Villainous a Mad Good Comic from Mad Cave

Matilda Anderson is having the best day of her life: she's been accepted into the Coalition of Heroes' intern program as a sidekick under her new code name, RepTilly, due to her lizard-like physiology.

The Coalition of Heroes is a vast organization, and the super-powered people working for it get tasked to do jobs from the mundane to the extraordinary. When RepTilly gets assigned to the most high-profile hero of the team, Showdown, she's over the moon -- even when she finds her training program includes things like taking out the dry cleaning, dusting the office, and sending flowers to his many girlfriends. Whatever it takes, she'll do it to become a full-fledged superhero and do battle against the evil Shadow Order.

But all is not as it seems, and RepTilly soon finds herself in posession of knowledge about one of the heroes -- and the coalition itself -- that could shock the entire world. Trusting the heroes, RepTilly takes the information to Pillar, the CEO and leader of the CoH, where she learns a few hard truths about what it means to be a hero in a world where nobody is innocent.

But before RepTilly can process the choice she's given, she suddenly finds herself thrust into a position where she has to reconsider everything she's known about morality, ethics -- and the superheroes she's idolized.

VILLAINOUS does for superheroes what WICKED did for fairy tales. Stonie Williams and Jef Sadzinski have developed something unique in the landscape of comic book capes and cowls, producing something that should make it onto your regular Wednesday pull list. The story is intriguing but straightforward, and the dialogue sometimes a bit over the top, but overall eminently enjoyable. The art is professional grade, borrowing techniques from manga and applying them to a western style, with clean linework and quality coloring.

Strongly recommended.