Right now everyone has plenty of time and with no new comics coming out, besides a select few indies, it might be difficult to get your superhero fix. But before you dive into something you have already read a hundred times, step out of the panels and give these seven novels a chance. While they might not be comics, these YA superhero novels are must-reads for any superhero fan and many of them contain well-known and beloved comic characters.
Miles Morales: Spider-Man by Jason Reynolds
Miles’s spidey-sense has been on the fritz. When a misunderstanding leads to his suspension from school, Miles begins to question his abilities. Maybe Miles should take his dad’s advice and focus on saving himself. As Miles tries to get his school life back on track, he can’t shake the vivid nightmares that continue to haunt him. After his scholarship is threatened, Miles uncovers a chilling plot, one that puts his friends, his neighborhood, and himself at risk. It’s time for Miles to suit up.
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Black Widow: Forever Red by Margaret Stohl
Black Widow: Forever Red was one of the first YA superhero novels I ever read. Enter the world of the Avengers’ iconic master spy? Natasha Romanoff is one of the world’s most lethal assassins. Trained from a young age in the arts of death and deception, Natasha was given the title of Black Widow by Ivan Somodorov, her brutal teacher at the Red Room, Moscow’s infamous academy for operatives.
Ava Orlova is just trying to fit in as an average Brooklyn teenager, but her life has been anything but average. The daughter of a missing Russian quantum physicist, Ava was once subjected to a series of ruthless military experiments—until she was rescued by Black Widow and placed under S.H.I.E.L.D. protection. Ava has always longed to reconnect with her mysterious savior, but Black Widow isn’t really the big sister type. Until now.
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Lois Lane: Fallout by Gwenda Bond
Lois Lane is starting a new life in Metropolis. An Army brat, Lois has lived all over and seen all kinds of things. (Some of them defy explanation, like the near-disaster she witnessed in Kansas in the middle of one night.) But now her family is putting down roots in the big city, and Lois is determined to fit in. Stay quiet. Fly straight. As soon as she steps into her new high school, though, she can see it won’t be that easy. A group known as the Warheads is making life miserable for another girl at school. They’re messing with her mind, somehow, via the high-tech immersive video game they all play. Not cool. Armed with her wit and her new snazzy job as a reporter, Lois has her sights set on solving this mystery. But sometimes it’s all a bit much. Thank goodness for her maybe-more-than-a friend, a guy she knows only by his screenname, SmallvilleGuy.
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Renegades by Marissa Meyer
The Renegades are a syndicate of prodigies—humans with extraordinary abilities—who emerged from the ruins of a crumbled society and established peace and order where chaos reigned. As champions of justice, they remain a symbol of hope and courage to everyone…except the villains they once overthrew.
Nova has a reason to hate the Renegades, and she is on a mission for vengeance. As she gets closer to her target, she meets Adrian, a Renegade boy who believes in justice—and in Nova. But Nova’s allegiance is to the villains who have the power to end them both.
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Batman: Nightwalker by Marie Lu
Batman: Nightwalker is the second book in the DC Icons series. In the book, the Nightwalkers are terrorizing Gotham City, and Bruce Wayne is next on their list. The city’s elites are being taken out one by one as their mansions’ security systems turn against them, trapping them like prey. Meanwhile, Bruce is about to become eighteen and inherit his family’s fortune, not to mention the keys to Wayne Industries and all the tech gadgetry that he loves.
But on the way home from his birthday party, he makes an impulsive choice and is sentenced to community service at Arkham Asylum, the infamous prison that holds the city’s most nefarious criminals. There Bruce meets Madeleine Wallace. She is the mystery he must unravel, but is he convincing her to divulge her secrets, or is he feeding her the information she needs to bring Gotham City to its knees?
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Comics Will Break Your Heart by Faith Erin Hicks
Miriam’s family should be rich. After all, her grandfather was the co-creator of smash-hit comics series the TomorrowMen. But he sold his rights to the series to his co-creator in the 1960s for practically nothing, and now, that’s what Miriam has: practically nothing. And practically nothing to look forward to, either—how can she afford college when her family can barely keep a roof above their heads?
As if she didn’t have enough to worry about, Miriam’s life gets much more complicated when a cute boy shows up in town… and turns out to be the grandson of the man who defrauded Miriam’s grandfather and the heir to the TomorrowMen fortune.
In her endearing debut audiobook, cartoonist Faith Erin Hicks delivers a sensitive and funny Romeo and Juliet tale about modern romance, geek royalty, and what it takes to heal the long-festering scars of the past (spoiler alert: love).
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Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo
Diana longs to prove herself to her legendary warrior sisters. But when the opportunity finally comes, she throws away her chance at glory and breaks Amazon law—risking exile—to save a mere mortal. Even worse, Alia Keralis is no ordinary girl and with this single brave act, Diana may have doomed the world.
Alia just wanted to escape her overprotective brother with a semester at sea. She doesn’t know she is being hunted. When a bomb detonates aboard her ship, Alia is rescued by a mysterious girl of extraordinary strength and forced to confront a horrible truth: Alia is a Warbringer—a direct descendant of the infamous Helen of Troy, fated to bring about an age of bloodshed and misery.
Together, Diana and Alia will face an army of enemies—mortal and divine—determined to either destroy or possess the Warbringer. If they have any hope of saving both their worlds, they will have to stand side by side against the tide of war.
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In addition to these selections, you can check out similar books from DC Icon series, which include Batman: Nightwalker and Wonder Woman: Warbringer, as well as Marvel’s own series of YA novels. But what are your favorite YA superhero novels? Let us know on Twitter.
Descriptions of the YA superhero novels are taken directly from ShopDisney.com, Amazon.com, and ShopDCEntertainment.com.
