How to Be a Supervillain by Michael Fry (review)

Victor knows that his parents want him to be villains like them, but he can’t even manage impoliteness, let alone evil. In this clever world, the heroes (like Mr. Awesome) and the villains (Victor’s parents are the Spoil Sports) know the deal: it’s all fake and the winning and losing is predetermined to keep things interesting for the public and to keep all of them employed. Even with the staged elements, Victor’s parents are enthusiastic participants, and they want their son to be rude, defiant, power hungry, and villainous, so they finally apprentice him to someone else, recognizing that their own efforts have been unsuccessful. Thus begins a beautiful friendship between twelve-year-old Victor and the Smear, a villain with questionable gravitas but plenty of pluck. Together, they take on a formidable opponent who has gone rogue, a villain determined to take over the world for real, ultimately defeating him only after Victor finally awakens his unusual superpower. Over the Hedge comic-strip author Fry achieves an ideal balance of humor, poignancy, and zippy superhero/bad guy action, punctuated with frequent amusing black and white illustrations. Victor’s an appealing everykid, eager to please his parents though he knows that his destiny may not be exactly what they are planning. His parents are equally amiable, even in their villainy, striving to accept and rejoice in the kid they got even if it means upending their own assumptions about what villains can or can’t do—since even total bad guys sometimes need a hug.