Hench review

Since I’ve dipped my foot into the writing superheroes ring, and because I fully intend to go back to it again, I have been wanting more superhero novels. And when I can’t find those, I’ll happily take a recommendation for a villain one instead.

The story follows Anna, a temp henchman who ends up taking a job that goes horribly wrong. When she is actually brought into the field, she ends up injured by one of the heroes so poorly that she loses the job and ends up out of commission for months. In this time, she starts to put her spreadsheet skills to the test, doing the math on how destructive heroics really are in terms of the cost of the lives caught in the crossfire. Her skills are eventually uncovered by another villain who brings her into his employ and gives her the resources to bring the heroes down with the power of math.

I really enjoyed this book. It feels like it hits a sweet spot between Powers and Doctor Horrible in the portrayal of the mundane elements of superheroes that can be taken to an extreme with the right motivation. You do have to accept the premise of the universe, which I’ve seen a lot of reviews unable to do, but if you can it’s really a lot of fun. Anna is not someone who is supernatural and portrayed very much as someone who is working a corporate job that just happens to be evil.

I will grant you that I work in tech, so evil for hire is just something I find relatively believable. I would still say it’s a great read if you’ve liked something like The Boys or Invincible or any of those other 2000s comics that are being made into media franchises now. It has a lot of the same ideas, with a few small updates.