They were best friends at an elite academy for superheroes in training, but now Callie Bradford, code name Iridium, and Joannie Greene, code name Jet, are mortal enemies. Jet is a by-the-book hero, using her Shadow power to protect the citizens of New Chicago. Iridium, with her mastery of light, runs the city’s underworld. For the past five years the two have played an elaborate, and frustrating, game of cat and mouse.
But now playtime’s over. Separately Jet and Iridium uncover clues that point to a looming evil, one that is entwined within the Academy. As Jet works with Bruce Hunter—a normal man with an extraordinary ability to make her weak in the knees—she becomes convinced that Iridium is involved in a scheme that will level the power structure of America itself. And Iridium, teaming with the mysterious vigilante called Taser, uncovers an insidious plot that’s been a decade in the making…a plot in which Jet is key.
They’re both right. And they’re both wrong. Because nothing is as simple as Black and White.
Superheroes save the day, that’s just what they do. Exterminators kill things, Doctors heal people, and Lawyers sue people. Superheroes are everything that is good in the world and they rescue us from everything that is wrong or evil in the world, super villains.
The world of superheroes is very different from the world we live in today. Where we see grey, they only see black and white. Only pure good and pure evil. But what if there wasn’t this black and white constraint in the world of comics?
That is exactly what Caitlin Kittredge and Jackie Kessler have created in Black and White.
Black and White is the world of superheroes told from two friends, one hero, one villain. Through these alternating narratives the reader is able to get a sense of how grey the world really is, and how even the most simple thing, such as who the good guys are, can be incredibly confusing.
I liked Black and White. It was an excellent combination of superhero creativity with the grayness of a mystery novel. I particularly like the way the Kittredge and Kessler broke the story up into past and present pieces, subjecting the reader to just enough information to keep them on their toes as to why things were the way they were. Besides this I felt both authors did a wonderful job collaborating on this project as it truly felt like the work of one very creative and talented author, instead of the mashing together of two individual and separate stories.
The only problem I had with the story was the lack of final a confrontation so often seen in a superhero novel. Of course considering this story was less of a superhero story and more of a story about the grayness of the world this wasn’t much a story.
All in all this was an entertaining book that I would recommend to any superhero fan or action enthusiast, making it a great read for teenagers and older.
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