Specifically, she’s the only daughter of the Industrialist, the leader of a group of gentlemen adventurers called the Paragons. Until recently she’s lived a privileged life under her daddy’s careful supervision. But now she’s living on her own and serendipitously building a gang of likeminded superheroes. The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree apparently. Everybody in the Stanton family ends up being the leader of a team of costumed exhibitionists at some point in their life.

And the timing couldn’t be better. Her father’s gentlemen’s club is slowly being dismantled by a mad genius with a chip on his shoulder and electricity at his fingertips. The Children of Eschaton want to destroy the world and rebuild it in their own image. There’s no place in their evil plans for a collection of greybeard superheroes called the Paragons. Sic transit Gloria mundi—the glory of the world so quickly passes away.

Since this is a steampunk novel, the fate of the world will be determined by whoever locates the Alpha Element and wields the power of steam and smoke. We’ll give you one guess who has it. That’s right, the spunky Stanton gal. The Alpha Element is contained within a key hanging from her necklace. The author is being as blunt as possible. But in case you missed it, the Adventuress is the key to everything.

Hearts of Smoke and Steam is a transitional novel. The villainy remains the same as the first book, but the series has shifted from the first generation of superheroes to the second generation. Call it SOS:TNG if you like. Gone is the Submersible, the Sleuth, Iron-Clad, the Industrialist, and Sir Dennis Darby. In their stead is the Turbine, Anubis, Il Acrobato, the Pneumatic Colossus, and, of course, the Adventuress. She’s the spark, the progeny, and the avenger. Lord Eschaton has hurt or killed everyone that she ever cared about. And now she’s ready to fight a war. “I have judged you, Sarah Stanton,” says Anubis, a villain turned hero. “And I have found you worthy!” We couldn’t agree more.

[The Society of Steam, Book Two: Hearts of Smoke and Steam / By Andrew P. Mayer / First Printing: November 2011 / ISBN: 9781616145330]

The paperback edition of Super City Police Department: The Case of the Claw will be out shortly. Author Keith R.A. DeCandido is autographing copies for anyone who preorders it through his website. The novel’s sequel (S.C.P.D.: Avenging Amethyst) will be out later this year.

Tyrone Tony Reed Jr. has written a novel called S.O.L.A.D. Soldiers of Light Against Darkness. Find out more about the book and Reed’s Kickstarter project here.

Speaking of Kickstarter projects… a documentary about female superheroes is currently in production from Kristy Guevara-Flanagan and Kelcey Edwards. Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines tells the story of Wonder Woman “from the birth of the comic book superhero in the ’40s, to the blockbusters of today.”

Here’s a little bit of information about Corrupts Absolutely? The upcoming anthology edited by Lincoln Crisler features stories by a number of writers, including Jeff Strand, Cat Rambo, and Joe McKinney.

For your reading pleasure: Small Town Hero by Jessica Stank. Escape: Omega Book 1 by Keith Latch. Homeless by Christopher Lee Cousino. Enzo Flashfire: The Birth of the Spyridon Five by David Jacks, Daniel Morrow, and Stella Perrett.

Superhero miscellany: Everybody, even Dr. Psycho, needs a pair of Wonder Woman socks. News from Toy Fair: Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman Potato Head toys are coming soon. Will Green Arrow be on TV next season? We hope so. And finally: author Steve Statham presents an interview with the ever-lovin’ Hulk concerning this summer’s Avengers movie. Hulk not happy!

Two supervillains by the name of Sundancer and Pit Geek have no delusions about their ultimate fate. They know the end will come for them eventually. With nothing better to do, they embark on a Bonnie and Clyde-like adventure. Robbing banks is beneath them. But they don’t care. They’re just trying to keep things interesting before the final bell tolls.

And, boy, do things get interesting. After depositing $80 million from banks across the country, Sundancer and Pit Geek start butting heads with the Covenant, a trio of superheroes with a spotty history. The team consists of a male prostitute, a crime boss, and the estranged daughter of Dr. Knowbokov, the guy who purposely detonated a second big bang and destroyed the universe. (See the prequel novel, Nobody Gets the Girl, for more mind-bending details.)

The Covenant is doing its best to squash Sundancer and Pit Geek. But their efforts are in vain. The dirty pair has already sewn up our sympathies. This is a supervillain novel, after all. It says so in the indicia.

