Book review: FORGING HEPHAESTUS by Drew Hayes
FORGING HEPHAESTUS by Drew Hayes is the first volume of the Villains Code series. I was a big fan of Drew's SUPER POWERED series, so I was eager to try this one out. I admit to preexisting bias because I also am a writer of superhero fiction, and this struck me as something that was right up my alley. A book following supervillains that aren't too evil? Sign me up. I was hoping it would be something more like CONFESSIONS OF A D-LIST SUPERVILLAIN versus THE CHRONICLES OF FID and wasn’t disappointed.
The premise is that a young genius inventor, Tori, is forced to decide whether she wants to be a superhero or a supervillain. This isn't much of a choice as she'd prefer stock options to the cheers of the public. The villains of Tori's world are unionized, though, in a manner not dissimilar to the League of Calamitous Intent from VENTURE BROTHERS or the Legion of Doom from the SUPERFRIENDS.
There's a twist, though: the Guild of Villainous Reformation generally doesn't do much actual villainy anymore. They've all grown comfortable using their powers to get rich and stay under the radar. Even better, or worse, depending on your point of view, they've come to a semi-successful truce with their heroic equivalent, the Alliance of Heroic Champions. Everyone more or less does their own thing and stays out of the way as long as no one involves civilians. This, it turns out, doesn't sit well with certain individuals.
The book isn't really about the main plot, though it does deliver a satisfying arc from beginning to end. It's instead chiefly a slice of story that follows Tori and her training by Ivan Gerhardt AKA Fornax, who was once the most powerful supervillain in the history of the world. This is very much a slice-of-life novel and benefits from the fact that there are very few superhero fictions related just to dealing with the in's and out's of life in a costumed world.
I love not just Tori and Ivan but virtually every character made for this complicated world. I like Tori's roommates who have their own bones to pick with the heroes of the world. I like the New Science Sentries, who are a team of legacy heroes who have a psychopath as their boss. I also love Lodestar, who is basically Lynda Carter if she was Superman rather than Wonder Woman. There's just so many weird and fun characters here.
Fans of superheroes versus villains may be initially put off by the peaceful interactions between the two groups but I think it’s an interesting situation. Lots of people have pointed out that Lex Luthor would do much better ignoring Superman and focusing on stock options. Others note that if they could put aside their psychopathic qualities, they wouldn’t be supervillains. I think the book does a good job of threading the needle between those criminals who are victims of circumstance, those who don’t care about the law, and those who are just rotten to the core.
Forging Hephaestus is a long book, almost the size of a duology with over six hundred pages in its physical form but it makes use of all that content to establish both the characters as well as the world. It's a ridiculous, fantastic with magic, super science, mutants, and robots but that is just what makes it an excellent example of a superhero world. I think fans of this genre will really love this one.
