Books like Bea Wolf — picked by fans

Leon is a big dreamer. He’s a good kid with a zest for life who truly wants to help people. The only problem is he doesn’t have superpowers. But! He does have a cool homemade costume and a keen mind.

I can relate as someone who used to tie towels around their neck and jump off the back of the couch. Don’t try that at home, by the way. Leon’s passion is infectious. His positivity is inspiring. Does it annoy the jerks and bullies? It sure does. But Leon isn’t one to act without considering all the angles. I love that about him.

Jamar Nicholas has crafted a super charming story that explores what it means to be a hero, a villain, and whatever lies in between.

The main character is an assassin who hunts down superheroes who’ve gone rogue.

He’s been given an impossible mission to assassinate one of the most powerful superheroes, who’s impervious to just about everything, and also stop a rival assassin from killing the president.

This was a nail-biting adventure that will keep you on your toes, wanting to know what happens next.

Kit is a scavenger in a city ruined by an alien spaceship that crashed decades ago, giving rise to superheroes. When a chance meeting leads to her starting a relationship with Valene Blackwood, one of the most powerful superheroes on the planet. A little too powerful. 

Valene’s powers are slowly driving her mad. Kit sets out to find a way to help Valene, but ends up getting superpowers of her own, and in a duel to the death with Valene’s father, who wants to take over the city. 

I love this book because it’s a unique take on the question of what makes someone a hero, while also looking at how people with privilege respond to marginalized people gaining power, and why some relationships are doomed to fail.

Tom Strong is a throwback to classic pulp heroes, and the closest thing to a superhero you’ll find on my list. Tom is super strong, super smart, and super white, but that’s where comparisons to the heroes from which the author drew inspiration end! Tom’s Black wife and daughter are fully realized characters with thoughts and feelings of their own. Tom doesn’t punch out the bad guys, he doesn’t even believe in bad guys! Instead, he uses his intelligence to recognize that conflict arises not from malice, but from misunderstanding and incompatible needs and desires. With this in mind, Tom can use his super-intelligence to craft a compromise that reestablishes order. Far from preachy, eat-your-vegetables sermonizing, these stories are witty, layered, thought-provoking, and hilarious.

Rafter, Benny, and Juanita protagonate (yep, that’s a word) in a bizarre amalgamated world that could have been dreamed up by Stan Lee, the Andy Griffith Show writers, and Beverly Cleary. Dreamed up as a joke. Abandoned with a good comeraderific laugh (also a word). Then picked up, dusted off, and polished by Marion Jensen. But that’s not what happened. Jensen created the whole adventurous, hilarious, uplifting, good-buddy superhero story with his own solitary brain. My kids and I have laughed at his story many times.

This book came out on my birthday a few years ago and felt like a present specifically for me, and other superhero fans will feel the same.

This YA sci-fi trilogy features a world divided between those who either love or hate the Renegades, a group of superpowered humans.

If you enjoy the themes of “heroes aren’t always what they seem” present in superhero works like The Boys, then Renegades is a milder version of that, making it a great entry point for superhero fans and an action-packed, thought-provoking read about what is right or wrong.

Lena Martin is given the job of tracking down Shattergirl, a black lesbian superhero who has dropped out of sight. I love this book because it’s not your usual superhero story. 

It takes a dive into how public perception affects who we are willing to accept as heroes, how other people’s preconceptions care wear down marginalized people, and how having to hide parts of yourself can distance you from those around you.

In The Sidekick Initiative a former sidekick, now middle-aged insurance worker is reluctantly pulled back into the superhero game after the world’s superheroes disappear.

The problem is he not only has a team of washed-up former sidekicks to lead, he’s also got the world’s most powerful supervillains gunning for him and his family.

This was a hilarious story that kept me on the seat of my pants.

I’m recommending this book for how delightfully it considers the ill human body as a site of new possibilities. The Doom Patrol have never been well-known superheroes, perhaps because of the willingness of writers to confront the bodily trauma at the heart of their stories.

Morrison’s contribution to the series was to consider the Doom Patrol truly as freaks: people who could not fit into a society that demands gender, mental, and physical homogeneity. Mixing allegorical forms of illness—Cliff “Robotman” Steele’s fallible technological body—with more direct conditions like Kaye “Crazy Jane” Callis’ dissociative identity disorder.

Morrison, along with artistic collaborators, built a celebration of difference into a genre where most heroic bodies never break the mold.

I love all of the different Batgirls DC has introduced over the years, and this book brings them together in one delightful adventure. Barbara Gordon is the original Batgirl mentoring her two protégés, the snarky Stephanie Brown and the martial arts master Cassandra Cain. The trio is a mix of different personalities and strengths, but teamwork and sisterhood come first. Cloonan and Conrad craft a rollicking story in this first volume, and Corona’s bombastic artwork is a perfect vehicle for all three of these enjoyable characters.