A fun, crazy adventure with a lot of cool ideas. A regular guy becomes invisible and gets caught up in saving the world from an evil genius. This is followed by Burn Baby Burn, a great read that follows the villains. His later superhero books are still entertaining but with too many qualms.
Superheroes protect a community of people after the zombie apocalypse. Great mash-up. The sequels are good except for the 4th one.
This whole series is delightful. A wise-cracking, mech-suited antihero has to save the world and get the girl alongside a crazy cast.
Feels like it pulls from a dozen other sources, but the story it tells is very good. A normal girl manifests powers and gets a job on a real-world super team. The sequels are fine, but get progressively less good.
A regular guy gets powers and has to decide between a normal life with his family or the high life. Great story with interesting character decisions.
An old villain and a new hero are thrust together in a sometimes humorous struggle for world domination.
A humorous look at a city whose cast of heroes aren't really what they seem. The follow-up book is good, but more straightforward.
A teen with hero parents gets sucked onto the bad side of the law. A YA novel that's fun to watch develop.
A jaded hero has a week to reconnect with his roots before he has to turn himself over to the villains. Cool, but not for kids.
A depressingly realistic look at a superhero hitting forty, but it's not without some hope.
An interesting take on the rise of superhumans from the point of view of a government agency that oversees them. The second book didn't click with me.
A group of kids go to a secret superhero college where treachery is afoot. Good, but LONG. Then listening to Corpies by this author (and in this universe) made me think this author is repetitive and long winded.
This short story kicks off a great series about a non-super P.I. who specializes in investigating supers in a slightly dystopian society. Cool character.
A fun and very short read about an old villain who wants to reclaim his life after being let out of prison.
A low-life henchman gets his life turned upside down when an evil plot breaks while his little daughter is visiting.
An ending that just forgets about a bad guy is the only thing marring this otherwise funny story of guys getting powers mimicking the side effects of prescription meds.
A fun little ride with a young hero-in-training who has almost every power in the book.
This didn't click with me totally but it's a gritty story with heroes, voodoo, and circus freaks.
I haven't read many tie-in novels and I don't like magic much, but this book was well written and entertaining. Really felt like good ol' Spiderman. Another tie in that's good but not great is Deadpool Paws.
The non-powered daughter of superhero legends gets caught up in some intrigue. Almost chick-lit, but pretty good. Has the most natural sequel of any series I've read.
I'm including this in the better books because it's pretty strong for a collection of short stories, which are usually really frustrating in the variety of quality. A few of the stories went to conclusions that I really liked for superhero dilemmas.
A well-written and well-characterized story of a former hero back from exile who just wants to build a life but gets embroiled in a conspiracy.
I guess it's only an audiobook, but the narrator really makes this work in spite of a kinda unlikable lead character. It's a more humorous look at the corporate super world with really fun side characters.
For one reason or another, these books just aren't my favorites, but might be worth checking out.
Just Cause by Ian Thomas Healy - Treads the same ground as better books, but enjoyable enough. The sequel was bad. Also, unnecessarily explicit sex.
Black and White by Jackie Kessler - Started strong but went kinda meh.
Velveteen vs the Junior Super-Patriots by Seanan McGuire - Fun enough, but got tired of the downer chick hipster humor. And one pretty bad short story.
Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty - I may be harder on this because I listened to it and didn't like the narration, but it's hipster chick stuff about people with dumb powers in the shadows of the heavy hitters.
Thrusts of Justice - Fun, but the choose-your-own-adventure thing got tiresome.
Axiom Man - Okay. A little dry.
The Ables by Jeremy Scott - A fresh perspective here and there, but not written too well.
Rules of Supervillainy - Somewhat humorous with a kitchen-sink approach to its universe, but doesn't do the reluctant hero as good as other books.
Wild Cards I - Starts really strong with a cool world (if the mashing-up with real historical stuff doesn't bother you), but the stories in the last third or so drag it down.
Superfolks - Pretty fun in spite of its goofy, outdated humor. It must have been the inspiration for The Incredibles, but it's not for kids.
City of Legends (formerly called Powered) - This almost got bumped to the upper echelon, but some of the jumping around left me a little disoriented, and there's no depth to some of the ideas like DNA being the deciding factor if you're a villain. An interesting super-society though.
The Indestructibles by Matthew Phillion - Started pretty strong but then felt less fleshed out and more rushed.
Some good ones about superhumans, not necessarily superheros, are as follows...
Vicious, The Seven, Elevated, Steelheart, and Rivals.