Sundancer, otherwise known as Sunday Jimenez, gets most of the attention here. By harnessing the power of the sun, she is practically invincible. But unfortunately her superpowers have exposed her body to massive amounts of radiation. She’ll die of cancer unless she gets help fast.

During her villainous career, Sunday pushed death upon dozens of people with utter indifference. And now it’s her time to go. But you never know. Can she survive her mortal coil with the help of a super-intelligent chimpanzee? Or a black donut from outer space? Or maybe her partner in crime has an ace down his gullet? In a supervillain novel, anything is possible.

Burn Baby Burn is more straightforward than it’s prequel. We missed the earlier book’s unexpected twists and unwavering insanity. And we were a little disappointed that Rex Monday bowed out so quickly. But overall it’s funnier than the first book and has a bigger heart. Also, the romance between the two criminals was (inevitable, but) sweet.

In the end, says Sundancer, we’re all going to die. No one gets out alive. “Well, sure,” responds Pit Geek, her heartbroken lover. “But there’s no need to be in a such hurry.” Ultimately, everybody wants to spend a little more time in this veil of tears.

[Burn Baby Burn / By James Maxey / First Printing: November 2011 / ISBN: 9781465731586]

But it’s not like she’s the only superhero in her hometown. There are a lot of them, including Windening Gyre, Mogul, Panic Attack, Stalwart, Deathalyzer, Mardi Gras, Thunder Perfect Mind, the Jupitarian, CEO (the Chief Executive Officer of Justice), Blindspot, Concealer, Lethe, Retcon, King Crypto, Old Glory, Ball Lightning, Air Marshall, Sputnik, Concorde, Gestalt, Red Baron, Sky Shark, Trampolina, Shishkabob, King David, Party Rocker, Partycrasher, Geyser, Homewrecker, Overtime, Dixieman, and Rx (the Prescription for Crime).

Despite the inexhaustible parade of crimefighters, there’s something nasty going on in Isosceles City. “A great big superhero secret,” says Hericane.

The death of her lover sparks an investigation that leads Hericane to a strip club for animals, a church that harbors supervillains, and finally to an old movie theater that’s been transformed into a gateway for otherworldly creatures. What she discovers is perhaps the vilest thing imaginable. It’s not the Manifestation of Armageddon that disgusts her (although it certainly makes her pause), but it’s the questionable behavior of her superhuman colleagues.

Everybody makes choices in life, and the scummy heroes of Isosceles City have clearly made the wrong ones. They’re making moral decisions based on acceptable losses. And that ain’t right.

Hericane takes one look around and considers her options. But really, there is only one option available. Does she save the world, or doesn’t she? After a brief hissy fit (!), she gets down to business. You’d expect nothing less from “the most powerful woman on the face of the friggin’ planet.”

[Forced Betrayal / By Robert T. Jeschonek / First Printing: January 2012 / ISBN: 9781465794666]

But a super computer like Overlord wasn’t going to stay dormant forever. There’s villainy afoot to reboot the Big O. And whoever succeeds will surely be crowned king of the world.

Our pal Wing Fanchu is tangentially involved in all this craziness. His parents helped create Overlord years ago. And they helped sabotage its initial attempt at world domination. Now, years later, the plucky teenager is the unwitting key to bringing the evil A.I. back from the junk heap.

Once again the students of H.I.V.E. find themselves in an awkward position. The school is grooming them to be supervillains, but the line between villain and hero keeps getting fuzzy. The Higher Institute of Villainous Education is not in the business of producing model citizens, after all. The alumni don’t like it.

But H.I.V.E. (and its benefactor, the Global League of Villainous Enterprises) is run by a bunch of old school bad guys. Their “twisted sense of ethics” prevent criminals from doing too much damage. Villains are encouraged to create doomsday weapons, but G.L.O.V.E. makes sure that they never actually use them. “After all,” says Raven, a Black Widow-like ninja bodyguard, “what’s the point of taking over the world if the world is nothing but a scorched ball of ash?” Yes, indeed. What’s the point?

We had problems with the first H.I.V.E. book because the author didn’t fully trust his cockeyed concept. But here, the protagonists are less concerned about being supervillains, and more concerned about taking care of each other. And that makes a big difference. Otto, Laura, Shelby, Nigel, and Franz pull together to help their friend Wing. And in doing so, they redefine the villain/hero stereotype. “Will this be making us heroes?” asks Franz Argentblum after all the dust has settled. It’s a meaningless question, of course. But the answer is yes.

