Surviving Megalopolis

Simone and Calafiore follow up on Leaving Megalopolis, the crowd-sourced first volume of this series, with another grim tale of metahumans gone wrong. The previous volume saw the island city of Megalopolis’s superpowered saviors changed into murderous psychopaths. The sequel follows several storylines, beginning with the newly villainous spandex crew, led by Southern Belle, rescuing Overlord from the watery deeps. Meanwhile, a mercenary team arrives to save billionaire Simon Valiant, who happens to be the leader of Megalopolis’s supervillain community, the only group who might be able to stop the antiheroes. This book feels like exactly what you would get if you set the evil twins of Kurt Busiek’s Astro City series in Brian Woods’s DMZ. Most of the action occurs at night, with the artwork featuring chiseled figures set amid urban rubble. This is for anyone who wonders how normal humans would cope in a world of superpowered predators. (Jan.)