The Villain's Sidekick (Stephen T. Brophy, Kindle eBook)



Imagine somebody gene spliced Wreck-It Ralph with Jaws from James Bond, and you've got this book.

Yeah, it's fine, telling the story of a down-on-his-luck guy who became a supervillain henchman to pay the bills, but now has to step up to be a hero when the city's Obvious Batman Proxy gets tired of being the only person on the Obvious Justice League Proxy without superpowers. And I relate to the diabetic cat part. But it feels like the book equivalent of a pilot episode for a series that never got made.

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Seven Soldiers of Victory (Written by Grant Morrison, Illustrated by Various Artists)



I originally read this back in May, then reread it in August for the Deltarune/Grant Morrison project. But it's helpful to read it twice because of how much it jumps around and I had fuck all else going on this month, so I decided to move it over here.

There are multiple ways to look at this book. You can see it as a middle ground between Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne's personal exploration of Batman and The Multiversity's multiverse-spanning crossover as Morrison teams up with various artists to explore a trope he likes (in fact, Klarion's issues are drawn by the same artist as the witch hunter issue of Return of Bruce Wayne, Frazer Irving), just with a focus on order from chaos instead of alternate realities. If you wanted to be wanky you can see it as an exploration of the Dreamtime and how the ripples we create affect the lives of other in ways we'll never know about. Or you can just see it as Morrison finding an excuse to give five or six forgotten characters (again, Zatanna's pretty well-known compared to the rest of the Seven Soldiers, and even Mister Miracle is above the likes of the Guardian) a chance in the spotlight.

I also can't help but notice the symbolism in the Sheeda plundering the past for its resources and culture to keep their own dying civilization chugging for a while longer, which has become hauntingly relevant in 2025 where everything is a sequel or reboot.

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