[H.I.V.E.: The Overlord Protocol / By Mark Walden / First Printing: January 2008 / ISBN: 9781416935735]

Let’s see…you get a little bit of wanking, some bad New Yorker mimicry, a smidge of genre awkwardness, and scattered amounts of literary flimflam.

But you also get a whole bunch of inventive, well-written prose that aims higher than most anthologies of this nature. No doubt about it, there is eye-rolling MFA-tainted stuff in this book. But there’s also funny, thoughtful, and compelling stuff as well.

And there is love here too. “The Snipper” by Noria Jablonski is a tipsy tribute to all the wacky ads found in old comic books, “Girl Reporter” by Stephanie Harrell provides a pinch of insight into Lois Lane’s superhero envy, and “The Quick Stop 5®” by Sam Weller celebrates “the world’s most unlikely super team.” These stories and more confirm the nerd status of every contributor in this book.

Even better are the stories that raise the bar even higher, bringing complex emotional depth to the superhero genre. “Roe #5,” for example, is about inappropriate science and “transhuman pattern-recognition devices” that are trying to figure out their place in the world. “Do we help or harm humans? asks He-Roe #5 at one point. “And how do we tell the difference?”

And finally, “My Interview With the Avenger” by Tom Bissell brings up the ultimate question that all superhero fiction must address. Are superheroes public servants, outlaws, or madmen? “Most people drawn to what I do are sadists, revenge addicts, morons, or insane,” says the Avenger during his interview. And that, in a nutshell, is the great dark side of all superheroes that continues to fascinate us all.

The editors have done a good job assembling a worthy crew of writers for their project. It’s a shame the book’s inside pages were put together so carelessly. Each of the stories kicks off with a nice illustration by Chris Burnham. But more often than not the page gutter obscures these illustrations. For example, take a look at pages 260-261 and 334-335. The gutter running down the spine completely destroys the drawings. And the problem persists (to a lesser extent) throughout the entire book. The editors and the artist could be at fault for lack of communication. But we blame the designer. She was clearly not paying attention during the pagination process. A little cropping, or creative tweaking could easily have solved this problem. Something this fatal should never have been sent to the printers. Tsk.

[Who Can Save Us Now? / Edited by Owen King and John McNally / First Printing: July 2008 / ISBN: 9781416566441]

So we began thinking about it too. What if someone in Hollywood optioned these books and turned them into a weekly TV series? Superheroes have been creeping into primetime recently (Alphas being our favorite of the bunch, btw). The timing is perfect for a show about the world’s premier superhero team, the Protectors.

But who would be cast in such a show? While reading the books, we see Lita Ford and Kevin Sorbo in the starring roles. But what do we know? They’re both too old. We decided to go right to the source and ask the author to give us her wish list. She was also nice enough to provide a handy description of her characters. Protectors Assemble!

Jo Tanis (Surf) – Jewel Staite. “She’s tough and able to deal with both the fame of being super and the drama of being a hero.”

Hunter Dillon (the Multiple Man?) – James Marsden. “Serious and stable, willing to be both a Guardian and a friend.”

Steve Nyre (Slammer) – Michael Chiklis. “Strong exterior and a soft interior, he’s the man you want by your side when it gets tough.”

Peter Boyos (Ani-Man) – Toby Maguire. “He knows what to say at the right time to make it right.”

And for flashbacks: Metal Mike – Michael Clarke Duncan. “He’s there when you need him. Even if he’s dead.”

That’s because until recently Tanis was a superhero in name only. Known publicly as Surf, she was part of a performing troupe who participated in highly rated skirmishes on television. Her superpowers were real, but the fights were choreographed and fake. She was simply a celebrity who looked good in spandex as she streaked across the sky.

But give her a little bit of credit. When space aliens came to town, she got her priorities in order. With the help of a hastily assembled crew of superhumans, she was able to negotiate a resolution to the crisis. On that day, the world lost a sexy pinup model and gained an honest-to-goodness superhero.

Now there’s another crisis on the horizon. A couple of rogue supers have vowed to destroy various cities around the world (starting with Erie, Pennsylvania, apparently) unless they receive a suitcase filled with $50 billion cash money. A showdown is arranged between Tanis and a guy named GroundPounder in the Nevada desert. And this time the skirmish won’t be televised or fake.

