Kindle Reads: A Once Crowded Sky, by Tom King

Genre: Fiction

Rating: ★ ★ ★

Pages: 336

Published: 2012

Publisher: Touchstone

A Once Crowded Sky is the sort of thing that I adore — superhero meta. I've spent hours on Tumblr, Fanfiction.net, whatever, reading introspective fic about superheroes and how they operate within their own world. You can probably imagine how pumped I was to see this book — like, how could I not read this? 

A Once Crowded Sky takes place in a world where superheroes used to roam the earth. You read me right — "used to." The superhero community is left reeling after a disaster (you know the kind, one where the world is about to end and the world's heroes must team up to save the planet from certain destruction) not only ends the life of perhaps the most powerful superhero alive — Ultimate, the Man with the Metal Face — but also with all superheroes losing their superpowers. Permanently. For a group of people whose lives are essentially "cycles of violence" (periods of peace interrupted by periods of war/fighting, rinse and repeat), and never really experience change for long (one character remarks that his wife and daughter have died five times but have always come back), the idea of permanent power loss is beyond destabilizing and debilitating. 

King uses this formula to explore the idea of what makes a hero when death is a nonissue — when you and everyone you love always come back. I mean, if you can be sure that despite whatever evil you might face you'll make it out alright, what are you really risking? King also examines the possible psychological effects of living such a life. (His conclusion is mixed, I think.)

A Once Crowded Sky was definitely a fast read for me. I liked how each character's "voice" came through in their respective chapters and in the broader narrative. (I'm such a sucker for that.) As a writer, King has a firm hold on who his characters are, through and through. He's also obviously versed in superhero lingo. Despite the fact that he builds this superhero universe from scratch, it all sounds plausible — like, I wouldn't be surprised to see comics about these people. Sky doesn't sound like some kind of superhero parody, which I appreciated. 

Via.

I did have a few issues with Sky, however — namely with the female characters and how they were handled. I feel like they were largely one-dimensional; they were frequently described through their relationships with various male characters and were (outside of the wife of the protagonist) infrequently mentioned.

I think that King tried to tackle the issue of "fridging" in comics and how a rational person should react to it ("My wife/SO is dead and that is NOT OKAY and that does NOT motivate me as a superhero but is instead AWFUL for both me and her), but its delivery was kiiiiiiinda weak in that I didn't feel like I had a good understanding of Anna's character. (Anna being the main character's wife.) I am, however, REALLY GLAD that he addressed this issue and called it out on its bullshit.

My final issue was with another female character, Mashallah. I know that her relationship with her religion was supposed to be complicated thanks to her superhero past and previous relationships, but I didn't really see her talking about it in depth or actively working through it. It was more often referenced as an issue or a roadblock for other characters to overcome. (But yo, I am happy that King included a Muslim hijabi superheroine.) Kind of a missed opportunity to really explore a potentially interesting character. 

So. Besides these issues, I did like the A Once Crowded Sky. Each "part" included pages of comic art that provided backstory/character analysis, which was awesome. I'm interested in checking out similar books (because seriously, superhero meta is my crack) and King's other work. I would personally recommend this book to anyone who likes superheroes/comics or likes to dabble in superhero meta themselves.

(If you know of any similar books, PLEASE let me know in the comments.)