6 Dark Superhero Reads that Pack a Punch

This critically acclaimed and inspired debut novel brings to life a universe of superheroes stripped of their powers and forced to confront danger in a world without heroes—save one.

A tour de force debut novel from a former CIA counterterrorism officer, A Once Crowded Sky fuses bombastic, comic-book-style storytelling with modern literary fiction. Supermen stripped of their powers must wrestle danger in a world without heroes.

Good and evil, right and wrong. In fiction, it can be as easy as being told who the good guy is. In reality, however, it’s all about your perspective and circumstance. Victor and Eli are two friends and college students who, after a series of experiments with adrenaline, develop superpowers and accidentally kill Eli’s girlfriend. Victor goes to jail for the crime but escapes a decade later to find Eli is hunting down superpowered individuals in order to eliminate what he considers evil from the world. And yes, this includes children. Thus, two quests, one for revenge and the other for power, end up intertwined once more. With a quick-paced and gripping narrative, along with some fascinating and nuanced characters, Vicious will grab your attention and pull you into a world where nothing is clear-cut and the powers are high-stakes.

From the New York Times bestselling author Catherynne Valente comes a ferocious riff on the women in superhero comics.

The Refrigerator Monologues is a collection of linked stories from the points of view of the wives and girlfriends of superheroes, female heroes, and anyone who’s ever been “refrigerated”: comic book women who are killed, raped, brainwashed, driven mad, disabled, or had their powers taken so that a male superhero’s storyline will progress.

In an entirely new and original superhero universe, Valente subversively explores these ideas and themes in the superhero genre, treating them with the same love, gravity, and humor as her fairy tales. After all, superheroes are our new fairy tales and these six women have their own stories to share.

Villains have got it hard. Okay, sure, they hold cities hostage and try to destroy the world, but some of the best dark narratives in the superhero genre focus on supervillains and their failed quests for power. Doctor Impossible is one of the smartest villains in the world, and his powers make him a formidable foe in hand-to-hand combat. He manages to escape his super-prison and heads off to try to take over the world. The story is alternately told from the point of view of Fatale, a former-NSA cyborg who joins this universe’s version of the Justice League, called the New Champions. Soon I Will Be Invincible has a few direct parallels to popular comics (there are in-universe Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman stand-ins), and it balances wit, philosophy, and cultural commentary in a quick-paced story. If you loved Megamind, you’ll definitely want to pick this one up.

The author of the “urgent and deeply moving” (The New York Times) Youngblood returns with this bold and provocative novel following a group of super-powered soldiers and civilians as they navigate an imperial America on the precipice of a major upheaval—for fans of The Fortress of Solitude and The Plot Against America.

Thirty years after its great triumph in Vietnam, the United States has again become mired in an endless foreign war overseas. Stories of super soldiers known as the Volunteers tuck in little American boys and girls every night. Yet domestic politics are aflame. Violent protests erupt throughout the nation; an ex-military watchdog group clashes with police while radical terrorists threaten to expose government experiments within the veteran rehabilitation colonies.

Halfway between war and peace, the Volunteers find themselves waiting for orders in the vast American city-state, Empire City. There they encounter a small group of civilians who know the truth about their powers, including Sebastian Rios, a young bureaucrat wrestling with survivor guilt, and Mia Tucker, a wounded army pilot-turned-Wall Street banker. Meanwhile, Jean-Jacques Saint-Preux, a Haitian-American Volunteer from the International Legion, decides he’ll do whatever it takes to return to the front lines.

Through it all, a controversial retired general emerges as a frontrunner in the presidential campaign, promising to save the country from itself. Her election would mean unprecedented military control over the country, with promises of security and stability—but at what cost?

Featuring Gallagher’s “vital” (The Washington Post), “evocative” (The Wall Street Journal) prose, Empire City is a rousing vision of an alternate—yet all too familiar—America on the brink.

Less a dark take on superheroes and more one that asks an important, often unasked question: What if differently abled people had superpowers? So often we think of those with disabilities as needing protection, but in Jeremy Scott’s The Ables, we see a world where people can have disabilities and superpowers at the same time. Phillip, the protagonist, is blind, but he also has telekinesis, a trait he inherited genetically. Despite being powerful, Phillip is relegated to a special ed class along with other empowered kids with disabilities. They form a small team of their own, though no one trusts them to handle anything themselves. However, when their world is threatened, Phillip and his friends work together, using their abilities to take down the bad guy. While aimed at a teen audience, this book presents a fascinating crossroads for any reader to examine, and even has a few twists hidden between its covers.