What is Black and Blue?
Review
BLACK AND BLUE by Nancy O’Toole is the second book in the Red and Black series. It is what I would term to be a “cozy” superhero novel series. A superhero fantasy series that doesn’t deal so much with supervillain plots or terrifying monsters but the day-to-day life of being a superhero. There is a supervillain plot in the book, don’t get me wrong, but it takes backstage to the larger issues of whether or not Dawn (AKA Hikari) or Alex (AKA Faultline) can make their relationship work.
The premise is that Dawn and Alex are recovering from their defeat of the supervillain Calypso. Calypso had assembled a cult around her of brainwashed fanatics that Dawn rescued. Unfortunately, Calypso’s touch is not easily recovered from and they are all desperate for her return despite their belief she’s dead. Worse, all of the superhero shenanigans have resulted in a career politician promising a “return to normalcy.” It is something that leaves Dawn deeply uncomfortable as she depends on the approval of others.
This book spends a lot of its time building up the world-building. We finally get to find out why “real life” comic books are being made in-universe and what the creator of these historical documents is trying to achieve. We also find out more about the Forgers, the organization that created the superheroes. I particularly liked the idea that the person creating superhero comics with his powers did it because, well, why not? If you had the ability to see the adventures of superpowered beings and were an artist, wouldn’t you want to immortalize what you saw?
Dawn goes through an interesting arc throughout this story. She is someone who worries about her secret identity, her family, and whether or not she’s doing more harm than good as a hero. It’s easy to think of people as supervillains when they’re attacking you but what happens when you discover they’re addicts or have a history of being exploited by others. She also wonders about whether she can trust her mother with her secret since there’s signs the Takahashi family matriarch has sympathies with the anti-super movement.
This is a sharp contrast to Alex Gage, who is someone who isn’t sure that he’s capable of reforming. He’s someone who hasn’t really changed and is aware of that fact. It’s easy to see a big dramatic shift in personality as redemption but Alex is more or less the same man he was when he was a supervillain. He just happened to choose to help Dawn over Calypso. Now he hates that he’s being treated as a hero for a switch in allegiance.
The “villain” of the piece is a surprising one and I liked the twists about it. Blue is a character who looks identical to Dawn and possesses identical powers. However, the only person who she is going after is the corrupt politician who is after all supers. The mystery of her identity and how she became the way she is, well, it’s a bit convoluted but not so much that I didn’t enjoy seeing how it all shook out.
In conclusion, Blue and Black is an excellent sequel to the original Red and Black. I enjoyed the latter slightly more but it is a fun story that still manages to avoid most of the big dramatic over-escalation a lot of superhero literature does. It’s just a fun story about a girl trying to protect her hometown, the boy she likes, and street-level comic book fun.
