Yes, I’ve been on a bit of a graphic novel binge lately on Netgalley. Every time I saw a graphic novel that looked remotely interesting, I would request it. And Valiant High was just one of the ones that I requested.

Before they became legends, the world’s most formidable heroes were roaming the halls at Valiant High – a super-powered preparatory academy where Aric “X-O Manowar” Dacia is a record-setting running back, Colin “Ninjak” King is a debonair foreign exchange student, and Coach Bloodshot is way, way too into dodgeball. Now, Amanda “Livewire” McKee and her best friend, Faith “Zephyr” Herbert, are taking it all in for the first time at the one high school where power trumps popularity!

From rising star Daniel Kibblesmith (The Late Show with Stephen Colbert) and Eisner Award-winning artist Derek Charm (Jughead), get ready for your first day of school inside a hilarious reimagining of Valiant’s award-winning superhero universe – one where the next world-ending cataclysm will have to wait until after prom night!

I never realised that this graphic novel was a prequel of some sorts to the Valiant superheroes. I haven’t even read (or even heard of) the superheroes, so I was going into this completely blind. For those of you who have read the comic books of the Valiant superheroes, then I think you’ll have a lot of fun seeing what the superheroes were like in high school! And if like me, you haven’t read the original comic books, then I think you will still find this graphic novel still accessible.

I really enjoyed reading this graphic novel. I loved its bright colours and I loved seeing teen superheroes. You always see them as adults and taking on loads of responsibilities of saving the world blah blah blah, but it’s so interesting to see them in high school and having to deal with all of the problems with high school.

What made this graphic novel 3 stars for me was the diversity throughout, and I also liked how Kibblesmith conveyed a world of double-standards. There is a point in the graphic novel where our main character – who is a female – kisses her male crush without his consent. If a male had done this to a female, there would have been an uproar. However, the next day, the main character apologises to the boy and actually says that if she was a man, and he a girl it would have been considered assault. After that, he accepts her apology. I just thought that this was amazing. This is what feminism is. Feminists don’t want women to ‘rule the world’, or to be better than men, we went to be equal, and this is being seen as equal. It’s not ok for men to sexualise women, but when women sexualise men, it’s ok?? It’s all about equality. It’s all about having the same rule being applied to all genders.

Anyway, feminism rant over. But hopefully, you see what I mean about Kibblesmith doing a brilliant job of conveying double standards within society.

The only negative about this graphic novel was that some things moved a little bit too fast, and I would have loved to see more of the characters outside of school (?), but maybe we’ll get to see that in future issues.

I definitely think that there is room for these characters to improve and to have brilliant character development over future issues, and I think that when the next volumes come out, I will be reading them.

Disclaimer: this book was sent to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review