The Legion of Regrettable Supervillains: Oddball Criminals from Comic Book History by Jon Morris

 

I bought all three of the books in this series when they were on sale because even though I don't actually know much about comic books, I find nerd and geek history fascinating and comic books have a surprising amount of controversy and lore surrounding them. In this trilogy, Jon Morris has delved into the archives to produce a collection of superheroes, supervillains, and sidekicks that are, well... regrettable.

In the foreword of each of these books he says that regrettable means different things and this is true. Some of these supers are actually really good ideas and they just didn't come out at the right time. On the other hand, some of them are ham-fisted PSAs and others are racially insensitive stereotypes. So the books end up being a whole mixed bag of oddballs that are poorly thought out or ill-conceived at best and a horrific snapshot of society's unforgiving attitudes towards anyone who was different at worst. Poh-tay-toh, poh-tah-toh.

3 to 3.5 out of 5 stars