“Enemies Like These” by P.K. Gardner

The second book from the Great Ace Digital Book Box’s April edition is here! This book is also the first of a trilogy, and it centers on superheroes and supervillains. To my utter surprise, I loved it.

This is surprising mainly because I can’t stand superhero stories these days. The Marvel industrial complex has been churning out what (in my opinion) amount to trash and I’m just so over it. But I got a kick out of this book, and I’ll be real surprised if I don’t look into the rest of the series. Why I enjoyed this so much amounts to a couple of reasons.

First of all, this really isn’t a typical superhero story. It is more similar to “Watchmen” where it tries to turn the superhero narrative on its head. The heroes and villains aren’t absolute good and evil respectfully, they all have their flaws and secrets of their past. Good Guy became a superhero because his friend died. Malevolence became a super villain because he was part of an explosion but survived. X isn’t a noble superhero so much as a trigger-happy maniac. Not even all of their superpowers are beneficial to them, Shadow hates his powers more than anything. And they keep tearing the same city apart time after time, which goes unquestioned in most comic books, but here it is acknowledged within most characters that they really should just get the hell out and find somewhere safer. Just acknowledging their flaws and pointing out irrational behavior goes so against the typical superhero narrative it’s ridiculous.

Second is the fact that, like all the Great Ace books, this has some queer characters. X and his nemesis SuckerPunch are queer and sleeping together. Dodger created his nemesis by using telepathy to transition to being male, which wrecked his younger sister. I was fascinated by this because it is a great example of having a character be trans not just as a token but it being integral to their development. And how being trans is a struggle between what you see yourself as and how others see you.

Finally, as I alluded to with X and SuckerPunch, this is really a story about the bonds between superheroes and super villains. Yes they are nemeses and fight all the time, but to have a relationship where neither kills the other, they also have to be friends. The plot revolves around Good Guy’s relationship with Malevolence, and how they have to confront their pasts together. Both supers lost someone close to them in their transition to having superpowers, and both are haunted by that. With their forces combined, they finally can make headway into facing those ghosts head on.

I am definitely hunting down the rest of this trilogy, and I really can’t recommend picking this book up yourself. Like the last one, it is totally free on Kindle, so you really have nothing to lose here.