Chilling Reflections by Drew Hayes review

    CHILLING REFLECTIONS is the third (technically fourth counting Villains Vignettes volume #1) installment of the Villains Code series. For those unfamiliar with the series, it is a world that superheroes and villains have created an uneasy truce on, The villains have effectively restricted themselves to white collar crime and avoiding prosecution for their crimes in exchange for keeping a low profile as well as keeping the rest of the costumed evil doers in line. It's a reasonably lighthearted series with most of the villains not being that bad except for exceptional brutality to those people that break the rules or threaten their few loved ones. I'm a big fan as I write my own "supervillain with a heart of gold" series and am always on the look for more.

    Honestly, I think this really should have just been considered the fourth book as there's a lot of references to the events of the Villains Vignettes book and it feels like a sequel to that story. In this story, Earth finds itself invaded by a horde of extra-dimensional insects that threaten to wipe out all of humanity. They're also accompanied by an incredibly powerful armored villain who turns out to be the alternate version of a very familiar character.

    Multiverse stories are somewhat tired these days and for good reason. It's wonderful when you have a strong concept like Injustice, The Justice Lords, or even The Crime Syndicate of America. However, most multiverse stories are cheap one-offs that never really develop the worlds or concepts they create.

    The best are alternate stories like Spider-Girl by Tom Defalco and the Gwen-Verse before they decided to permanently move her to Earth-616. Here, the concept is restricted to one visitor from another reality and a high fantasy world that is sufficiently different from the main setting to be interesting in its own right. Still, I sympathized with Fornax when he said that he hated dealing with multiverses.

    Much of this book is devoted to character development for Tori, her roommates, and the New Science Sentries. They've all been devoting themselves to their careers as villains and heroes, to the point that a conflict between the two groups is inevitable. This is a problem because Tori and her roommates are friends with the New Science Sentries but there's no way of letting them know the truth.

    Other characters have their own plots like Cliche realizing her cutesy power of gaining abilities through folk sayings could actually be trained up to altering reality. Fornax's son is preparing to get himself empowered and his parents are less than thrilled at the possible ramifications. We also have Lodestar trying to win over some of the villains through the power of common decency.

    This feels very much like a transitional book and while a lot of plotlines are advanced, very few of them are resolved. One element I enjoyed was that we do get confirmation that the Science Sentries' boss, Professor Quantum, is more supervillain than hero, though. That's been foreshadowed since the first book but it's nice to have it confirmed here.

    Whether you'd like the Villains Code series is really where you're more interested in likable protagonists doing low-stakes sort of superherorism while even the villains aren't particularly awful unless they're smashing other bad guys. To judge whether you'd like this book can probably be determined if you find the idea of the equivalent of General Zod and a female Beetle being blackmailed into being Girl Scout supervisors for a weekend by the resident female equivalent of Superman.

    In conclusion, this was a fun and entertaining book but I feel like it didn't advance the plot of the Villains Code series much. That isn't necessarily a bad thing since I was entertained throughout the read and will gladly read more books in the future. Still, someone wanting something more substantial might be disappointed given the release rates. This is mostly just heroes and villains hanging out between punching giant insects. Which is all you need sometimes.

Available here