While I normally don’t read self-published literature, Crystalclear lent me Andrea Vernon last year and I absolutely loved it, so I was super excited when she bought me book 2: Andrea Vernon & the Superhero Industrial Complex, for my birthday. Starting a year after the last book ended, Andrea’s gotten a promotion, she and The Big Axe are an official thing, and life is looking pretty good and stable….until Ms. Oh needs Andrea to go with her on a European tour to globalize CUP’s resources in the European Supes market.
Flashing through different countries at the speed of light and eating Belgian sandwiches while wining and dining potential superheroes to add to CUP’s collective, Andrea sees one of CUP’s most notorious villains, Nevermore, trailing all their meetings. Knowing she’s up to no good, Ms. Oh sends Andrea on a mission to track Nevermore. It turns out Nevermore is using Corporate bureaucracy against itself, and setting up her own super villain corporation under the guise of a new start-up.
In the midst of all this, Andrea’s brother, US Senator Vernon, is hell-bent on de-privatizing the competitive “Superhero industrial complex,” as he calls it, and in so doing, basically opens the door for Nevermore to dismantle the whole superhero system. Ms. Oh sends Andrea all over the US, from DC to Texas to Georgia and California in the hopes of keeping Nevermore from completely wreaking havoc.
Book 2 has all the same jovial creativity, funny asides, and awesome characters that book 1 has, with the added layers of Andrea’s unlikely friendship with Nevermore, and our getting to see a new side of Ms. Oh. But what I really love about these books in general is its in-depth focus of support staff. As an administrative assistant, myself, it’s really fun and refreshing to see the very realistic way Andrea gets things done and the importance of her job, even in a world with super heroes. No one would think that a book focused largely around paperwork, meetings, and forms would be so delightful, but Kane does it so well, and it’s so nice to feel seen.
4 Stars
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