There’s plenty of super action in this book. But the author is more interested in her characters’ inner lives. Tanis, of course, is the number one navel gazer of the bunch. But everyone’s got issues to resolve, even the bad guys.

There’s also a big romance brewing between Tanis and one of her teammates. Deep down all she wants is “true love, peace and happiness for the world.” But the sexual tension she feels for Hunter Dillon is driving her crazy. “I know one thing,” she says just prior to her mano a womano bout in Nevada, “I’m not going to die without at least getting laid once.” Everyone needs a little inspiration in life. It’s nice to see that Jo Tanis has finally found hers.

[Heroes Without, Heroes Within / By Sheryl Nantus / First Printing: January 2012 / ISBN: 9781609285746]

It is also a novel that caters to adolescent fanboy fantasies. The hero of the story is an invisible man who sleeps with sexy superheroes and spies on girls in the shower. He is, writes the author, “a voyeur ghost, eternally seeking truth and beauty, jerking off when he finds it.” The guy is an invisible horndog, an everyman with a comic book kink.

For his part, Dr. Knowbokov is trying to save the world by reforesting and repopulating the vanished species of Earth. That sounds noble, doesn’t it? But to do so, he needs to round up every human on the planet and stack them up like firewood in life-supporting wombs in floating super-cities in the middle of the ocean.

Like all great villains, the doctor thinks he’s the hero of his story. He may have initiated a second big bang (oops!), but he’s doing his best to put the pieces of reality back together again. So what if he has to manipulate the total obliteration of Jerusalem? No sacrifice is too big to stop him from his final solution.

Nobody Gets the Girl is a novel inspired by all the madness and speculation surrounding the end of the millennium. It features big ideas and humor, and borrows bits and pieces from Alan Moore’s Watchmen. In the end, two superheroes rejoin on Mars to reflect upon the future. It is here, on a planet symbolizing war and violence, where a new universe will be born. As the book’s title promises, the invisible man gets the girl. Horny comic book readers shout hooray.

[Nobody Gets the Girl / By James Maxey / First Printing: July 2003 / ISBN: 9780972002622]

That’s because H.I.V.E. is the world’s first and only school of applied villainy. Only the worst, the most cunning, the most mischievous kids from around the world are allowed to enroll. “The Higher Institute of Villainous Education does not train bank robbers, burglars, car thieves, or muggers,” explains Dr. Maximilian Nero, the school’s founder and controller. Instead, it prepares students to rule the world of the future. If Lex Luthor or Lord Voldemort had kids they would undoubtedly be sent to H.I.V.E.

But training criminal masterminds can be harder than it seems. It’s always a delicate balancing act for the school to produce leaders and not monsters. And sometimes the unthinkable happens. Sometimes the Alpha track teen villains aren’t so evil. Sometimes they’re actually pretty decent.

Take Otto Malpense, for example. He’s a mischievous troublemaker with “potential like an unexploded nuclear bomb.” But deep down he’s not such a bad guy. In fact, he and his friends are all sort of sweet.

We love the idea of a school for supervillains. But we were disappointed the author didn’t do much to exploit the dichotomous potential of the situation. Why, for example, did he create such a wonderfully unique environment and then immediately concoct an escape plan for Otto and his pals? As readers, we don’t want to leave H.I.V.E. We want to live there. We want to take classes in elementary evil and global domination. We want to study with Ms. Leon, the professor who’s trapped inside the body of a cat because of a semi-permanent consciousness transfer. We definitely don’t want to waste time on a silly escape plan down a laundry chute.

We were also vaguely disappointed in the cast of teen villains. Otto is the focus of the book, but it’s actually his wingman Wing Fanchu (!) who’s the most interesting character. Even Nigel, the wimpy son of Diabolus Darkdoom, has a smidge more personality. Most disappointing of all, however, is how the two female characters, Laura Brand and Shelby Trinity, are dismissed during the book’s frankenflower finale. The author barricades them inside their dorm room until the crisis is over. What a shame. Before coming to H.I.V.E., Shelby was a cat burglar infamously known as Wraith. But now she’s cowering in her room when a mutant flower takes over the school. That doesn’t sound like super villainous behavior to us. By reputation she’s a teenage Catwoman. But in reality she’s nothing but a pussycat.

[H.I.V.E.: The Higher Institute of Villainous Education / By Mark Walden / First Printing: May 2007 / ISBN: 9781416935711]