Blackjack: VillainIsn’t super but it has promise

I have found that Capepunk is a genre that I find myself actively looking for in books. I blame a childhood of reading comic books and the Wild Card series for that lol

Blackjack: Villain by Ben Bequer is a book that felt like a mixed bag, albeit mostly positive, to me. In fact, I found myself sometimes wondering if some of the flaws were actually authorial intent.

Blackjack is the first person narrative of a super villain who starts off as the equivalent of a Spider-Man villain of the week who gets pulled into bigger, more cosmic events. In doing so, we see how he changes in the progress.

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Blackjack starts off as a mildly unreliable narrator because he is clearly more arrogant, more immature and more self-destructive than he is willing to admit. He starts off as a gadgeteer archer who robs banks while he has apex level super strength and durability and is a scientific genius who can keep up with the equivalent of Lex Luther.

In other words, he is falling completely short of his potential.

In fact, most of the super-powered characters in the book clearly have psychological issues. It’s less super powers drive you mad (Brandon Sanderson does a wonderful job covering that in his Reckoners Trilogy) and more what happens when a normal person gets this much power and responsibility. And Bequer spends more time showing than telling that.

With that said, it did feel like Blackjack was sometimes rewarded for his behavior, particularly in the section where he and his compassions go to the Shard World, which is also easily the weakest part of the book.

At that point, the genre changes to planetary romance and Blackjack goes utterly John Carter. And by that I mean an unbeatable barbarian warrior who treats alien life forms as cannon fodder. Admittedly, it is war but his compunctions about killing go out the window without any commentary.

Fortunately, the book goes back to Capepunk for the ending and, while Blackjack of course saves the world, it is also clear that his decisions caused a lot more death and collateral damage than had to happen.

In the end, Blackjack: Villain was good enough that I do plan on reading at least the next book. The question is if Blackjack’s character arc is done or will he keep developing?