, how many gen 1 supersized hero fights are there??? Off the top of my head:

- The Boston Brawl I & II (counting them as a single event). Of these three I can think of, they're the smallest

Haven't read all the Ayla stories, have you?

Arsenal by Jeffery H. Haskell. Its like Ironman except that the main character isn't an arrogant conceited dick. Note, I'm going by Iron man as portrayed by Robert Downey Jr, I don't know if all versions of the character were like this.

I had a blast reading this one, and a fifth book is due to out later this month. Amelia Lockheart is a paraplegic genius. She doesn't set out to be a hero but instead has her own personal reasons for building battle armour. her first suit is kind of clunky, but by book four she's replaced and upgraded it to the point of being truly awesome. I'd probably rank this series in my top three as far as superhero fiction goes, right behind Wearing the Cape and Velveteen vs.

I'll add one series: The Reckoner Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. In it, the appearance of a red 'star' nicknamed Calamity caused the outbreak of superpowers across the world. However, in this world, superpowers make you evil. The only superpowered individuals are supervillians. Their only opposition??? A resistance group known as the reckoners. The powers in the trilogy aren't your classic superpowers. There's a guy who turned Chicago to steel, and that's towards the top end. At the bottom, there's people who can mimic the sound of a dog barking. The first book is called Steelheart. The second is called Firestorm. The last is called Calamity.

konzill wrote: Arsenal by Jeffery H. Haskell. Its like Ironman except that the main character isn't an arrogant conceited dick. Note, I'm going by Iron man as portrayed by Robert Downey Jr, I don't know if all versions of the character were like this.

I had a blast reading this one, and a fifth book is due to out later this month. Amelia Lockheart is a paraplegic genius. She doesn't set out to be a hero but instead has her own personal reasons for building battle armour. her first suit is kind of clunky, but by book four she's replaced and upgraded it to the point of being truly awesome. I'd probably rank this series in my top three as far as superhero fiction goes, right behind Wearing the Cape and Velveteen vs.

So I'm reading Wearing the Cape and to be honest it hasn't really grabbed me. Then I got to "Lake Shore Ave." and Whacker Dr. I can understand the Author trying to make a point that this isn't the real world, but considering the various things that have been mentioned that haven't occurred, changing street names just jars me out of the story. Oddly Ashland Ave. is likely the least known of the streets named, but is the right name, and is an overpass over the Eisenhower Expressway, but Lake Shore Drive which is both a well known song and album is misnamed, and Wacker Dr. as featured in the Blues Brothers movie is also misspelled.

I can handle different people as President, I can handle made up towns, like Dunwich, but not major cities like Metropolis or Central City (one of the reasons I am not a fan of DC), but I do not like changing things just to change them.

I'm going to try to finish it, but no guarantees.

I think its a case of the Author of Wearing the Cape not really knowing Chicago all that well. Also, I had no clue that the street names were a reference to anything.

As far as changing things, I think there is a good argument to be made for avoiding the use of real Addresses in fiction, especially if what is really there is a private residence. Just like how fiction often uses fake phone numbers that start with 555.

I've seen more than one story of people who happen to live at an address featured in a story who is rather upset at the number of people showing up out the front of their house because of the address.

konzill wrote: I think its a case of the Author of Wearing the Cape not really knowing Chicago all that well. Also, I had no clue that the street names were a reference to anything.

As far as changing things, I think there is a good argument to be made for avoiding the use of real Addresses in fiction, especially if what is really there is a private residence. Just like how fiction often uses fake phone numbers that start with 555.

I've seen more than one story of people who happen to live at an address featured in a story who is rather upset at the number of people showing up out the front of their house because of the address.

I get not using real addresses, although he does use real places. Millennium Park is a real park, Holy Name Cathedral is where he says it is, Rush Street is the party street in Chicago. So much right, and he gets the most famous street wrong? Oh well. I didn't find the rest of the story that good either.

Cape high series by R. J. Ross. This one can is fun as long as you know what you are getting into. And that is a Grated series which is like 7th Heaven or Leave it to Beaver, only with superpowers.

As you might expect this is a tv america where alternate sexulaities don't exist. The teenage characters are very clean cut and pair up almost instantly into very chased heterosexual couples. There is also occational full on preaching seeing as this worlds equivalent of Captain America is also an actual minister. As I said 7th Heaven with superpowers.

That said there are some darker elements. Though mostly implied or happening off stage. Its clear early on that the supers of this world are actually fooling the norms and most public hero vs villain battles are as real as a WWE fight. The real villains get handled much more severly and quitely. They also pretty well ignore mundane laws and have their own system.

All that said its still fun if you are in the mood for a light and fluffy sory with superpowers. And there's 20 books of it.

EDIT I should note that the 2nd Story arc in the series, (books 5 - 7) is really quite good. It's a time travel story and book 7, in particular, had me laughing in a good way, especially when there was not two but three versions of the same character running around at the same time. I also feel the need to note down this series's greatest crime:

I just picked this up on Amazon www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DR4T1ZS/ref...e_o00_?ie=UTF8&psc=1

10 books for $2.99. Some are good, some are not. But there is bound to be at least one you like.

It does include Book 1 of Action Figures, and Wearing the Cape. I think they are all book 1s of series.

Valentine wrote: I just picked this up on Amazon www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DR4T1ZS/ref...e_o00_?ie=UTF8&psc=1

10 books for $2.99. Some are good, some are not. But there is bound to be at least one you like.

It does include Book 1 of Action Figures, and Wearing the Cape. I think they are all book 1s of series.

Copy acquired, as there are several books here I haven't read yet. and I have another one:

Cassidy Jones by Elise Stokes. The teenage main character here ends up with Wolverine-like powers after a lab accident, though without the claws. It's set in a world where superpowers are not common knowledge so she does have a need to mostly hide her abilities. Unlike many other YA books this one undermines the "Adults are Useless" trope, especially in the later parts of the series.