Hello Enthusiasts,
Today I am going to be reviewing a book by C.T. Phipps titles The Rules of Supervillainy, the first book in the "Supervillian Saga". As always, there will be some Spoilers Below.
The story follows our main character, Gary Karkofsky, as he works to become the world's newest supervillain, Merciless: The Villain Without Mercy. He takes on this task as he was strangely mailed the power-imbued cloak that a recently deceased hero wore. This cloak is possessed, and can therefore provide Gary with direction. It also grants him the power to levitate, turn intangible, create ice and fire, and provides increased durability. All of these powers will last a short period of time before the cloak has to recharge for a bit. Gary is joined by his former ex-girlfriend/henchwoman, Cindy (much to the distaste of Gary's wife, Mindy), as well as a former supervillain turned advisor to Gary, Diabloman. Together, they will try to become a very strange set of supervillains that follow a very specific set of moral and ethical guidelines, but who still want to rule the city.
There are some positives to this book. It has a lot of good ideas regarding powers, heroes, villains, and the generally unspoken code that villains have. There is a heavy look at anti-heroes and the problems they can cause with their often unrestricted violence, and the book does a great job of showing how other heroes often work to distance themselves from the anti-heroes in this universe. This book is, at it's core, a comedy, with jokes thrown in throughout the story, the action, and the building of our characters. It does poke fun at a lot of tropes with heroes, and takes things to the next steps from where comics generally go regarding things like Superhero Law and the like.
This is not a perfect book though, and it does have several downsides. The writing sometimes feels underdeveloped, as there are points when things are being explained to the reader in a manner that feels like hand-holding. The code that Gary follows also seems like the author didn't want to go too far with him, as Gary (a supervillain) won't kill a civilian that mouths off to him or anything. Granted, he's supposed to be a normal guy that gets this cloak, just deciding to rob places instead of be a hero, but I think criminal may have been a better first step than supervillain if he isn't going all in here. Also, while we get some depth on Gary and Mindy, we really don't get much on anyone else. A lot of the other characters feel shallow and mostly unexplored. Instead of getting at least a bit more info on Cindy or Diabloman, we get things like an entire chapter devoted to a nightmare Gary has that explains his tragic history with anti-heroes, something that could have been explained in two or three lines of dialogue.
Overall, this isn't a bad book. As I mentioned, it does have some good ideas, even some well executed ones, and I am interested to see where the story goes next. However, this book can definitely be described as "underdeveloped", as so much of it feels like it could be written in a better way. If you're looking for a fun story with new heroes and villains, this is not the worst choice, but I wouldn't call it the best either.
I give The Rules Of Supervillainy a 6 out of 10.
Sincerely,
The Bored Enthusiast
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