Heroes Fall by Morgan Newquist

Victoria is a down on her luck superhero hiding out on the wrong side of the tracks.

Until a van crashes through front of the grocery store she works at, dragging the past in its wake.

The story

Victoria is just trying to do her best to lay low while still protecting the citizens of the rundown part of Serenity City. The plan gets totally upended though after an extremely eventful couple of nights. After she rescues a quiet girl who can turn invisible from getting assaulted by a group of gangbangers, Vicky notices a strange girl with a disturbingly wide grin following her. A girl she also notices the same night a van flies through the front of her grocery store. The van was being driven by Twitch, an old friend and chased by Pendragon, easily the most famous hero in the city. When Pendragon accidentally kills the young Twitch, it launches a chain of events that drags Vicky back into the world of mainstream superheroes.

That chain of events brings her back into contact with her friends at the Hangman House, a sort of refuge for young super powered people and its sponsor, the reclusive Priest. As the story progresses it becomes clear that there is a plot afoot that connects back to a twenty year old event known as the Rampage. In the Rampage, Achilles, Serenity City’s greatest hero lost his mind and attempted to kill Pendragon, only stopping when his wife, Banshee was killed in the crossfire.

In trying to uncover the truth of what happened, Victoria has to confront the worst trauma of her past and a deep secret that she has been desperate to hide from everyone.

The characters

Victoria Westerdale has little patience for mainstream superheroes. Ever since the Rampage, most of them have only been about fame and corporate sponsors. They rarely ever help normal people dealing with normal crime, opting instead to focus on the flashier problems posed by supervillains, weapon smugglers and the like. That, however is only part of the reason Vicky lives in the East Greycoast, Serenity City’s industrial area. While she gets to help those in an area of the city that is ignored by most of the supers, she also gets to keep a low profile, something the young heroine is desperate to do. That’s because she has a secret, one that connects her to Thanatos, the villain behind the villains.

Victoria is supported by a number of different characters, many of them well developed enough to carry a novel in their own right. Those like Achilles and Pendragon have high aspirations to nobility but have some level of brokenness, some sin or character flaw that holds them back. Others, like Mia the invisible girl are just trying to find a home.

The Priest is perhaps the most enigmatic character of the bunch. His given name is Adrian Cross and little is known about him except that his reclusive, is rich, and doesn’t actually do any public superhero work. What he does do is fund the Hangman House, pouring millions into the group home for super powered kids who just want to be left alone. He too, has a connection to the Rampage, one that proves essential to uncovering Thanatos’ ultimate plot.

On the villain side is Keres, the crazy waif girl that Victoria pursues through much of the book. As it happens, she isn’t only crazy, she can actually project her insanity onto others through physical contact. One almost gets the impression while reading that Keres might have gone the hero route if circumstances had been different.

Then there is Thanatos. Named for the god of death, he prefers to stay in the shadows. This is despite his power, which is great enough to take on the strongest and most determined of heroes. His goals are not the typical villain goals, striving merely for money or power. What he wants is to destroy the very notion of superheroes. To discredit the entire idea. He nearly succeeded with the Rampage and now, he is finally moving the pieces in place to strike the final blow.

The world

Serenity City is a city like any big city. There are the nice parts of town, and the places where you are more likely to get mugged walking down the street. It also happens to have a population of superheroes and villains living in and around it.

That does also come with some extremely advanced technology, thanks in part to heroes whose gifts allow them to develop it such as Banshee and also due to normal people needing to come up with some way to counter the supers.

Where Newquist truly shines is her ability to make it feel like the world is bigger, with a past that began with the Event that led to the creation of the supers and the various heroes and villains that come in and out of the story.

The politics

While politics play no significant role, the very nature of superheroes and their individual action leans toward the libertarian and conservative end of the political spectrum

Content warning

There is a scene where crazy waif girl kisses Vicky to transfer her insanity. There are also two scenes of sexual assault and discussion of another. Otherwise, there is general superhero violence.

Who is it for?

Obviously, anyone who likes superheroes will like this book, especially since it launches Silver Empire’s superhero universe. Particularly if you have read Rising Stars, Valiant Comics, or seen the Umbrella Academy, this book is very likely right up your alley.

Why read it?

[easyazon_link identifier="B07MQJY3RS" locale="US" tag="upstreamreviews-20"]In her debut novel, Morgan Newquist[/easyazon_link] does a fantastic job of building up a diverse cast of characters, developing all of them into something more than a cookie cutter formula. It’s fun and thought provoking, full of moments that force you to ask what you do in similar circumstances.